Subdeacon Joe Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 " The Texas Quote of the Day was written by old-time trail cowboy Teddy Blue Abbott: "If a storm came along and the cattle started running -- you'd hear that low, rumbling noise along the ground and the men on herd wouldn't need to come in and tell you, you'd know -- then you'd jump for your horse and get out there in the lead, trying to head them and get them into a mill before they scattered to hell-and-gone [The cowboys would attempt to make the cattle run in an ever-tightening circle until they could no longer move.] It was riding at a dead run in the dark, with cut banks and prairie dog holes all around you in a shallow grave... One night it come up an awful storm. It took all four of us to hold the cattle and we didn't hold them, and when morning come there was one man missing. We went back to look for him, and we found him among the prairie dog holes, beside his horse. The horse's ribs was scraped bare of hide, and all the rest of the horse and man was mashed into the ground as flat as a pancake. The only thing you could recognize was the handle of his six-shooter. We tried to think the lightning hit him, and that was what we wrote his folks in Henrietta, Texas, but we couldn't really believe it ourselves. I'm afraid it wasn't the lightning. I'm afraid his horse stepped into one of them holes and they both went down before the stampede. The awful part of it was that we had milled them cattle over him all night, not knowing he was there. That was what we couldn't get out of our minds. And after that, orders were given to sing when you were running with a stampede so the others would know where you were as long as they heard you singing, and if they didn't hear you they would figure something happened. After awhile, this grew to be a custom on the range, but you know, this was still a new business in the seventies and we was learning all the time." ------- Teddy Blue Abbott, "We Pointed Them North, Recollections of an Old Cowpuncher," 1939 Shown here: Teddy Blue Abbott at the age of 18" 1 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forty Rod SASS 3935 Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 Biggest stampede I ever saw was six steers running from a young dog.......in a three acre fenced lot. The puppy was having fun, but those dumb steers thought they were going to be lunch. Thanks for the story. I never heard of Teddy Blue Abbot, but I'll try to find more of his story. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdeacon Joe Posted April 6 Author Share Posted April 6 https://www.cowboysindians.com/2016/03/recollections-of-a-cowpuncher/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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