trailhand

A trailhand is a worker who helps drive cattle or other livestock along a trail, particularly during the long cattle drives of the American Old West.

Trailhands performed grueling work on horseback for months at a stretch, managing herds across hundreds of miles of open range.

The term evokes the romanticized era of cowboys and frontier life, though the actual job involved dust, danger, and little pay.

He signed on as a trailhand for the drive from Texas to Kansas.