'once you get a taste of buffaler meat , you 'll never want what come off'n a cow again , ' the old-timers said , and they must have believed what they said , because these hunters of the plains , these buffalo soldiers , seemed to exist in a world of hairy , humpbacked ghosts c all about them they carried the memory of the buffalo , the smell of the buffalo c the smell , yes , because many of them smeared buff-tallow on their necks and faces and hands to keep the prairie sun from burning them black .