It seems that wherever you go in the world, you see a cowboy — or some facsimile thereof.

An old friend, a diesel mechanic from Tucson, once worked for a construction company with a project in the deep desert of Egypt. He took a train to a little village far south of Cairo and waited on the station platform for his ride to the job site. He was wearing faded jeans, western boots and hat. He soon drew a crowd of excited onlookers, murmuring together and pointing at him. Soon a young Egyptian man — wearing faded jeans, boots and a western hat (on backwards) — approached him and enthusiastically shook his hand. "You Marlboro Man. Me Marlboro Man," the young man bragged in English. "Us Cowboy!"

How does one tell the real thing from all the cowboy look-alikes out there? It's really hard. Because the basics of a cowboy's wardrobe are so comfortable and practical, people from all walks of life just naturally gravitate to them. Also, there are some who — either deliberately or

unconsciously — try to put on the mystique of the cowboy when they don his duds. Another complication in discerning the real from the faux cowboy is that the fine points of the cowboy's dress code vary from one part of the country to another, adapting to local terrain and climate.

But the observant onlooker can make some educated guesses, based on the subtle details: The scuff marks on the boots heels where the spurs rub don't get there overnight. The two-toned fading of the jeans show where the leggings sit every day.

Look what your "cowboy" is wearing on his belt. If he's got a bunch of keys there, or a wallet on a chain, he's probably a truck driver. "What about that green spot of bovine by-product behind his ear there?" you say.

Nope, he's probably been hauling cattle.

In tie-hard-and-fast country, cowboys often wear a leather sheath on their belts to hold a good-sized, very sharp knife. It comes in handy if the cowboy needs to cut the rope of a partner who finds himself in a wreck, wishing that he'd missed his loop.

What about that missing finger? That can be a pretty good indicator of the real cowboy. Everybody has a bad dally once in a while. Only the lucky and skillful — or truly bad — ropers get to keep all their fingers.

Then again, your "cowboy" might work in the oilfields where digits also can be lost, stolen or strayed.

What about the cowboy's walk? Teresa Jordan, in Riding the White Horse Home, describes it: "A cowhand's walk, shaped by years of damage and recovery, is a study in accommodation. The body cants forward from the

waist, the lower back fuses, the hips stiffen, and walk becomes awkward, the head seems to settle into the shoulders. ‘It's a kink in the neck,’ one old-timer told me, trying to describe his own gait, ‘and a limp in every

limb.’"

Or maybe your limping "cowhand" is just the Marlboro Man's lawyer, breaking in a new pair of thousand-dollar boots.