22 “COME DUCK SHOOTING WITH ME” 
prevent wandering. Foster’s pony was a known ‘‘back 
tracker,’’ sure to make tracks back to the home ranch 
if he got loose. He was kept close to the wagon every 
night, picketed out by a long rope to get what grass 
he could, always in readiness to round up any of the 
loose horses, should they stray. Foster fed his pony 
corn night and morning. Well, we were in for a race 
and had to start something. Foster’s pony seemed our 
one best bet. 
We were arranging our blankets around the fire for 
the night when Sam Jacks started singing his customary 
evening song, 
‘‘Buffalo bull come down the mountain 
Long time ago.”’ 
Then both lines were repeated, the last three words 
forming the chorus. Sam told me it was the oldest song 
of the plainsman and trapper. He said he knew three 
hundred verses. The song first describes the doings of 
the buffalo bull, then the trapper who slays the buffalo 
recounts his exploits, and it finally ends by the trapper 
singing of his other adventures in both love and war. 
The manner of its verse can be easily changed accord- 
ing to the personal adventures of the singer. The song 
was evidently copied from the ones the Indians used to 
sing in their war dances, telling the story of their suc- 
cesses by both word and action. 
Sam Jacks was a small, wiry, and perhaps the dirtiest 
man I ever knew. He was over sixty years old (this 
seemed a great age to me at that time), had beenascout 
and trapper on both plains and mountains for thirty 
years. Heand his partner while trapping beaver in the 
smountains, some years before, had been ambushed and 
