| Come all you old time cowboys,
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| And listen to my song,
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| Please do not grow weary,
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| I’ll not detain you long.
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| Concerning some wild cowboys,
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| Who did agree to go,
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| Spend the summer pleasant,
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| On the trail of the Buffalo.
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| I found myself in Griffin,
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| In the spring of '83,
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| When a well known famous drover,
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| Came walking up to me.
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| Said, «How do you do, young fellow,
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| Well how would you like to go,
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| And spend the summer pleasant,
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| On the trail of the Buffalo?»
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| Well I being out of work right then,
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| To the drover I did say,
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| «Going out on the Buffalo Road,
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| Depends on the pay.
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| If you will pay good wages,
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| And transportation to and fro,
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| I think I might go with you,
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| On the hunt of the Buffalo.»
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| «Of course I’ll pay good wages,
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| And transportation too,
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| If you will agree to work for me,
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| Until the season’s through.»
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| But if you do get homesick,
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| And try to run away,
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| You will starve to death,
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| Out on the trail and also lose your pay."
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| Well with all his flattering talking,
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| He signed up quite a train,
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| Some 10 or 12 in number,
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| Some able bodied men.
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| The trip it was a pleasant one,
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| As we hit the westward road,
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| Until we crossed old Boggy Creek,
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| In old New Mexico.
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| There our pleasures ended,
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| And our troubles began.
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| A lightening storm hit us,
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| And made the cattle run.
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| Got all full of stickers,
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| From the cactus that did not grow,
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| And the outlaws watching,
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| To pick us off in the hills of Mexico.
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| Well our working season ended,
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| And the drover would not pay,
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| If you had not drunk too much,
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| You are all in debt to me.
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| But the cowboys never had heard,
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| Such a thing as a bankrupt law,
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| So we left that drover’s bones to bleach,
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| On the Plains of the Buffalo. |