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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 the summer pleasant
On the trail of buffalo.
I found myself in Jacksboro
in the spring of seventy-three
A man by the name of Crego
came stepping up to me,
Saying "How do you do, young fellow,
and how would you like to go
And spend the summer pleasantly
on the range of buffalo?"
Well I´ve being out of work right then
so to the drover I did say,
"going out on the buffalo range
depends upon the pay.
But if you pay good wages,
transportation to and fro
I think, I might go with you
and hunt the buffalo."
"Of course I pay good wages,
and transportation too
Provided you will go with me
and stay the summer through,
But if you should grow homesick,
come back to Jacksboro
I won't pay transportation
from the range of buffalo."
Now our outfit was complete,
seven able-bodied men,
With navy six and needle gun,
our troubles did begin;
Our way it was a pleasant one,
the route we had to go
Until we crossed Pease River,
on the range of buffalo.
there our pushes ended,
our troubles have begun,
The first damned tail I went to rip,
Christ, how I cut my thumb!
While skinning the old damned stinkers,
our lives they had no show
For the Indians watched to pick us off
on the hills of Mexico.
Our meat it was buffalo hump
and iron wedge bread
And all we had to sleep on
was a buffalo fur of bed.
Pease River's as salty as hell fire,
the water I never could go
O God! I wished I had never come
to the the range of buffalo.
The fleas and gray-backs worked on us,
O boys, it was not slow
I tell you there's no worse hell on earth
than the the range of the buffalo.
Our hearts were cased with buffalo hocks,
our souls were cased with steel,
And the hardships of that summer
would nearly make us reel;
The fleas and gray-backs worked on us,
O boys, it was not slow
I tell you there's no worse hell on earth
than the the range of buffalo.
The season being over,
old Crego he did say
The crowd had been extravagant,
was in debt to him that day;
We coaxed him and we begged him,
and still it was no go,
So we left old Crego's bones to bleach
on the range of buffalo.
Oh, it's now we've crossed Pease River,
and homeward we are bound,
No more in that hell-fired country
shall ever we be found.
Go home to our wives and sweethearts,
tell others not to go
For God's forsaken the buffalo range,
and the damned old buffalo.
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