Those rough and ready sonsbitches had the most /out/ jobs out of anyone in history. Cartographers, mountain men, explorers, professional fishermen, survivalists, and every single other profession one can consider to be outdoors are far less outdoors than cowboys. Cartographers, for example, would always have to return to civilization to present their new maps, as would explorers and their new riches/findings, and fishermen with their catch. Cowboys could and did spend years at a time not seeing more than train tracks and the occasional train station, and would spend 99% of their time being outdoors.
Then barbed wire came and fucked everything up. Fuck barbed wire.

Cowboy appreciation thread