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 thing you're doing all the time gets hold of you—that is, if you like it well enough. You get to think of it as the center of the world."

The scholar's eyes brightened. "Yes, yes! That's true—the very thing." He looked at the books behind him, reached out and touched a volume as though he would have liked to speak of it; then his eyes returned with a bright and almost boy-like interest to his companion. "Do I understand you to mean you are by profession a catcher and breaker of horses?"

"Ever since I was thirteen, though I haven't called it a profession until the last five years. But I know more about it, and care more about it, and can do it better than anything else in the world. Over in Nevada they know my name pretty well. I hold a hundred square miles that are mine for five years, and I save this union of forsaken states about twenty thousand dollars annually in the creatures that aren't killed getting them under saddle."

"You mean you are sort of an official?" The spark of Rader's interest dimmed.

"Lord, no! I only mean I do save horseflesh, and more or less the country profits. So do I, a little, but not much. It's more the fun of the thing. You've no idea, from what you see of bridle-wise horses, what the wild ones are like. You know, a