Rowdy Buell, born in Indiana before the Civil War, was given his first horse at the age of 6, and was riding soon afterward. In later years, he worked on ranches in Idaho, then made his way to the Texas ranges. He was interviewed at the age of 78 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 I was about 16, I left home by myself to go to work for a bigger spread than my dad's. I don't know yet what made me want to leave a good home but I did anyway," Buell told Phipps. "I drifted on north 'til I hit the Snake River Valley Range, where I was hired by the ramrod on the Muleshoe outfit. The name was their brand, a mule's shoe burnt in the left hip. The Muleshoe outfit run about 3,000 head, which for the most part stayed up in the mountains where there was good grazing in the summer time."

Since these were the days of open range, at roundup time all the ranchers got together to bring the cattle out of the mountains. "These roundups would have from 30,000 to 50,000 critters in them, and all belonging to about 30 ranchers in all. You see, if a man had 1,000 critters, he wouldn't have to have very many cow pokes but if he had 2,000, he'd have to have twice as many as the other follow and that way, the work was divided proportionately. They didn't just have their riders though, they'd have every member of their family in the roundup that could make a cow hand. There were several old man that were too old to ride, so they'd tend to the chuck wagon work. We'd have from one to three chuck wagons at work when the cattle were on a wide range but as the range was narrowed down, a chuck wagon would be cut off," he said.

"When the herd was finally gathered, there would be literally a sea of cattle. Just as far as you could see, almost, you'd see the herd. A sea of tossing horns, bawling cattle, and here and there, a critter mounting another for a better look around him. It was a picture I'll carry to my grave. The work was over quicker than you'd expect, because every man would work like beavers. They'd all pitch in without a boss, and you'd see from 20 to 30 branding fires going all around the herd. It was really simple because the spring and fall roundups had calves to brand, and a calf was branded with the some iron it's mother carried. A calf was the only thing you had to brand anyway, because the mothers all carried a brand unless it had grown up and escaped the roundups held before someway. You see, a calf stays with its mother in all kinds of trouble, or anything that can happen to it."

"All the outfits furnished plenty of irons so each branding crew could have an iron for each outfit. As a cow poke cut a critter out, another would take it and give the puncher another lasso, he'd return, cut out another, and so on. The work was a pleasure because everybody realized how necessary it was to work together and put it out 'tll the work was all done. The cutting cow pokes only took a cow that had a mother with it, and only roped the mother because the calf would follow the mother out of the herd. Somebody lassoed the calf, then they branded it 'til the herd was worked clean of calves that could be identified by their mothers," Buell said.

"After these were worked over, then would come the critters that were left. The ranchers decided on a percentage system to give the most of the unbranded grown critters to the rancher with the biggest herd, then so on down in a sort of a ratio way 'til the smallest herd would get the smallest number of unbranded grown critters. Each branding crew had a tally sheet, and one man to each tally sheet would keep the tally and herd the branded critters to its separate herd that would be kept away from the main herd 'til the work was all done. When the dividing had all been done, all the tally sheets would be brought together, each brand counted, then each rancher would know just how many critters he owned and was in his herd. After all the dividing had been done, and the tally sheets counted, the herds were all turned loose in the valley to winter."

Buell spent a number of years as a stagecoach driver, then drifted down to Texas and wandered from one ranch job to another. He ended up buying some land in the Fort Worth area, became a real estate speculator and cashed in on the Texas oil boom. He told Phipps, "I never did go back to the range any more after this, because the real estate business got me into the oil business, and so on. I made a lot more money wet-nursing oil wells then I ever did punching dogies along and riding hosses."