Backwoods to Border Page: 3
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A BUFFALO HUNTER AND HIS SONG 3
ten-mile stretch between the Concho and Colorado rivers
covered with buffaloes "as close together as cattle in a
trail herd."
Ennis did the killing. He would take his stand, shoot
down the leader of a bunch of buffaloes, and then while
the others milled helplessly about, would pick them off,
one by one. Once he killed ninety in one day; generally
the kill was around fifty or sixty head. Sometimes, of
course, there were no buffalo to kill and then "camps"
had to be moved. The skinners, working as a pair,
received two-bits apiece for each hide they peeled off.
They averaged, month in and month out, around five
dollars a day, Ennis furnishing food and butcher knives.
Often they worked late into the night pegging out hides,
and always there was the after-supper business of capping
the shells and loading them. The cook made plenty of
sourdough bread and knew how to turn buffalo hump,
with its alternate layers of fat and lean, just right. In
late summer he stewed wild plums; at other times, dried
fruit.
Ennis contracted with a freighter to haul the dried
hides to Fort Griffin-capital of the buffalo hunting
world-or to Sherman and Denison. The freighter
brought back such supplies as were needed. "We were
out a little over twelve months," Freeman said, "without
seeing a woman or a house. When we got back to Fort
Griffin, I told the Lord that if He would forgive me, I'd
never stay away from women so long again.
"I made up my song little by little while we were on
the buffalo range, keeping it in my head. Where in the
beginning I give the date as '73, I had to do that in
order to rhyme with 'me.' I don't think there was any
organized buffalo hunting on the Texas plains as early
as 1873. The Indians were too bad. The battle of Adobe
Walls, just north of the Canadian River, wasn't until
June, 1874, and Billy Dixon and the other buffalo hunt-
ers in that fight were the pioneers on the Texas hunting
grounds. By 1877, when we went out, the Comanches
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Backwoods to Border (Book)
Book about folklore in Texas, including folk songs, ghost stories, Mexican animal tales, anecdotes about lawyers, folklore about Texas plants, riddles and miscellaneous legends. The index begins on page 225.
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Dobie, J. Frank (James Frank), 1888-1964. Backwoods to Border, book, 1943; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38306/m1/17/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.