Here's #176 in The Folk Songs of North America, by Alan Lomax (1960). Alan Lomax says he got the song from John Lomax's Cowboy Songs, (1910, 1938). The lyrics are a bit closer to what's in the Digital Tradition.

DREARY BLACK HILLS (Lomax 1960)

Kind friends, you must pity my horrible tale,
I'm an object of pity, I'm looking quite stale,
I gave up my trade selling Right's Patent Pills
To go hunting gold in the dreary Black Hills.

CHORUS
Don't go away, stay at home if you can,
Stay away from that city, they call it Cheyenne,
For big Wallipee* or Comanche Bills
They will lift up your hair on the Dreary Black Hills

The roundhouse at Cheyenne is filled every night
With loafers and bummers of most every plight,
On their backs is no clothes, in their pockets no bills,
Each day they keep starting for the dreary Black Hills.

One morning so early, one morning in May,
I met Kit Carson a-goin' away,
He was goin' away with Buffalo Bill,
He was goin' a-minin' in the Dreary Black Hills.

I got to Cheyenne, no gold could I find,
I thought of the lunch route I'd left far behind,
Through rain, hail, and snow, frozen plumb to the gills,
They call me the orphan of the Dreary Black Hills.

Oh, I wish the man who started this sell
Was a captive, and Crazy Horse had him in hell.
There's no use in grieving or swearing like pitch,
But the man who would stay here is a son-of-a-gun.

Kind friend to conclude my advice I'll unfold
Don't go to the Black Hills a hunter for gold
Railroad speculators their pockets you'll fill
By taking a trip to the dreary Black Hills

Don't go away, stay at home if you can,
Stay away from that city, they call it Cheyenne,
For old Sitting Bull or Comanche Bill
They will take off your scalp on the dreary Black Hills.


* Or "Old Sitting Bull"