horses a day, but in such quiet times as these, when there was nothing but straight riding to do, with a little dash after rustlers now and then, one horse a day was all a man needed.
Barrett gathered, also, not from direct revelation, but from Fred's manner of resentment, that the station of wrangler was a low one, that a man so engaged was scarcely counted a man, in truth. But one might rise from it, he was glad to learn; the best of them had traveled that road, although Fred himself never had been able to work upward to a saddle and a cowboy's pay.
It wasn't in him to do that kind of work, he said; the Poet Lariat, according to Fred's pronunciation, of the universe had designed him for nobler things. Temporarily he was engaged in this humble station—he had been filling it for more than twenty years, in fact—but it was only a makeshift. He'd walk on the heads of men who had jeered and despised him into his kingdom one of these days.
"Ain't much to do these days, not enough for half a man, let alone two able-bodied fellers like me and you," said Fred. "Just set around on the hills and think up poertry. I've thought up half a gunnysack of it this summer, I'm goin' to put it in a book some day. I don't see what the boss was aimin' at when he put you over here, but me and Alvino we're glad to have you, Ed. I tell you, boy, it ain't every horse wrangler that's killed a man!"
