Taken in by a mysterious stranger with a taste for books and an instinct for survival, Rye is schooled in the hard lessons of life in the West. But after killing a man, he is forced to leave his new home. He rides lonely mountain passes and works on dusty cattle drives until he finds a job breaking horses. Then he meets Liza Hetrick, and in her eyes he sees his future. After establishing himself as marshal of Alta, he returns, only to discover that Liza has been kidnapped. Tracking her to Robbers’ Roost, Rye is forced to face the man who taught him all he knows about books, guns, and friendship. Two old friends—one woman: Who will walk away?From the Paperback edition.

    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.

    Every member of the family will enjoy this tale of wagon trains, cowboys, settlers, love, romance, and did I mention wagons?

     They say he didn’t look the sort of man to look after a quaint store in a small town. The job just doesn’t quite fit him. For he’s got gunman’s eyes, steely and sharp, and is quick as a shot. Of course, it didn’t help matters when he nailed the taboo name of ‘Jackson’ above his door. He claims he came to Gentle City to settle down. It’s not a complete lie. After his rowdy past, he was looking forward to the quiet life. But he’s interested in the Jacksons. Too interested. He wants to find out what happened to them. That’s all: just find out. But if Grant thinks he can return to his new peaceful life in Gentle City after this, he’s got another thing coming. As the mystery starts to unravel, things start to get rough. The old feud is not dead. And then there’s Molly Maclear… The further tangled up in the town’s troubles – and his own – he gets, it becomes clearer there’s no going back. So he does what any good hero does. He goes ahead. Praise for John Burke ‘…an interesting off-beat writer’ – The Daily Telegraph ’Murder, conspiracy, secrets....it's got everything!’ - Thomas Waugh John Burke (1922-2011) was born in Sussex and served in the Royal Air Force and Royal Marines during World War Two. He wrote several crime novels and thrillers under the names Jonathan Burke, J.F. Burke and John Burke, including Swift Summer (1949), which won the Atlantic Award in Literature. Some of his other novels appeared under the pseudonyms of Joanna Jones, Sara Morris, Jonathan George and Owen Burke.