Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30787 in Books
• Published on: 1955-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 247 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780806113661
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Customer Reviews

Wonderful stories. "Recollections of a cowpuncher."
Helena Huntington Smith took down Mr. Abbott's stories, organized them, added useful footnotes, and succeeded in her part "to keep out of the way and not mess it up by being literary." I have read a few other fine stories told by western men and women. None were better than these. If you are interested in the history of the west from one white man's perspective, this is an excellent place to find it. In several stories he mourns the destruction of the societies that were in the west before the european invasion. While he is clearly a child of his time, he is remarkably senistive (for his day). Altogether a fine book. I recommend it highly.

Another one for the "Lonesome Dove" bookshelf. . .
This is an as-told-to memoir of the early years of a cowboy who grew up in Nebraska and drove cattle along the western trails, settling in Montana, where he worked for several cattle owners, all during the 1870s and 1880s. His story covers that brief period of time when the West was open range, before settlers began putting up fences. It's a story told in the 1930s by an old man to a woman from the East, Helena Huntington Smith, who had the presence of mind to capture his life in the printed word before his generation had passed completely (Abbott died in 1939).

Teddy Blue, as he was called, was something of a rip-tearer in his youth, living up to the wilder stereotype of rangeland cowboys, by his own account. On the one hand, there is the fierce recklessness of herding cattle, which through accident and various mishaps took the lives of many young men. And then there is his life in town, befriending prostitutes, drinking hard, shooting up saloons, and on occasion riding his horse indoors.

His favorite job is working as a "rep" for cattle-owners, going to the regular roundups where cattle were sorted and branded, requiring him to retain a vast knowledge of brands used on the range and other markings. For a while, he works for stockman Granville Stuart, who headed up a vigilante effort that significantly reduced the number of active cattle rustlers in Montana. Stuart eventually becomes Abbott's reluctant father-in-law, after the young penniless cowboy takes a shine to one of his daughters.

The book rambles back and forth in time as Abbott more or less free-associates for Smith. And while scholars may question the accuracy of his memory at points, he was easily one of the more widely known figures of the old West for his personality and antics, not to mention having befriended the likes of cowboy artist and writer Charlie Russell, as well as Calamity Jane, even crossing paths with Teddy Roosevelt. His story makes an enjoyable read and evokes with feeling those early "innocent" days of an adventurous youth lived when the West was young as he was. His admiration for the Cheyenne Indians is, he admits, unusual for a white man of the times. And though they were both the best and worst of times (e.g., the crippling winter of 1886-87), he shares with Charlie Russell a nostalgic belief that they were the good old days, the likes of which haven't been seen since.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in cowboying and the old West. It is full of stories and yarns, social history, frontier customs and mores that make that time come alive with an immediacy and intimacy that are seldom found in records of the period.

Review of "We Pointed Them North"
Americans have been fascinated with our early "wild west" history and much has been written about it in books, movies and TV series. I think most of us realize that most of that "history" has been fictionalized in the interest of entertainment. I find it enlightening to read honest, unvarnished and first hand accounts of that early west and discover just what hardships were endured by the hardy folks who lived back then. This book pulls no punches with glorification, and includes the "down and dirty" events and roughness back then. But you surely put the book down at the end with an appreciation of the endurance, patience, humor, honesty and "make do" attitude of these early cowboys, cattle men and settlers. The book tells of actual associations with some familiar, historical characters, which is more entertaining than fiction for the reality of it. I would recommend this book to anyone who appreciates reading genuine, first hand "out west" history (and those who love a good yarn while doing it).