Book excerpt: This book is about the Custom Cowboys of Houston County. It's a hard life. We've lived our lives fighting the rain, wind & weather, while riding the brush, briers and thickets of east Texas. The men these stories are about made a living with their horses and dogs during the Jet Age. They play the most important role in the cattle industry. No way ranchers could do without them. Their jobs are penning cattle to work, de-worming, helping with their necessary vaccinations, catching wild cattle, pasture doctoring sick cattle, pulling calves, thrashing cattle out of the brush and many other things that people never think about. They also get cattle out of the backwater when rivers & creeks overflow, trailing them down highways and roads when there is no way to haul them. I, for one, am glad I got to serve the public with my services as a cowboy for all the years I did. These are my stories, plus some that have been told to me by other cowboys.