We know from Western movies that a cowboy always rode high in the saddle, his six-shooter by his side in case of outlaws or Indian attack. But cowboy life in the Old West wasn't like that, outside of Hollywood. Herding cows was hard work that fell to youngsters and minorities, those with few opportunities for a better job. While ranch work was poorly paid drudgery, it was nirvana compared to the work involved in a cattle drive.
Driving two or three thousand cattle over 1,000 miles required a dozen or so cowboys, each with four or more horses, working for three to six months. The trail boss, who might be the ranch owner but was more likely an experienced ranch hand, rode ahead of the herd to control the pace and direction of travel and tolerated neither unruly cattle nor rebellious laborers. Cowboys took orders and worked for wages typically lower than skilled factory pay.
Each herder had a regular position in the herd, from lead to flank to swing to drag, with status and sometimes pay according to position. According to Montana cowboy Edward Charles “Teddy Blue” Abbott, drag riders had it the worst. Responsible for bringing along the poor, weak, or wounded animals, drag riders would end the day “with dust half an inch deep on their hats and thick as fur on their eyebrows,” Abbott said. Even worse was the dust in their lungs, which had them coughing up brown phlegm for months after the drive.
There were small and memorable parts of a cowboy's world that fed into what became the cowboy myth in dime novels, Wild West shows, and eventually Hollywood movies. Read about the real life of a cowboy at the Saturday Evening Post. -via Damn Interesting
(Image source: Library of Congress)