Jacob Bennett was a cowboy in Texas who was born just before the Civil War. His mother died when he was 10, and by age 14 he was a working cowboy on the ranch of Carroll Powell. Late in his life, when he was 79, he was interviewed in Tarrant County, Texas, by Woody Phipps as part of the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940. The entire interview can be found at the Library of Congress.

When he started work for Powell, Bennett was paid "$14 a month and chuck," and proved such a good hand that before he turned 15, his pay was increased to $20 a month, Bennett told Phipps.

At age 16, Bennett moved on to the ranch of Tom Curry. Shortly after he joined the operation, the spring roundup began. This was a time when, as Bennett described it, "only the farms were fenced. The range was as free of fence as a stampeding herd is of sense." The grass came up to a rider's heels on horseback, he said, and "when a critter laid down in them days, it was lost from sight and you'd have a hard time finding it 'til you run across the very spot it was laying."

During the roundup, Bennett said, "all the ranchers round up every head on the range; then, when they get all the cattle together, they cut out what belongs to each other, then they can do what they please with their own cattle." At this time, "all the men work at top speed to get the cattle all cut out and the work over before something happens to stampede the herd, and separate it all out again."

Bennett told Phipps, "We were furnished hosses that, in lots of cases, knowed more about cow work than some of the fellows in the saddle. That sounds sort of stretched, but all we had to do was to show a cutting hoss a certain critter we wanted cut out of the herd, and that hoss would get after that critter like it was some sort of a game and stay with the critter till the hoss run it plum out of the herd. The way we showed the hoss what we wanted was by hitting it with a rope, our lasso.

"Not only cut the critter out of the herd, but when you make your cast with your lasso, that hoss knowed just the right second when to sit down to keep the critter from dragging the hoss, and, if the hoss sat down too soon, there'd be so much slack in the rope the critter'd have leverage to pull with. Then, if the hoss sat down a little late, it'd be just in the act of going down and'd have the least resistance it'd have at any time. You see, that's the reason the cowpunchers loved their hosses so much when they had one that was a good one. When he had a good hoss, his work was so much easier that it just made all the difference in the world."

Sometimes, the horses worked too well. Bennett described an incident during roundup that left him shaken pretty much for the rest of his life, whenever he happened to think about it.

"Well, during the cutting out, a big old steer quit the herd and went to running off. Two cowpunchers who happened to be off a ways from the steer, and in different directions, rode in as fast as they could ride, trying to cut the steer off and drive it back to the herd. Well, not paying no attention to each other but keeping their minds on the steer, they ran together and both fell off. One of them broke his neck in the fall, and the other fell under the other man's hoss, which stepped in his face and kicked his head half loose. That was the gruesomest sight ever I expect to see, the faces they had. Even when I stop to think about it, it gives me the cold shudders and I have to think of something else."

Work as a cowboy was dangerous in those days -- and there were no cellular phones, helicopters or nearby hospitals available when a cowboy was injured on the range. He either survived, or was buried.

But Bennett had fond memories of those days, just the same. He told Phipps, "Oh, that range life's mighty exciting at times. Especially in the olden days when we had mustangs to ride, and longhorns to brand. I'd a heap druther live that life than the one I'm living right now. The 'Old Rocking Chair's' got me now. Got me, for sure."