38          LIFE OF BUFFALO BILL.
At this point we were overtaken by            Jack   Crawford,
familiarly known as "Captain Jack, the Poet Scout of the Black Hills," and right here I will insert the following lines, written by him, just after the "Custer Massacre,"            upon
receiving from me the following dispatch:
"Jack, old boy, have you heard of the death of Custer 2 CUSTER'S DEATH.
Did I hear the news from Custer ?  iAnd I reckon ye know his record,
Well I reckon I did, old pard;   For he was our guiding star;
It came like a streak of lightnin',  And the boys who gathered round him
And, you bet, ithit me hard.     To charge in the early morn,
I ain't no hand to blubber,      War just like the brave who perished
And the briny ain't run for years;  With him on the Little Horn. But chalk me down for a lubber,  And where is the satisfaction,
If I didn't shed regular tears.  And how will the boys get square? What for ? Now look you here, Bill, By giving the reds more rifles?
You're a bully boy, that's true;  Invite them to take more hair? As good as e'er wore buckskin,   We want no scouts, no trappers,
Or fought with the boys in blue;  Nor men who know the frontier; But I'll bet my bottom dollar    Phil, old boy, you're mistaken,
Ye had no trouble to muster       We must have the olunteer.
A tear, or perhaps a hundred,    Never mind that two hundred thousand At the news of the death of Custer.  But give us a hundred instead;
He always thought well of you, pard,lSend five thousand men towards Reno, And had it been heaven's will,   And soon we won't leave a red.
In a few more days you'd met him,  It will save Uncle Sam lots of money, And he'd welcome his old scout Bill.  In fortress we need not invest,
For if ye remember at Hat Creek,  Jest wollup the devils this summer, I met ye with General Carr;      And the miners will do all the rest.
We talked of the brave young Custer, The Black Hills are filled with miners, And recounted his deeds of war.  The Big Horn will soon be as full, But little we knew even then, pard,  And which will show the most danger (And that's just two weeks ago),  To Crazy Horse and old Sitting Bull How little we dreamed of disaster,  A band of ten thousand frontier men, Or that he had met the foe-      Or a couple of forts with a few
That the fearless, reckless hero,  Of the boys in the East now enlistingSo loved by the whole frontier,  Friend Cody, I leave it with you.
a died onthe field of battle    ey talk of peace with these demons ithis, our centennial year.    By feeding and clothing them well:
served with him in the army,    I'd as soon think an angel from Heaven
In the darkest days of the war:  Would reign with contentmentin H-l