Trails Plowed Under

Charles Russell left us a wonderful gift in these stories. He managed to capture a first-person account of the Old West. I read this book many years ago, and recently re-read portions. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys good American western writing. Highly recommended.

Nothing compares to the facts, and no one who has not lived this could write it as C.M. Russell did. This old cowpuncher commands the written word and infuses the reader with his perfection -- the imagery of clear storytelling and spirit of those long-gone times. This he does quite as well as he wields the brush to canvas. I read it at a sitting, and will do it again as there are some facts in here about horses, people and buffalo that I did not know before. Another way of thinking and presenting a story about the actual facts is handed down in Trails Plowed Uder (1927) from former times . . . by this gifted sentimentalist.

This is a classic work of Western nonfiction by a Montana artist whose drawings and paintings helped create the iconography of the early cowboy of the open range. Also a storyteller, Russell wrote this collection of yarns and memories before his death, commemorating frontier life in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. It was published in 1927, with an introduction by Will Rogers in the form of a cowboy eulogy. The original edition featured more than 50 of Russell's illustrations, some of them in color.Unlike the fairly rollicking account of Teddy Blue Abbott, his cowboy contemporary, Russell's book is a more melancholy view of what he remembers as the good old days. His stories are told in an ironic vernacular by an old-timer cowboy named Rawhide Rawlins. Many concern the adventures of cowboys; many also feature Native Americans, in the early years of the agencies (reservations), portrayed with some complexity of feelings, ranging from fear and distrust to respect. Some are outrageously tall tales. Some are spirited character sketches, capturing something of life on the rough, raw land before settlement and homesteading, the motorcar, and civilization - before the plow broke the prairie sod where buffalo and then cattle and cowboys ranged freely. One of the finest pieces of Western writing occurs in the last chapter, "Longrope's Last Guard," which describes in vivid detail the experience of riding herd on a pitch dark night as the stillness is shattered by an electrical storm that stampedes the cattle and takes the life of one of the men. The burial of the dead cowboy on the open prairie and the subsequent disappearance of his grave is symbolic of the passing of the brief frontier era Russell's words and pictures embrace.I recommend this book for its capturing of the historical cowboy as remembered by a man who was there and lived among them. As a companion volume, I also recommend Teddy Blue Abbott's "We Pointed Them North," a well-detailed and more light-hearted recollection of the same time and place.

This book is one of my top ten favorites. I bought my first copy in 1972 for my father who passed away a year later. I have re-read this book many times with increased pleasure each time. It not only has Charles Russell's drawings and paintings, it has some of the best short stories I have ever read. I've lived in the West pretty much all my life and the characters he portrays ring so true that you know he knew them. He not only knew them, he was able to capture their essence in a few words. I usually don't laugh out loud at what I'm reading, but many of these stories are just plain "laugh out loud" funny. Anyone who enjoys Cowboy Poetry needs to have this in their library. It's not poetry per se, but gives you the same Western flavor in its writing. Most of the stories can be read in 5 minutes or less. I give it a solid 10 out of 5 stars.

Will Rogers said Charlie Russell wasn't "just another" cowboy artist, he wasn't "just another" anything. Though remembered mostly for his paintings, this book proves that Charlie Russell was a keen observer of human nature. This is a sentimental look back at a world that disappeared in Russell's lifetime. The stories will leave you nostalgic for a time you never knew.