E. C. Abbott was a cowboy in the great days of the 1870's and 1880's. He came up the trail to Montana from Texas with the long-horned herds which were to stock the northern ranges; he punched cows in Montana when there wasn't a fence in the territory; and he married a daughter of Granville Stuart, the famous early-day stockman and Montana pioneer. For more than fifty years he was known to cowmen from Texas to Alberta as "Teddy Blue."

This is his story, as told to Helena Huntington Smith, who says that the book is "all Teddy Blue. My part was to keep out of the way and not mess it up by being literary.... Because the cowboy flourished in the middle of the Victorian age, which is certainly a funny paradox, no realistic picture of him was ever drawn in his own day. Here is a self-portrait by a cowboy which is full and honest." And Teddy Blue himself says, "Other old-timers have told all about stampedes and swimming rivers and what a terrible time we had, but they never put in any of the fun, and fun was at least half of it."

So here it is--the cowboy classic, with the "terrible" times and the "fun" which have entertained readers everywhere. First published in 1939, "We Pointed Them North "has been brought back into print by the University of Oklahoma Press in completely new format, with drawings by Nick Eggenhofer, and with the full, original text.

I am Shanghai Pierce, Webster in Cattle, by God, Sir."" And, in truth, he was. Part rascal, part gentleman, part poseur, part just himself - of all the colorful Texas figures following the Civil War none was as loud, garish, and funny as Shanghai Pierce, who left Rhode Island penniless and became one of the Big Pasture Men of southern Texas. At six foot, four, Shanghai Pierce was big, rich, and selfish, but he could also be kind. His cunning was seldom matched, and business, whether it involved a quarter-million-dollar loan or a twenty-five cent pair of socks, was his lifeblood. In re-creating the life of Abel Head (""Shanghai"") Pierce, Chris Emmett unfolds the entire dramatic spectacle of the time and place in which Pierce lived. An arresting figure, Pierce was a symbol of his era. His statue, which he himself erected in Hawley, Texas, is still a perfect memorial to, and a reminder of, westward-moving America. Shanghai Pierce was a man who pulled up his roots and fled to the West, where he found there was ample room and opportunity.

For more than a dozen tempestuous years, beginning in 1867, the Chisholm Trail was the Texas cowhand's road to high adventure. It offered the excitement of sudden stampedes, hazardous river crossings, and brushes with Indian marauders. It promised, at the end of the drive, hilarious celebrations in the saloons, gambling parlors, and dance halls of frontier Kansas towns.

The account that appears on these pages reveals the courage, daring, and enterprise of the cattle owners and their cowboys, establishing them firmly as heroes in the westward expansion.