Fellas who would spend the winter moving from one farm or ranch to the next, doing an odd job here and there, just enough for a meal and a place to sleep until it was time to move on to the next. One could keep body and soul together all winter running the grub line ’til spring came and it was time to get a job.
exempli gratia: ‘Ol Frank there, he was a grub line runner all right. Never knew him to have a proper job between round-up and calving time.
from the gap 