Customer Reviews

Pulling Leather: Being the Early Recollections of a Cowboy on the Wyoming Range, 1884-1889

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Among the many cowboy memoirs, this is another good one. Seems like every old-time cowboy remembers it in a different way, and thus our picture of that time takes on new depth. Cowboying in Wyoming in the 1880s, Reuben Mullins was an almost exact contemporary of Owen Wister ("The Virginian"). Each saw the rawness of life in the frontier towns, loved the beauty of the open ranges, enjoyed the company of working men and admired those whose courage, stoicism and valor made them top hands. Like Wister, Mullins subscribed to the he-man mystique celebrated by Theodore Roosevelt. Both men were also disturbed by the prevalence of mob violence and lynching on the frontier.

Each lamented the passing of the Old West, and while Wister returned East to become famous as a writer, Mullins went to med school and practiced medicine in Nebraska, first as a doctor and then as a dentist. He didn't write his memoir of cowboying until the 1920s, when he was in his 60s. He died in 1935, his memoir unpublished. It wasn't discovered until the 1980s and was published then by western scholars.

In his short career as a young cowboy, Mullins was known first as a blacksmith, a skill he had learned in Iowa before going out West. He also supplemented his income with coal mining during the winter months. For a time he ran a goods store in Douglas, Wyoming. Neither a drinker nor gambler, he saved his money and counted among his friends future bankers, senators, and governors. He regarded cowboying as an irresistible "addiction" even while his memories are often of being unhappy - the weather being too wet, too hot or cold, the days too long, the down time dispiriting, the foreman too seldom granting him the appreciation Mullins felt he deserved.

A reader will find the usual accounts of roundups, cattle drives, good and bad horses, accidents, the cook's food, and pranks played on greenhorns. Interesting are descriptions of bunkhouse pastimes, including boxing, foot races, and games. There's also a curious exchange of letters with women back East interested in marrying a cowboy. (On a return trip to Iowa, Mullins actually looks up the girl he's written to.) We witness the impact of a respectable woman's presence at the ranch; Mullins also reports a sighting of Calamity Jane, sleeping off what he assumes to be a drunk.

The book includes five period photographs, two of them of the author. It's an excellent companion to Teddy Blue Abbott's "We Pointed Them North" and Ike Blasingame's "Dakota Cowboy."

What a great book! I grew up in that area and know all the places and have seen them for myself. What a great experience to hear a voice from the late 1800's tellin' it like it was.

The book is a fast read with footnotes at the end of the chapters explaining terms and items used by the people of that era who laid claim to the land in an effort to tame the old west.

There is a fascinating prologue explaining how this book almost didn't come to be and how it was rushed into print in an effort to make it in time for Wyoming's Centennial.

Come visit the Old West today!

This book is a wonderful, if unedited, piece of history. The original manuscript was apparently found after many years and was published here in its entirety. It gives us a first-hand look at what it was really like to be a working cowboy (and blacksmith) in southeastern Wyoming during the open range ranching period. It's partly a defense of the cowboys who have been portrayed in movies and dime novels as drunken, wild and wooly shoot-em-ups; here, he contends that the majority were hard-working, often well-educated men. He rarely misses an opportunity to criticize the popular Hollywood portrayal.

The only problem with publishing the actual, found manuscript is that it could use some editing; it's a little redundant in parts. And Mullins' rendering of a southern accent is downright embarassing. But luckily, Mullins is basically a good writer, and these issues should not discredit the wonderful descriptions of how roundups worked, the sometimes exhausting work, the cowboys' relationships with their employers and with the other cowboys, and trading and gambling with Indian tribes. He defends the cowboys, even in their common practice of "mavericking," secretly branding mavericks with their own brands to supplement their income.

And we learn the details of cattle work: how a roundup actually works, the various jobs the cowboys performed, like the basic work of holding the herd and the "top work" of cutting the cows and calves from the beef herd; how horses were used on a roundup; why cowboys always sang to the cattle; and the importance of being assigned good horses by the foreman. There's a great story of how ranchers would extract capital from English or Scottish investors by parading the same, small herd past the unsuspecting Brit, who would be impressed at the bounty and jump at the chance to invest.

One wonders if his recollections, written in the 1920s, are accurate. Mullins sent copies of the book to men he worked with, and some of their letters to him appear at the end of the book, verifying the accuracy of his stories.

In all, an enjoyable and extremely informative read!

This is a great book if you grew up in the West and love historical onfo. about the cowboy life. It is a true story. My uncle had it read in about 2 days!!!