YELLOWSTONE COWBOYS

THE REAL STORY OF TEDDY BLUE AND HOW HE BECAME MONTANA'S GREATEST COWBOY

- THOMAS E. MINCKLER

"We all got well lit up and went to a hot show on Blake Street," wrote Teddy Blue Abbott. "The play I think was called 'Poor Nell, anyway, a burglar beats his wife to death on the stage. After he had knocked her down, he took hold of her hair and beat her head on the floor, and every time he struck her head he would stamp his foot. It sounded like her head hitting the floor, but it wasn't her head at all. I was sober enough to know that. But some of them weren't. Bill Roden, one of the cowboys, had went to sleep but the noise woke him up, and the first thing he saw was the man beating the woman's head on the floor. We sat right in front, and he gave one jump onto the stage and busted the fellow on the head with his six-gun before he remembered where he was. The woman got up and began to cuss him, all hell broke loose, somebody pulled Bill off the stage, they called the police, the boys shot out the lights and everybody broke their necks getting away from there. They all run to Bailey's corral where the horses were and got away before the police knew who to arrest. I made a sneak down the alley to Frank's place, got what few dollars I had and left town on foot."

Arguably Montana's most famous cowboy was Teddy Blue Abbott. Standing just five feet, eight inches, with ethereal blue eyes and a sense of humor and wit equaling that of his good friend, artist Charlie Russell, Teddy Blue Abbott's short career as a cowboy bracketed the glory days of the herder who trailed cattle fearlessly from Texas to Montana. Full of life and happy-go-lucky, he could never sit still for long, singing, telling stories and melding into the untamed world of central Montana. His early years were filled with raucous, wild and dangerous days and nights of letting off steam with a devil-may-care attitude. The young Abbott also had a tough-guy reputation as a fighter. He lived the philosophy of work hard and play harder.