Folk & Traditional Song Lyrics www.traditionalmusic.co.uk Buffalo Skinners 
Buffalo Skinners 
Come all you old-time cowboys and listen to my song Please do not grow weary, I'll not detain you long Concerning some wild cowboys who did agree to go And spend a summer pleasant on the trail of the buffalo 
I found myself in Griffin in the spring of '83 When a well-known, famous drover came a-walking up to me Saying, How do you do, young feller, and how would you like to go And spend a summer pleasant on the trail of the buffalo 
Well, me being out of work right then, to the drover I did say (Well, it's me being out of employment) This going out on the buffalo range depends upon your pay But if you will pay good wages, transportation to and fro I think I might go with you to the trail of the buffalo 
Of course I'll pay good wages, give transportation too If you'll agree to work for me until the season's through But if you do grow weary and you try to run away You'll starve to death upon the trail, and also lose your pay (But if you get dissatisfied and you start back for your homes, It's likely you will starve to death, and also lose your way) 
Well, with all his flattering talking, he signed up quite a train Some ten or twelve in number, some able-bodied men Our trip it was a pleasant one as we hit the westward road And crossed old Boggy Creek in old New Mexico 
There our pleasures ended and our troubles all begun A lightning storm did hit us and made our cattle run (The very first buff I went to skin, Christ, how I cut my thumb) Got all full of stickers from the cactus that did grow (While skinning those damned old stinkers, our lives they were so low) And outlaws waiting to pick us off in the hills of Mexico 
Well, the working season ended and the drover would not pay You all have drunk too much, you're all in debt to me But the cowboys never had heard of such a thing as a bankrupt law So we left that drover's bones to bleach on the trail of the buffalo 
DT #377 Laws B10 
JN
 apr96