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BULL HUNTER

BY

MAX BRAND

BULL HUNTER

CHAPTER 1

It was the big central taproot which baffled them. They had hewed
easily through the great side roots, large as branches, covered with
soft brown bark; they had dug down and cut through the forest of
tender small roots below; but when they had passed the main body of
the stump and worked under it, they found that their hole around the
trunk was not large enough in diameter to enable them to reach to the
taproot and cut through it. They could only reach it feebly with the
hatchet, fraying it, but there was no chance for a free swing to sever
the tough wood. Instead of widening the hole at once, they kept
laboring at the root, working the stump back and forth, as though they
hoped to crystallize that stubborn taproot and snap it like a wire.
Still it held and defied them. They laid hold of it together and
tugged with a grunt; something tore beneath that effort, but the stump
held, and upward progress ceased.

They stopped, too tired for profanity, and gazed down the mountainside
after the manner of baffled men, who look far off from the thing that
troubles them. They could tell by the trees that it was a high
altitude. There were no cottonwoods, though the cottonwoods will
follow a stream for more than a mile above sea level. Far below them a
pale mist obscured the beautiful silver spruce which had reached their
upward limit. Around the cabin marched a scattering of the balsam fir.
They were nine thousand feet above the sea, at least. Still higher up
the sallow forest of lodgepole pines began; and above these, beyond
the timberline, rose the bald summit itself.

They were big men, framed for such a country, defying the roughness
with a roughness of their own--these stalwart sons of old Bill
Campbell. Both Harry and Joe Campbell were fully six feet tall, with
mighty bones and sinews and work-toughened muscles to justify their
stature. Behind them stood their home, a shack better suited for the
housing of cattle than of men. But such leather-skinned men as these
were more tender to their horses than to themselves. They slept and
ate in the shack, but they lived in the wind and the sun.

Although they had looked down the stern slopes to the lower Rockies,
they did not see the girl who followed the loosely winding trail. She
was partly sheltered by the firs and came out just above them. They
began moiling at the stump again, sweating, cursing, and the girl
halted her horse near by. The profanity did not distress her. She was
so accustomed to it that the words had lost all edge and point for
her; but her freckled face stirred to a smile of pleasure at the sight
of their strength, as they alternately smote at the taproot and then
strove in creaking, grunting unison to work it loose.

They remained so long oblivious of her presence that at length she
called, "Why don't you dig a bigger hole, boys?"

She laughed in delight as they jerked up their heads in astonishment.
Her laughter was young and sweet to the ear, but there was not a great
deal outside her laughter that was attractive about her.

However, Joe and Harry gaped and grinned and blushed at her in the
time-old fashion, for she lived in a country where to be a woman is
sufficient, beauty is an unnecessary luxury, soon taxed out of
existence by the life. She possessed the main essentials of social
power; she could dance unflaggingly from dark to dawn at the nearest
schoolhouse dance, chattering every minute; and she could maintain a
rugged silence from dawn to dark again, as she rode her pony home.

Harry Campbell took off his hat, not in politeness, but to scratch his
head. "Say, Jessie, where'd you drop from? Didn't see you coming
no ways."

"Maybe I come down like rain," said Jessie.

All three laughed heartily at this jest.

Jessie swung sidewise in her saddle with the lithe grace of a boy,
dropped her elbow on the high pommel, and gave advice. "You got a
pretty bad taproot under yonder. Better chop out a bigger hole, boys.
But, say, what you clearing this here land for? Ain't no good for
nothing, is it?" She looked around her. Here and there the clearing
around the shanty ate raggedly into the forest, but still the plowed
land was chopped up with a jutting of boulders.

"Sure it ain't no good for nothing," said Joe. "It's just the old
man's idea."

He jerked a grimy thumb over his shoulder to indicate the controlling
and absent power of the old man, somewhere in the woods.

"Sure makes him glum when we ain't working. If they ain't nothing
worthwhile to do he always sets us to grubbing up roots; and if we
ain't diggin' up roots, we got to get out old 'Maggie' mare and try to
plow. Plow in rocks like them! Nobody but Bull can do it."

"I didn't know Bull could do nothing," said the girl with interest.

"Aw, he's a fool, right enough," said Harry, "but he just has a sort
of head for knowing where the rocks are under the ground, and somehow
he seems to make old Maggie hoss know where they lie, too. Outside of
that he sure ain't no good. Everybody knows that."

"Kind of too bad he ain't got no brains," said the girl. "All his
strength is in his back, and none is in his head, my dad says. If he
had some part of sense he'd be a powerful good hand."

"Sure would be," agreed Harry. "But he ain't no good now. Give him an
ax maybe, and he hits one or two wallopin' licks with it and then
stands and rests on the handle and starts to dreaming like a fool.
Same way with everything. But, say, Joe, maybe he could start this
stump out of the hole."

"But I seen you both try to get the stump up," said the girl in
wonder.

"Get Bull mad and he can lift a pile," Joe assured her. "Go find him,
Harry."

Harry obediently shouted, "Bull! Oh, Bull!"

There was no answer.

"Most like he's reading," observed Joe. "He don't never hear nothing
then. Go look for him, Harry."

Big Harry strode to the door of the hut.

"How come he understands books?" said the girl. "I couldn't never make
nothing out of 'em."

"Me neither," agreed Joe in sympathy. "But maybe Bull don't
understand. He just likes to read because he can sit still and do it.
Never was a lazier gent than Bull."

Harry turned at the door of the shack. "Yep, reading," he announced
with disgust. He cupped his hands over his mouth and bellowed through
the doorway, "Hey!"

There was a startled grunt within, a deep, heavy voice and a thick
articulation. Presently a huge man came into the doorway and leaned
there, his figure filling it. There was nothing freakish about his
build. He was simply over-normal in bulk, from the big head to the
heavy feet. He was no more than a youth in age, but the great size and
the bewildered puckering of his forehead made him seem older. The book
was still in his hand.

"Hey," returned Harry, "we didn't call you out here to read to us.
Leave the book behind!"

Bull looked down at the book in his hand, seemed to waken from a
trance, then, with a muffled sound of apology, dropped the book
behind him.

"Come here!"

He slumped out from the house. His gait was like his body, his stride
large and loose. The lack of nervous energy which kept his mind from a
high tension was shown again in the heavy fall of his feet and the
forward slump of his head. His hands dangled aimlessly at his sides,
as though in need of occupation. A ragged thatch of blond hair covered
his head and it was sunburned to straw color at the edges.

His costume was equally rough. He wore no belt, but one strap, from
his right hip, crossed behind his back, over the bulging muscles of
his shoulder to the front of his left hip. The trousers, which this
simple brace supported, were patched overalls, frayed to loose threads
halfway down the calf where they were met by the tops of immense
cowhide boots. As for the shirt, the sleeves were inches too short,
and the unbuttoned cuffs flapped around the burly forearms. If it had
been fastened together at the throat he would have choked. He seemed,
in a word, to be bulging out of his clothes. One expected a mighty
rending if he made a strong effort.

This bulk of a man slouched forward with steps both huge and hesitant,
pausing between them. When he saw the girl he stopped short, and his
brow puckered more than before. One felt that, coming from the shadow,
he was dazed and startled by the brilliant mountain sunshine; and the
eyes were dull and alarmed. It was a handsome face in a way, but a
little too heavy with flesh, too inert, like the rest of his body and
his muscular movements.

"She ain't going to bite you," said Harry Campbell. "Come on over here
to the stump." He whispered to the girl, "Laugh at him!"

She obeyed his command. It brought a flush to the face of Bull Hunter
and made his head bow. He shuffled to the stump and stood aimlessly
beside it.

"Get down into the hole, you fool!" ordered Joe.

He and Harry took a certain pride in ordering their cousin around. It
was like performing with a lion in the presence of a lady; it was
manipulating an elephant by power of the unaided voice. Slowly Bull
Hunter dropped his great feet into the hole and then raised his head a
little and looked wistfully to the brothers for further orders.

But only half his mind was with them. The other half was with the
story in the book. There Quentin Durward had been nodding at his guard
in the castle, and the evil-faced little king had just sprung out and
wrenched the weapon from the hands of the sleepy boy. Bull Hunter
could see the story clearly, very clearly. The scar on the face of Le
Balafré glistened for him; he had veritably tasted the little round
loaves of French bread that the adventurer had eaten with the
pseudo-merchant.

But to step out of that world of words into this keen sunlight--ah,
there was the difference! The minds which one found in the pages of a
book were understandable. But the minds of living men--how terrible
they were! One could never tell what passed behind the bright eyes of
other human beings. They mocked one. When they seemed sad they might
be about to laugh. The minds of the two brothers eluded him, mocked
him, slipped from beneath the slow grasp of his comprehension. They
whipped him with their scorn. They dodged him with their wits. They
bewildered him with their mockery.

But they were nothing compared with the laughter of the girl. It went
through him like the flash and point of Le Balafré's long sword. He
was helpless before that sound of mirth. He wanted to hold up his
hands and cower away from her and from her dancing eyes. So he stood,
ponderous, tortured, and the three pairs of clear eyes watched him and
enjoyed his torture. Better, far better, that dark castle in ancient
France, and the wicked Oliver and the yet more wicked Louis.

"Lay hold on that stump," shouted Harry.

He heard the directions through a haze. It was twice repeated before
he bowed and set his great hands upon the ragged projections, where
the side roots had been cut away. He settled his grip and waited. He
was glad because this bowed position gave him a chance to look down to
the ground and avoid their cruel eyes. How bright those eyes were,
thought Bull, and how clearly they saw all things! He never doubted
the justice behind their judgments of him; all that Bull asked from
the world was a merciful silence--to let him grub in his books now and
then, or else to tell him how to go about some simple work, such as
digging with a pick. Here one's muscles worked, and there was no
problem to disturb wits which were still gathering wool in the pages
of some old tale.

But they were shrilling new directions at him; perhaps they had been
calling to him several times.

"You blamed idiot, are you goin' to stand there all day? We didn't
give you that stump to rest on. Pull it up!"

He started with a sense of guilt and tugged up. His fingers slipped
off their separate grips, and the stump, though it groaned against the
taproot under the strain, did not come out.

"It don't seem to budge, somehow," said Bull in his big, soft,
plaintive voice. Then he waited for the laughter. There was always
laughter, no matter what he did or said, but he never grew calloused
against it. It was the one pain which ever pierced the mist of his
brain and cut him to the quick. And he was right. There was laughter
again. He stood suffering mutely under it.

The girl's face became grave. She murmured to Harry, "Ever try
praisin' to big stupid?"

"Him? Are you joshin' me, Jessie? What's he ever done to be praised
about?"

"You watch!" said the girl. Growing excited with her idea, she called,
"Say, Bull!"

He lifted his head, but not his eyes. Those eyes studied the impatient
feet of the girl's mustang; he waited for another stroke of wit that
would bring forth a fresh shower of laughter at his expense.

"Bull, you're mighty big and strong. About the biggest and strongest
man I ever seen!"

Was this a new and subtle form of mockery? He waited dully.

"I seen Harry and Joe both try to pull up that root, and they couldn't
so much as budge it. But I bet you could do it all alone, Bull! You
just try! I bet you could!"

It amazed him. He lifted his eyes at length; his face suffused with a
flush; his big, cloudy eyes were glistening with moisture.

"D'you mean that?" he asked huskily.

For this terrible, clear-eyed creature, this mocking mind, this alert,
cruel wit was actually speaking words of confidence. A great, dim joy
welled up in the heart of Bull Hunter. He shook the forelock out
of his eyes.

"You just try, will you, Bull?"

"I'll try!"

He bowed. Again his thick fingers sought for a grip, found places,
worked down through the soft dirt and the pulpy bark to solid wood,
and then he began to lift. It was a gradual process. His knees gave,
sagging under the strain from the arms. Then the back began to grow
rigid, and the legs in turn grew stiff, as every muscle fell into
play. The shoulders pushed forward and down. The forearms, revealed by
the short sleeves, showed a bewildering tangle of corded muscle, and,
at the wrists, the tendons sprang out as distinct and white as the new
strings of a violin.

The three spectators were undergoing a change. The suppressed grins of
the two brothers faded. They glanced at the girl to see if she were
not laughing at the results of her words to big Bull, but the girl was
staring. She had set that mighty power to work, and she was amazed by
the thing she saw. And they, looking back at Bull, were amazed in
turn. They had seen him lift great logs, wrench boulders from the
earth. But always it had been a proverb within the Campbell family
that Bull would make only one attempt and, failing in the first
effort, would try no more. They had never seen the mysterious
resources of his strength called upon.

Now they watched first the settling and then the expansion of the body
of their big cousin. His shoulders began to tremble; they heard deep,
harsh panting like the breathing of a horse as it tugs a ponderous
load up a hill, and still he had not reached the limit of his power.
He seemed to grow into the soil, and his feet ground deeper into the
soft dirt, and ever there was something in him remaining to be tapped.
It seemed to the brothers to be merely vast, unexplored recesses of
muscle, but even then it was a prodigious thing to watch the strain on
the stump increase moment by moment. That something of the spirit was
being called upon to aid in the work was quite beyond their
comprehension.

There was something like a groan from Bull--a queer, animal sound that
made all three spectators shiver where they stood. For it showed that
the limit of that apparently inexhaustible strength had been reached
and that now the anguish of last effort was going into the work. They
saw the head bowed lower; the shoulders were now bunching and swelling
up on either side.

Then came a faint rending sound, like cloth slowly torn. It was
answered by something strangely like a snarl from the laborer.
Something jerked through his body as though a whip had been flicked
across his back. With a great rending and a loud snap the big stump
came up. A little shower of dirt spouted up with the parting of the
taproot. The trunk was flung high, but not out of the hands of Bull
Hunter. He whirled it around his head, laughing. There was a ring and
clearness in that laughter that they had never heard before. He dashed
the stump on the ground.

"It's out!" exclaimed Bull. "Look there!"

He strode upon them. As he straightened up he became huger than ever.
They shrank from him--from the veins which still bulged on his
forehead and from the sweat and pallor of that vast effort. The very
mustang winced from this mountain of a man who came with a long,
sweeping, springing stride. On his face was a strange joy as of the
explorer who tops the mountains and sees the beauty of the promised
land beneath him. He held out his hand.

"Lady, I got to thank you. You--taught me how!"

But she shrank from his outstretched hand--as though she had labored
to a larger end than she dreamed and was terrified by the thing
she had made.

"You--you got a red stain on your hands. Oh!"

He came to a stop sharply. The sharp edges, where the roots had been
cut away had worked through the skin and his hands were literally
caked with mud and stained red. Bull looked down at his hands vaguely.

It came to Harry that Bull was taking up a trifle too much of Jessie's
attention. The next thing they knew she would be inviting him to come
to the next dance down her way, and they would have the big hulk of a
man shaming himself and his uncle's family.

"Go on back to the house," he ordered sharply. "We don't have no more
need of you."

Bull obeyed, stumbling along and still looking down at his wounded
hands.

CHAPTER 2

He left the three behind him, bewildered and frightened. Had lightning
split a thick tree beside them, or an unexpected landslide thundered
past and swept the ground away at their feet, they could have been
hardly more disturbed.

"Who'd of thought he could act like that!" remarked Joe. "My gosh,
Jessie!"

They went and looked at the hole where the stump had stood. At the
bottom was the white remnant of the taproot where it had burst under
the strain.

"It wasn't so much how he pulled up the stump," said the girl faintly.
"But--but did you see his face, boys, after he heaved the stump up?
I--just pick that stump up, will you?"

They went to the misshapen, ragged monster and lifted it, puffing
under the weight.

"All right."

They dropped it obediently.

"And he--he just swung it around his head like it was nothing!"
declared the girl. "Look how it smashed into the gravel where he threw
it down! Why--why--I didn't know men was made like that. And his
face--the way he laughed--why he didn't look like no fool at all,
boys. But just as if he'd waked up!"

"You act so interested," said Harry Campbell dryly, "that maybe you'd
like to have us call him out again so's you can talk to him?"

Apparently she did not hear, but stared down into the mist of the late
afternoon, warning her that she must start home. She seemed puzzled
and a little frightened. When she left them it was with a wave of the
hand and with no words of farewell. They watched her go down the trail
that jerked back and forth across the pitch of the slope; twice her
pony stumbled, a sure sign that the rider was absent-minded.

"Jessie didn't seem to know what to make of it," said Harry.

"Neither do I," returned his brother.

Both of them spoke in subdued voices as if they were afraid of being
overheard.

"And think if he'd ever lay a hold on one of us like that!" said
Harry. He went to the stump and examined the side of one of the roots.
It was stained with crimson.

"Look where his finger tips worked through the dirt and the bark,
right down to the solid wood," murmured Joe.

They looked at each other uneasily. "My gosh," said Joe, "think of the
way I handled him the other night! He--he let me trip him up and throw
him!" He shuddered. "Why, if he'd laid hold of me just once, he'd of
squashed my muscles like they was rotten fruit!"

Of one accord they turned back to the house. At the door they paused
and peered in, as into the den of a bear. There sat Bull on the
floor--he risked his weight to none of the crazy chairs--still looking
at his stained hands. Then they drew back and again looked at each
other with scared eyes and spoke in undertones.

"After this maybe he won't want to follow orders. Maybe he'll get sort
of free and easy and independent."

"If he does, you watch Dad give him his marching orders. Dad won't
have no one lifting heads agin' him."

"Neither will I," snapped Joe. "I guess we own this house. I guess we
support that big hulk. I'm going to try him right quick."

He went back to the door of the shack. "Bull, they ain't any wood for
the stove tonight. Go chop some quick."

The floor squeaked and groaned under Bull's weight as he rose, and
again the brothers looked to each other.

"All right," came cheerily from Bull Hunter.

He came through the door with his ax and went to the log pile. The
brothers watched him throw aside the top logs and get at the heavier
trunks underneath. He tore one of these out, laid it in place, and the
sun flashed on the swift circle of the ax. Joe and Harry stepped back
as though the light had blinded them.

"He didn't never work like that before," declared Joe.

The ax was buried almost to the haft in the tough wood, and the steel
was wrenching out with a squeak of the metal against the resisting
wood. Again the blinding circle and the indescribable sound of the
ax's impact, slicing through the wood. A great chip snapped up high
over the shoulder of the chopper and dropped solidly to the ground at
the feet of the brothers. Again they exchanged glances and drew a
little closer together. The log divided under the shower of eating
blows, and Bull attacked the next section.

Presently he came to a pause, leaning on the handle of the ax and
staring into the distance. At this the brothers sighed with relief.

"I guess he ain't changed so much," said Harry. "But it was queer, eh?
Kind of like a bear waking up after he'd been sleeping all winter!"

They jarred Bull out of his dream with a shout and set him to work
again; then they started the preparations for the evening meal. The
simple preparations were soon completed, but after the potatoes were
boiled, they delayed frying the bacon, for their father, old Bill
Campbell, had not yet returned from his hunting trip and he disliked
long-cooked food. Things had to be freshly served to suit Bill, and
his sons dared the wrath of heaven rather than the biting reproaches
of the old man.

It was strange that Bill delayed his coming so long. As a rule he was
always back before the coming of evening. An old and practiced
mountaineer, he had never been known to lose sense of direction or
sense of distance, and he was an hour overdue when the sun went down
and the soft, beautiful mountain twilight began.

There were other reasons which would ordinarily have disturbed Bill
and brought him home even ahead of time. Snow had fallen heavily above
the timberline a few days before, and now the keen whistling of the
wind and the swift curtaining of clouds, which was drawing across the
sky, threatened a new storm that might even reach down to the shack.

And yet no Bill appeared.

The brothers waited in the shack, and the darkness was increasing. Any
one of a number of things might have happened to their father, but
they were not worried. For one thing, they wasted no love on the stern
old man. They knew well enough that he had plenty of money, but he
kept them here to a dog's life in the shack, and they hated him for
it. Besides, they had a keen grievance which obscured any worry about
Bill--they were hungry, wildly hungry. The darkness set in, and the
feeble light wandered from the smoked chimney of the lantern and made
the window black.

Outside, the wind began to scream, sighing in the distance among the
firs, and then pouncing upon the cabin and shaking it as though in
rage. The fire would smoke in the stove at every one of these blasts,
and the flame leaped in the lantern.

Bull Hunter had to lean closer to the light and frown to make out the
print of his book. The sight of his stolid immobility merely sharpened
their hunger, for there was never any passion in this hulk of a man.
When he relaxed over a book the world went out like a snuffed candle
for him. He read slowly, lingering over every page, for now and again
his eyes drifted away from the print, and he dreamed over what he had
read. In reality he was not reading for the plot, but for the pictures
he found, and he dreaded coming to the end of a book also, for books
were rare in his life. A scrap of a magazine was a treasure. A full
volume was a nameless delight.

And so he worked slowly through every paragraph and made it his and
dreamed over it until he knew every thought and every picture by
heart. Once slowly devoured in this way, it was useless to reread a
book. It was far better to simply sit and let the slow memory of it
trail through his mind link by link, just as he had first read it and
with all the embroiderings which his own fancy had conjured up.

Often this stupid pondering over a book would madden the two brothers.
It irritated them till they would move the lantern away from him. But
he always followed the light with a sigh and uncomplainingly settled
down again. Sometimes they even snatched the book out of his hands. In
that case he sat looking down at his empty fingers, dreaming over his
own thoughts as contentedly as though the living page were in his
vision. There was small satisfaction in tormenting him in these ways.

Tonight they dared not bother him. The stained hands were still in
their minds, and the tremendous, joyous laughter as he whirled the
stump over his head still rang in their ears. But they watched him
with a sullen envy of his immobility. Just as a man without an
overcoat envies the woolly coat of a dog on a windy December day.

Only one sound roused the reader. It was a sudden loud snorting from
the shed behind the house and a dull trampling that came to him
through the noise of the rising wind. It brought Bull lurching to his
feet, and the stove jingled as his weight struck the yielding center
boards of the floor. Out into the blackness he strode. The wind shut
around him at once and plastered his clothes against his body as if he
had been drenched to the skin in water. Then he closed the door.

"What brung him to life?" asked Harry.

"Nothin', He just heard ol' Maggie snort. Always bothers him when
Maggie gets scared of something--the old fool!"

Maggie was an ancient, broken-down draft horse. Strange vicissitudes
had brought her up into the mountains via the logging camp. She was
kept, not because there was any real hauling to be done for Bill
Campbell, but because, having got her for nothing, she reminded him of
the bargain she had been. And Bull, apparently understanding the
sluggish nature of the old mare by sympathy of kind, use to work her
to the single plow among the rocks of their clearing. Here, every
autumn, they planted seed that never grew to mature grain. But that
was Bill Campbell's idea of making a home.

Presently Bull came back and settled with a slump into his old place.

"Going to snow?" asked Harry.

"Yep."

"Feel it in the wind?"

It was an old joke among them, for Bull often declared with ridiculous
solemnity that he could foretell snow by the change in the air.

"Yep," answered Bull, "I felt the wind."

He looked up at them, abashed, but they were too hungry to waste
breath with laughter. They merely sneered at him as he settled back
into his book. And, just as his head bowed, a far shouting swept down
at them as the wind veered to a new point.

"Uncle Bill!" said Bull and rose again to open the door.

The others wedged in behind his bulk and stared into the blackness.

CHAPTER 3

They stood with the wind taking them with its teeth and pressing them
heavily back. They could hear the fire flare and flutter in the stove;
then the wind screamed again, and the wail came down to them.

"Uncle Bill!" repeated Bull and, lowering his head, strode into the
storm.

The others exchanged frightened glances and then followed, but not
outside of the shaft of light from the door. In the first place it was
probably not their father. Who could imagine Bill shouting for help?
Such a thing had never been dreamed of by his worst enemies, and they
knew that their father's were legion. Besides it was cold, and this
was a wild-goose chase which meant a chilled hide and no gain.

But, presently, through the darkness they made out the form of a
horseman and the great bulk of Bull coming back beside him. Then they
ran out into the night.

They recognized the hatless, squat figure of their father at once,
even in the dark, with the wind twitching his beard sideways. When
they called to him he did not speak. Then they saw that Bull was
leading the horse.

Plainly something was wrong, and presently they discovered that Bill
Campbell was actually tied upon his horse. He gave no orders, and they
cut the ropes in silence. Still he did not dismount.

"Bull," he commanded, "lift me off the hoss!"

The giant plucked him out of the saddle and placed him on the ground,
but his legs buckled under him, and he fell forward on his face. Any
of the three could have saved him, but the spectacle of the terrible
old man's helplessness benumbed their senses and their muscles.

"Carry me in!" said Bill at last.

Bull lifted him and bore him gingerly through the door and placed him
on the bunk. The light revealed a grisly spectacle. Crimson stains and
dirt literally covered him; his left leg was bandaged below the knee;
his right shoulder was roughly splinted with small twigs and
swathed in cloth.

The long ride, with his legs tied in place, had apparently paralyzed
his nerves below the hips. He remained crushed against the wall, his
legs falling in the odd position in which they were put down by Bull.
It was illustrative of his character that, even in this crisis, not
one of the three dared venture an expression of sympathy, a question,
a suggestion.

Crumpled against the wall, his head bowed forward and cramped, the
stern old man still controlled them with the upward glance of his eyes
through the shag of eyebrows.

"Gimme my pipe," he commanded.

Three hands reached for it--pipe, tobacco, matches were proffered to
him. Before he accepted the articles he swept their faces with a
glance of satisfaction. Without attempting to change the position
which must have been torturing him, he filled the pipe bowl, his
fingers moving as if he had partially lost control of them. He filled
it raggedly, shreds of tobacco hanging down around the bowl. He bent
his head to meet the left hand which he raised with difficulty, then
he tried to light a match. But he seemed incapable of moving the
sulphur head fast enough to bring it to a light with friction. Match
after match crumbled as he continued his efforts.

"Here, lemme light a match for you, Dad!"

Harry's offer was received with a silent curling of the lips and a
glint of the yellow teeth beneath that made him step back. The old man
continued his work. There were a dozen wrecked matches before the
blood began to stir in his numbed arm and he was able to light the
match and the pipe. He drew several breaths of the smoke deep into his
lungs. For the moment the savage, hungry satisfaction changed his
face; they could tell by that alteration what agonies he had been
suffering before.

Presently he frowned and set about changing his position with infinite
labor. The left leg was helpless, and so was the right arm. Yet, after
much labor, he managed to stuff a roll of the blankets into the corner
and then shift himself until his back rested against this support. But
his strength deserted him again. His pipe was dropped down in the left
hand, his head sagged back.

Still they dared not approach him. His two sons stood about, shifting
from one foot to another, as if they expected a blow to descend upon
them at any moment, as if each labored movement of terrible old Bill
Campbell caused them the agony which he must be suffering.

As for Bull Hunter, he sat again on the floor, his chin dropped upon
his great fist, and wondered for a time at his uncle. It was the
second great event to him, all in one day. First he had discovered
that by fighting a thing, one can actually conquer. Second, he
discovered that great fighter, his uncle, had been beaten. The
impossible had happened twice between one sunrise and sunset.

But men and the affairs of men could not hold his eye overlong.
Presently he dropped his head again and was deep in the pages of his
book. At length Bill Campbell heaved up his head. It was to glare into
the scared faces of his sons.

"How long are you goin' to keep me waiting for food?"

The order snapped them into action. They sprang here and there, and
presently the thick slices of bacon were hissing on the pan, and the
clouds of bacon smoke wafted through the cabin. When they reached Bill
Campbell he blinked. Pain had given him a maddening appetite, yet he
puffed steadily on his pipe and said nothing.

The tin plate of potatoes and bacon was shoved before him, and the big
tin cup of coffee. The three younger men sat in silence and devoured
their own meal; the two sons swiftly, but Bull Hunter fell into
musings, and part of his food remained uneaten. Then his glance
wandered to his uncle and saw a thing to wonder at--a horrible thing
in its own way.

The nerveless left hand of the mountaineer, which had barely possessed
steadiness to light a match, was far too inaccurate to handle a fork;
and Bull saw his uncle stuffing his mouth with his fingers and daring
the others to watch him.

Something like pity came to Bull. It was so rare an emotion to connect
with human beings that he hardly recognized it, for men and women, as
he knew them, were brilliant, clever creatures, perfectly at home in
the midst of difficulties that appalled him. But, as he watched the
old man feed himself like an animal, the emotion that rose in Bull was
the sadness he felt when he watched old Maggie stumbling among the
rocks. There was something wrong with the forelegs of Maggie, and she
was only half a horse when it came to going downhill on broken ground.
He had always thought of the great strength that once must have been
hers, and he pitied her for the change. He found himself pitying Uncle
Bill Campbell in much the same way.

When Bill raised his tin cup he spilled scalding coffee on his breast.
The old man merely set his teeth and continued to glare his challenge
at the three. But not one of the three dared speak a word, dared make
an offer of assistance.

What baffled the slow mind of Bull Hunter was the effort to imagine a
force so great that battle with it had reduced the invincible Campbell
to this shaken wreck of his old self. Mere bullets could tear wounds
in flesh and break bones; but mere bullets could not wreck the nerves
of a man so that his hand trembled as if he were drunk or hysterical
with weariness.

He tried to work out this problem. He conceived a man of gigantic
size, vast muscles, inexhaustible strength. The power of a bear and
the swift cunning of a wild cat--such must have been the man who
struck down Uncle Bill and sent him home a shattered remnant of
his old self.

There was another mystery. Why did the destroyer not finish his task?
Why did he take pity on Uncle Bill Campbell and bind up the wounds he
had himself made? Here the mind of Bull Hunter paused. He could not
pass the mysterious idea of another than himself pitying Uncle Bill.
It was pitying a hawk in the sky.

Harry was taking away the dishes and throwing them in the little tub
of lukewarm water where the grease would be carelessly soused
off them.

"Did you get up that stump?" asked Uncle Bill suddenly.

There was a familiar ring in his voice. Woe to them if they had not
carried out his orders! All three of the young men quaked, and Bull
laid aside his book.

"We done it," answered Joe in a quavering voice.

"You done it?" asked Bill.

"We--we dug her pretty well clear, then Bull pulled her up."

Some of the wrath ebbed out of the face of Bill as he glanced at the
huge form of Bull. "Stand up!" he ordered.

Bull arose.

The keen eye of the old man went over him from head to foot slowly.
"Someday," he said slowly, speaking entirely to himself.
"Someday--maybe!"

What he expected from Bull "someday" remained unknown. The dishwashing
was swiftly finished. Then Uncle Bill made a feeble effort to get off
his boots, but his strength had been ebbing for some time. His sons
dared not interfere as the old man leaned slowly over and strove to
tug the boot from his wounded leg; but Bull remembered, all in a flood
of tenderness, some half-dozen small, kind things that his uncle had
said to him.

That was long, long ago, when the orphan came into the Campbell
family. In those days his stupidity had been attributed largely to the
speed with which he had grown, and he was expected to become normally
bright later on; and in those days Bill Campbell occasionally let fall
some gentle word to the great boy with his big, frightened eyes. And
the half-dozen instances came back to Bull in this moment.

He stepped between his cousins and laid his hand on the foot of his
uncle. It brought a snarl from the old man, a snarl that made Bull
straighten and step back, but he came again and put aside the shaking
hand of Uncle Bill. His cousins stood at one side, literally quaking.
It was the first time that they had actually seen their father defied.
They saw the huge hand of Bull settle around the leg of their father,
well below the wound and then the grip closed to avoid the danger of
opening the wound when the boot was worked off. After this he pulled
the tight riding boot slowly from the swollen foot.

Uncle Bill was no longer silent. The moment the big hand of his nephew
closed over his leg he launched a stream of curses that chilled the
blood and drove his own sons farther back into the shadow of the
corner. He demanded that they stand forth and tear Bull limb from
limb. He disinherited them for cowardice. He threatened Bull with a
vengeance compared with which the thunderbolt would be a feeble flare
of light. He swore that he was entirely capable of taking care of
himself, that he would step down into his grave sooner than be nursed
and petted by any living human being.

All the while, the great Bull leaned impassively over the wounded man
and finally worked the boot free. That was not all. Uncle Bill had
slipped over until he could reach a billet of wood beside his bunk. He
struck at Bull's head with it, but the stick was brushed out of his
palsied fingers with a single gesture, and, while Uncle Bill groaned
with fury and impotence, Bull continued the task of preparing him for
bed. He straightened the old body of the terrible Campbell; he heated
water in the tub and washed away stains and dirt; he took off the
stained bandages and replaced them with clean ones.

His cousins helped in the latter part of this work. Weakness had
reduced Uncle Bill to speechlessness. Finally the head of Bill
Campbell was laid on a double fold of blanket in lieu of a pillow. A
pipe had been tamped full and lighted by Bull and--crowning
insult--set between Bill's teeth. When all this was accomplished Bull
retired to his corner, picked up his book, and was instantly absorbed.

In the hushed atmosphere it seemed that a terrible blow had fallen,
and that another was about to fall. Harry and Joe were as men stunned,
but they looked upon their father with a gathering complacency. They
had found it demonstrated that it was possible to disobey their father
without being instantly destroyed. They were taking the lesson to
heart. And indeed old Bill Campbell himself seemed to be slowly
admitting that he was beaten.

The illusion of absolute self-sufficiency, which he had built up
through the years for the sake of imposing upon his sons and Bull
Hunter, was now destroyed. At a single stroke he had been exposed as
an old man, already beaten in battle by a foeman and now requiring as
much care as a sick woman. The shame of it burned in him; but the
comfort of the smoothed bunk and the filled pipe between his teeth was
a blessing. He found to his own surprise that he was not hating Bull
with a tithe of his usual vigor. He began to realize that he had come
to the end of his period of command. When he left that sickbed he
could only advise.

As a king about to die he looked at his heirs and found them strong
and sufficient and pleasing to the eye. Nowhere in the mountains were
there two boys as tall, as straight, as deadly with rifle and
revolver, as fierce, as relentless, as these two boys of his. He had
sharpened their tempers, and he rejoiced in the sullen ferocity with
which they looked at him now, unloving, cunning, biding their time and
finding that it had almost come. But he was not yet done. His body was
wrecked; there remained his mind, and they would find it a great
power. But he did not talk until the lights had been put out and the
three youths were in their separate bunks. Then, without the light to
show them his helpless body, in the darkness, which would give his
mind a freer play, he began to tell his story.

It was a long narrative. Far back in the years he had prospected with
a youth named Pete Reeve. They had located a claim and they had gone
to town together to celebrate. In the celebration he had drunk with
Reeve till the boy stupefied. Then he had induced Reeve to gamble for
his share of the claim and had won it. Afterward Pete swore to be even
with him. But the years had gone by without another meeting of
the men.

Only today, riding through the mountains, he had come on a dried-up
wisp of a man with long, iron-gray hair, a sharp, withered face, and
hands like the claws of a bird. He rode a fine bay gelding, and had
stopped Bill to ask some questions about the region above the
timberline because he was drifting south and intended to cross the
summits. Bill had described the way, and suddenly, out of their talk,
came the revelation of their identities--the one was Bill Campbell,
the other was Pete Reeve.

At this point in the story Bull heaved himself slowly, softly up on
one arm to listen. He was beginning to get the full sense of the words
for the first time. This narrative was like a book done in a
commoner language.

CHAPTER 4

The tale halted. To be defeated is one thing; to be forced to confess
defeat is another. Uncle Bill determined on the bitterer alternative.

"He made a clean fight," declared Uncle Bill. "First he cussed me out
proper. Then he went for his gat and he beat me to the draw. They
ain't no disgrace to that. You'll learn pretty soon that anybody might
get beaten sooner or later--if he fights enough men. And my gun hung
in the leather. Before I got it on him he'd shot me clean through the
right shoulder--a placed shot, boys. He wanted to land me there. It
tumbled me off my hoss. I rolled away and tried to get to my gun that
had fallen on the ground. He shot me ag'in through the leg and
stopped me.

"Then he got off his hoss and fixed up the wounds. He done a good job,
as you seen. 'Bill' says he, 'you ain't dead; you're worse'n dead.
That right arm of yours is going to be stiff the rest of your days.
You're a one-armed man from now on, and that one arm is the worst
you got.'

"That was why he sent me home alive. To make me live and keep hating
him, the same's he'd lived and hated me. But he made a mistake. Pete
Reeve is a wise fox, but he made one mistake. He forgot that I might
have somebody to send on his trail. He didn't know that I had two boys
I'd raised so's they was each better with a gun nor me. He didn't
dream of that, curse him! But when you, Harry, or you, Joe, pump the
lead into him, shoot him so's he'll live long enough to know who
killed him and why!"

As he spoke, there was a quality in his voice that seemed to find the
boys in the darkness and point each of them out. "Which of you takes
the trail?"

A little silence followed. Bull wondered at it.

"He's gone by way of Johnstown," continued the wounded man. "If one of
you cuts across the summit toward Shantung he's pretty sure to cut in
across Pete's trail. Which is goin' to start? Well, you can match for
the chance! Because him that comes back with Pete Reeve marked off the
slate is a man!"

That chilly little silence made Bull's heart beat. To be called a man,
to be praised by stern Bill Campbell--surely these were things to make
anyone risk death!

"Is that the Pete Reeve," said Harry's voice, "that shot up Mike
Rivers over the hill to the Tompkins place, about four year back?"

"That's him. Why?"

Again the silence. Then Bull heard the old man cursing
softly--meditatively, one might almost have said.

"Cut across for Johnstown," said Joe softly, "in a storm like this?
They won't be no trails left to find above the timberline. It'd be
sure death. Listen!"

There was a lull in the wind, and in the breeze that was left, they
could hear the whisper of the snow crushing steadily against
the window.

"It's heavy fall, right enough," declared Harry.

"And this Pete Reeve--why, he's a gunfighter, Dad."

"And what are you?" asked the old man. "Ain't I labored and slaved all
my life to make you handy with guns? What for d'you think I wasted all
them hours showin' you how to pull a trigger and where to shoot and
how to get a gun out of the leather?"

"To kill for meat," suggested Harry.

"Meat, nothing! The kind of meat I mean walks on two feet and fights
back."

"Maybe, if we started together--" ventured Joe.

His father broke in, "Boy, I ain't going to send out a pack of men to
run down Pete Reeve. He met me single and he fought me clean, and he's
going to be pulled down by no pack of yaller dogs! Go one of you alone
or else both of you stay here."

He waited, but there was no response. "Is this the way my blood is
showin' up in my sons? Is this the result of all my trainin'?"

After that there was no more talk. The long silence was not broken by
even the sound of breathing until someone began to snore. Then Bull
knew that the sleep of the night had settled down.

He lay with his hands folded behind his head, thinking. They were
willing enough to go together to do this difficult thing. But had they
not lifted together at the stump and failed to do the thing which he
had done single-handed? That thought stuck in his memory and would not
out. And suppose he, Bull, were to accomplish this great feat and
return to the shack? Would not Bill Campbell feel doubly repaid for
the living he had furnished for his nephew? More than once the grim
old man had cursed the luck that saddled him with a stupid incubus.
But the curses would turn to compliments if Bull left this little man,
this catlike and dangerous fighter, this Pete Reeve, dead on
the trail.

Not that all this was clear in the mind of Bull, but he felt something
like a command pushing him on that difficult south trail, through the
storm and the snow that would now be piling above the timberline. He
waited until there was no noise but the snoring of the sleepers and
the rush and roar of the wind which continually set something stirring
in the room. These sounds served to cover effectually any noises he
made as he felt about and made up his small pack. His old canvas coat,
his most treasured article of apparel, he took down from the hook
where it accumulated dust from month to month. His ancient, secondhand
cartridge belt with the antiquated revolver he removed from another
hook--he had never been given enough ammunition to become a shot of
any quality--and he pushed quickly into the night.

The moment he was through the door, the storm caught him in the face a
stinging blow, and the rush of snow chilled his skin. That stinging
blow steadied to a blast. It was a tremendous, heavy fall. The wind
had scoured the drifts from the clearing and was already banking them
around the little house. In the morning, as like as not, the boys
would have to dig their way out.

He went straight to the horse shed for his snowshoes that hung on the
wall there. Ordinary snowshoes would not endure his ponderous weight,
and Uncle Bill Campbell had fashioned these himself, heavy and
uncomfortable articles, but capable of enduring the strain.

Fumbling his way down behind the stalls, Bill's roan lashed out at him
with savage heels; but Maggie, the old draft horse, whinnied softly,
greeting that familiar heavy step. He tied the snowshoes on his back
and then stopped for a last word to Maggie. She raised her head and
dropped it clumsily on his shoulder. She was among the little, agile
mountain ponies what he was among men, and their bulk had rendered
each of them more or less helpless. There seemed to be a mute
understanding between them, and it was never more apparent than when
Maggie whinnied gently in his ear. He stroked her big, bony head, a
lump forming in his throat. If the bullets of little Pete Reeve
dropped him in some far-off trail, the old-broken-down horse would be
the only living creature that would mourn for him.

Outside, the night and the storm swallowed him at once. Before he had
gone fifty feet the house was out of sight. Then, entering the forest
of balsam firs, the force of the wind was lessened, and he made good
time up the first part of the grade. There would probably be no use
for the snowshoes in this region of broken shrubbery before he came to
the timberline.

He swept on with a lengthening stride. He knew this part of the
country like a book, of course, and he seldom stumbled, save when he
came out into a clearing and the wind smote at him from an unexpected
angle. In one of these clearings he stopped and took stock of his
position. Far away to the west and the south, the head of Scalped
Mountain was lost in dim, rushing clouds. He must make for that goal.

Progress became less easy almost at once. The trees that grew in this
elevated region were not tall enough to act as wind breaks; they were
hardly more than shrubs a great deal of the time, and merely served to
force him into detours around dense hedges. Sometimes, in a clearing,
he found himself staggering to the knees in a compacted drift of snow;
sometimes an immense sheet of snow was picked up by the wind and flung
in his face like a blanket.

Indeed the cold and the snow were nothing compared with the wind. It
was now reaching the proportions of a westerly storm of the first
magnitude. Off the towering slopes above, it came with the chill of
the snow and with flying bits of sand, scooped up from around the base
of trees, or with a shower of twigs. Many a time he had to throw up
his arms across his face before he leaned and thrust on into the teeth
of the blast.

But he was growing accustomed to seeing through this veil of snow and
thick darkness. All things were dreamlike in dimness, of course, but
he could make out terrific cloud effects, as the clouds gushed over
the summit and down the slope a little way like the smoke of enormous
guns; and again a pyramid of mist was like a false mountain before
him, a mountain that took on movement and rushed to overwhelm him,
only to melt away and become simply a shadow among shadows above
his head.

Once or twice before the dawn, he rested, not from weariness perhaps,
but from lack of breath, turning his back to the west and bowing his
head. Walking into the wind it had become positively difficult to
draw breath!

Still it gained power incredibly. Up the side of Scalped Mountain it
was a steady weight pressing against him rather than a wind. And now
and then, when the weight relaxed, he stumbled forward on his knees.
For there was now hardly any shelter. He was approaching the
timberline where trees stand as high as a man and little higher.

Dawn found him at the edge of the tree line. He flung himself on his
face, his head on his arms, to rest and wait until the treacherous
time of dawn should have passed. While the day grew steadily his heart
sank. He needed the rest, but the cold bit into him while he lay
extended, and the peril of the summit would be before him for his
march of the day. The wind mourned over him as if it anticipated his
defeat. Never had there been such wind, he thought. It screamed above
him. It dropped away in sudden lulls of more appalling silence. Then,
far off, he would hear a wave of the storm begin, wash across a crest,
thunder in a canyon, and then break on the timberline with a prolonged
and mighty roaring. Those giant approaches made him hold his breath,
and when the wave of confusion passed, he found himself often
breathless.

Day came. He was on the very verge of the line with a dense fence of
stunted trees just before him and the wilderness of snow beyond,
sloping up to the crest, outlined in white against the solid gray sky.
The Spartans of the forest were around him--fir, pine, spruce, birch,
and trembling little aspens up there among the stoutest. All were of
one height, clean-shaven by the volleys of the wind-driven sand and
pebbles that clipped off any treetop that aspired above the mass. In
solid numbers was their salvation, and they grew dense as grass, two
feet high on the battlefront. They were carved by that wind, for all
storms came here out of the west, and the storm face of every tree was
denuded of branches. To the east the foliage streamed away. Even in
calm weather those trees spoke of storm.

Bull Hunter sat up to put on his snowshoes. It was a white world below
him and above. Winter, which a day before had vanished, now came back
with a rush off the summits, where its snows were still piled. Again
the heart of the big man quaked. Down in the hollow, over that ridge,
was the house of the Campbells. They would be getting up now. Joe
would be making the fire, and Harry slicing the bacon. It made a
cheerful picture to Bull. He could close his eyes and hear the fire
snap and see the stove steam with smoke through every fissure before
the draft caught in the chimney. From the shed came the neigh of
Maggie, calling softly to him.

He shook his head with a groan, stood up, and strode out of the timber
into the summit lands. It was a great desert. Never could it be
construed as a place for life. Even lichens were almost out of place
here, and what folly could lead a man across the shifting snows? But
to be called a man, to be admired in silence, to be asked for
opinions, to be deferred to--this was a treasure worth any price! He
bowed himself to the wind again and made for the summit with the
peculiar stride which a man must use with snowshoes.

He dared not slacken his efforts now. The cold had been increasing,
and to pause meant peril of freezing. It was a highly electrified air,
and the result was a series of maddening mirages. He stumbled over
solid rocks where nothing seemed to be in his way; and again what
seemed a rock of huge size was nothing at all. Bull discovered that
what seemed firm ground beneath him, as he started to round a
precipice, might after all be the effect of the mirage.

Added to this was another difficulty. As he wound slowly, about
midday, up the last reach, with the summit just above him, the wind
carried masses of cloud over the crest and into his face. He walked
alternately in a bewildering, driving fog and then in an air made
crazy with electricity. Again and again, from one side or the other,
he started when the storm boomed and cannonaded down a ravine and then
belched out into the open. All this time the babel of the winds
overhead never ceased, and the force of the storm cut up under him
with such violence that he was almost raised from the earth.

Then an unexpected barrier obtruded--a literal mountain of ice was
before him. The snow of the recent fall had been whipped away, and the
surface of the mountain, here perilously steep, was now sleek and
solid with ice. Bull looked gloomily toward the summit so close above
him, and the ice glimmered in the dull light. There was only one way
to make even the attempt. He sat down, took off his snowshoes,
strapped them to his back, and began to work his way up the slope,
battering out each foothold with the head of his ax. It was possible
to ascend in this manner, but it would be practically impossible
to descend.

Once committed to this way, he had either to go on to the summit, or
else perish. Working slowly, with little possible muscular exercise to
warm him, he began to grow chilled and the wind-driven cold numbed his
ears. But, more than that, the wind was now a grim peril, for, from
time to time, it swerved and leaped on him heavily from the side.
Once, off balance, he looked back at the dazzling slope below him. He
would be a shapeless mass of flesh long before he tumbled to
the bottom.

Vaguely, as he hewed his footholds and worked his way up, he yearned
for the cleverness of Harry or the wit of Joe. What an ally either of
them would be! That he was undertaking a task from which either of
them would have shrunk in horror never occurred to him. Yonder, beyond
the summit, lay his destiny--Johnstown--and this was the way toward
it; it was a simple thing to Bull. He could no more vary from his
course than a magnetic needle can vary from its pole.

Suddenly he came on a break in the solid face of the ice. Above him
was a narrow rift through the ice to the gravel beneath; how it was
made, Bull could not guess. But he took advantage of it. Presently he
was striding on toward the summit, beating his hands to restore the
circulation and gingerly rubbing his ears.

There was a magical change as he reached the summit and sat down
behind some rocks to regain his breath and quiet his shaken nerves.
The clouds split apart in the zenith; the sun burst through; on both
sides the broad mountain billowed away to white lowlands; the air was
alive with little, brilliant spots of electricity.

It cheered Bull Hunter vastly. The gale, which was tumbling the clouds
down the arch of the sky and toward the east, was more mighty than
ever, but he put his head down to it confidently and began
the descent.

CHAPTER 5

There was more snow on this side, and to travel through it he soon
found that he must put on the snowshoes again; but after that the
descent was actually restful compared with the labors of the climb.
Yonder was the dark streak of the timberline again. Far down the
valley he watched it curving in and out along the mountainside like a
water level. Below was the darkness of the forest where other things
lived, and where Bull could live more easily, also. Never had trees
seemed such beautiful and friendly things to him.

Once a thought stopped him completely. He was in a new world. He was
seeing everything for the first time. On other days he had gone out
with others. Under their guidance, not trusted to undertake an
expedition by himself, he looked at nothing until it was pointed out
to him, heard nothing that was not first called to his attention. He
had always wondered at the acuteness of the senses of all other men.
But now, looking on the mountains for himself, he decided, with a
start of the heart, that they were beautiful--beautiful and terrible
at once, with the reality that he had never found in his books. What
leveled spear of a knight, in the pages of romance, could equal the
invisible thrust of this wind?

He reached the timberline. Looking back, he saw the summit, a
brilliant line of white against a blue sky. Again the heart of Bull
Hunter leaped. Here was a great treasure that he had taken in with one
grasp of the eyes and which he could never lose!

He turned down the valley. Where it swerved out into the lower plain,
stood Johnstown, and there he was to cross the flight of Pete Reeve,
if Pete were indeed flying. But it was incredible that the man who had
struck down Uncle Bill Campbell should flee from any man or number
of men.

He had reached the bottom of the narrow valley. A dull noise came down
to him from the mountain in the lull of the wind. He looked up.

Far away, miles and miles, near the summit of Scalped Mountain, a
snaky form of mist was twisting swiftly down. He looked curiously. The
thing grew, traveling with great speed that increased with every
moment. It increased--it gained velocity--a snowslide!

He watched it in doubt. It was twisting like a snake down the farther
side of the mountain, but, in his experience, slides were as
treacherous as serpents. Bull started hastily for a low cliff that
stood up from the floor of the valley, clear of the trees.

He had not gone far when the wind fell away to a whisper, and a dull
roaring caught his ear. He looked back over his shoulder in alarm. A
great wall of white was shooting down the mountainside. The little
slide of surface snow, which had twisted across the surface of the old
snows of the winter, had been gaining in weight, in momentum, picking
up claws of shrubbery, teeth of stone, and eating through layer after
layer of the old snow, packed hard as ice. Now it was a roaring mass
with a front steadily increasing in height, and far away in the rear
it tossed up a tail of snow dust, a flying mist that gave Bull an
impression of speed greater than the main wall of the snow itself.

The noise grew amazingly, and coming in range of the opposite wall of
the valley, a low and steadily increasing thunder poured into the ears
of Bull. It was a fascinating thing to watch, and at this distance to
the side he was quite safe. But at the very moment that he reached
this decision, the front of the slide smashed with a noise like
volleyed canyon against the side of a hill, tossed immense arms of
white in the air, floundered, and then veered with the speed of an
express train rounding a curve and rocked away down the slope straight
for Bull. Turned cold with dread, he saw it hit the timberline with a
great crashing, and the dark forms of the trees were dashed up by the
running mass of stones and then swallowed in the boiling front of
the slide.

He waited to see no more, but dashed on for the saving cliff. Once his
back was turned it seemed that the slide gained speed. The immense
roaring literally leaped on him from behind, and in the roar, his
senses were drowned. He could feel his knees weaken and buckle, but
the cliff, now just before him, gave him fresh strength. But was the
cliff high enough? He hurried up to higher ground and flung himself
prostrate. The front of the slide was cutting down the heavily
forested slope as though the trees were blades of grass before a keen
scythe. The noise passed all description.

Once he thought the mass was changing direction. It put out a massive
arm to the left, licked down five hundred trees at a gulp, and then,
smashing its fist into a hillside, flung back into the valley floor,
tossing the great trees in its top and poured straight at him. He
watched it in one of those dazes during which one sees everything. The
whole body came like water down a chute, but one part of the front
wall spilled out ahead and then another, and then the top, overtaking
the rest, toppled crashing to the bottom. And so it rushed out of
sight beneath the cliff. But would it wash over the top?

The first answer was an impact that shook the ground under him, and
then he heard a noise like a huge ripping explosion. A dozen lofty
geysers of snow streamed up into the air, dazzling against the sun,
misty at the edges of each column, whose center was solid tons and
tons of snow. Old pines and spruces, their branches shaved away in the
tumult of the slide, were picked up and hurled like javelins over the
cliff; a shower of fragments beat on the body of Bull; and then the
main mass of snow washed up over the edge of the cliff in a great
mound, and the slide was ended.

He crawled slowly back to his feet. Far up the mountainside, beginning
in a point, the track of the slide swept down in a broadening scar,
black and raw, across forest and snow. Far down the valley the last
echoes of thunder were passing away to a murmur, and the valley floor,
beneath the cliff, was a mass of snow and tree trunks.

Bull took off the snowshoes and climbed along the valley wall until he
could descend to the clear floor beneath him. Then he headed down
toward Johnstown.

It was well past midday when he escaped the slide; it was the
beginning of night when, at the conclusion of that first heroic march,
he reached Johnstown. With hunger his stomach cleaved to his back, and
his knees were weak with the labor.

Stamping through the snow to the hotel he asked the idlers around the
stove, "Has any of you gents seen a man named Pete Reeve pass through
this town?"

They looked at him in amazement. He had closed the door behind him,
and now, with his battered hat pushed high on his head, he seemed
taller than the entrance--taller and as wide, a mountain of a man. The
efforts of the march had collected a continual frown on his forehead,
and as he peered about from face to face, no one for a moment was able
to answer, but each looked to his companion.

It was the proprietor who answered finally. Talk was his commercial
medium and staff of life. "What sort of a looking man, captain?"

Bull blinked at him. He was not used to honorary epithets such as
this, and he searched the face of the proprietor carefully to detect
mockery. To his surprise the other showed signs of what Bull dimly
recognized as fear. Fear of him--of Bull Hunter!

"The way you look at me," said the other and laughed uneasily, "I
figure it's pretty lucky that I ain't this here Pete Reeve. That
so, boys?"

The boys joined in the laughter, but they kept it subdued, their eyes
upon the giant at the door. He was leaning against the wall, and the
sight of his outspread hand was far from reassuring.

But Bull went on to describe his man. "Not very big; hands like the
claws of a bird's; iron-gray hair; quick ways." That was Uncle Bill's
description.

"Sure he's been here," said the owner. "I recognized him right off. He
was through about dusk. He came over the mountains and just got past
the summit, he said, before the storm hit. Lucky, eh?" He looked at
the battered coat of Bull. "Kind of appears like you mightn't of been
so lucky?"

"Me?" asked Bull gently. "Nope. I was at the timberline on the other
side about daybreak today."

There was a sudden and chilly silence; men looked at one another.
Obviously no man could have traveled that distance between dawn and
dark, but it was as well not to express disbelief to a man who could
tell a lie as big as his body.

"I got to eat," said Bull.

The proprietor jumped out of his chair. "I can fix you up, son."

He led the way, Bull following with his enormous strides, and, as the
floor creaked under him, the eyes of the others jerked after him,
stride by stride. It was beginning to seem possible that this man had
done what he said he had done. When the door slammed behind him and
his steps went creaking through the room beyond, a mutter of a hum
arose around the stove.

As a matter of fact it was the beginning of the great legend that was
finally to bulk around the name of the big man. And it was fitting
that the huge figure of Bull Hunter should have come upon the
attention of men in this way, descending out of the storm and the
mountains.

That he had done something historic was far from the mind of Bull as
he stalked into the dining room.

"You sit right down here," his host was saying, placing a chair at the
table.

Bull tried the chair with his hand. It groaned and squeaked under the
weight. "Chairs don't seem to be made for me," he said simply.
"Besides I'm more used to sitting on the floor." He dropped to the
floor accordingly, with the effect of a small earthquake. The
proprietor stared, but he swallowed his astonishment. "What you'd like
to eat is something hearty, I figure."

"What you got?" said Bull.

"Well, Mrs. Jarney come in this morning with a dozen fresh eggs. Got
some prime bacon, too, and some jerky and--"

"That dozen eggs," said Bull thoughtfully, "will start me, and then a
platter of bacon, and you might mix up a bowl of flapjacks. You ain't
got a quart or so of canned milk, partner?"

The proprietor could only nod, for he dared not trust his voice.
Fleeing to the kitchen he repeated the prodigious order to his wife.
Then he circled by a back way and communicated the tidings to the
"boys" around the stove.

"A couple of dozen eggs, he says to me, and a few pounds of beef and
three or four quarts of milk and a bowl of flapjacks and a platter of
bacon," was the way the second version of the historic order for food
came to the idlers.

Half a dozen of the men risked the cold and the wind to steal around
to the side of the house and peer through the window at the huge,
bunched figure that sat on the floor. They found him with his chin
dropped upon the burly fist and a frown on his forehead, for Bull
was thinking.

He would have been glad to have found Pete Reeve in Johnstown and have
the matter over with. But, after all, it was beginning to occur to him
that it might not be wise to kill the man in the presence of other
people. They might attempt to correct him with the assistance of a
rope and a limb of a tree. Somewhere he must cut in ahead of this
Reeve and start out at him if possible. As for his ability to keep
pace with a horse he had no doubt that he could do it fairly well.
More than once he had gone out on foot, while Harry and Joe rode, and
he had pressed the little ponies, bearing their riders slowly up and
down the slopes, to keep pace with him. On the level, of course, it
was a different matter, but in broken country he more than kept up.

"Have you got a grudge agin' Reeve?" asked the host, as he brought in
the fried eggs.

"Maybe," admitted Bull, and instantly he began to attack the food.

The proprietor watched with a growing awe. No chinook ever ate snow as
this hungry giant melted food to nothingness. He came back with the
first stack of flapjacks and bacon and more questions. "But I'd think
that a gent like you'd be pretty careful about tangling with Pete
Reeve--him being so handy with a gun and you such a tolerable
big target."

"I've figured that all out," said Bull calmly. "But they's so much of
me to kill that I don't figure one bullet could do the work. Do you?"

The eyes of the proprietor grew large. He swallowed, and before he
could answer Bull continued in the exposition of his theory. "Before
he shoots the next shot, maybe I can get my hands on him."

"You going to fight him bare hands agin' a gun?"

"You see," said Bull apologetically, "I ain't much good with a gun,
but I feel sort of curious about what would happen if I got my grip
on a man."

And that was the foundation on which another section of the Bull
Hunter legend was built.

CHAPTER 6

The bed on which Bull Hunter reposed his bulk that night was not the
cot to which he was shown by his host. One glance at the spindling
wooden legs of the canvas-bottomed cot was enough for Bull, and having
wrapped himself in the covers he lay down on the floor and was
instantly asleep.

While it was still dark, he wakened out of a dream in which Pete Reeve
seemed to be riding far--far away on the rim of the world. Ten minutes
later Bull was on the trail out of Johnstown. There was only one trail
for a horseman south of Johnstown, and that trail followed the
windings of the valley. Bull planned to push across the ragged peaks
of the Little Cloudy Mountains and head off the fugitive at
Glenn Crossing.

Two days of stern labor went into the next burst. He followed the cold
stars by night and the easy landmarks by day, and for food he had the
stock of raisins he had bought at Johnstown. He came out of the
heights and dropped down into Glenn Crossing in the gloom of the
second evening. But raisins are meager support for such a bulk as that
of Bull Hunter. It was a gaunt-faced giant who looked in at the door
of the shop where the blacksmith was working late. The mechanic looked
up with a start at the deep voice of the stranger, but he managed to
stammer forth his tidings. Such a man as Pete Reeve had indeed been in
Glenn Crossing, but he had gone on at the very verge of day and night.

Bull Hunter set his teeth, for there was no longer a possibility of
cutting off Pete Reeve by crossing country. The immense labors of the
last three days had merely served to put him on the heels of the
horseman, and now he must follow straight down country and attempt to
match his long legs against the speed of a fine horse. He drew a deep
breath and plunged into the night out of Glenn Crossing, on the south
trail. At least he would make one short, stiff march before the
weariness overtook him.

That weariness clouded his brain ten miles out. He built a fire in a
cover of pines and slept beside it. Before dawn he was up and out
again. In the first gray of the daylight he reached a little store at
a crossroad, and here he paused for breakfast. A tousled girl, rubbing
the sleep out of her eyes, served him in the kitchen. The first
glimpse of the hollow cheeks and the unshaven face of Bull Hunter
quite awakened her. Bull could feel her watching him, as she glided
about the room. He sunk his head between his shoulders and glared down
at the table. No doubt she would begin to gibe at him before long.
Most women did. He prepared himself to meet with patience that
incredible sting and penetrating hurt of a woman's mockery.

But there was no mockery forthcoming. The sun was still not up when he
paid his bill and hastened to the door of the old building. Quick
footsteps followed him, a hand touched his shoulders, and he turned
and looked suspiciously down into the face of the girl. It was a
frightened face, he thought, and very pretty. At some interval between
the time when he first saw her and the present, she had found time to
rearrange her hair and make it smooth. Color was pulsing in
her cheeks.

"Stranger," she said softly, "what are you running away from?"

The question slowly penetrated the mind of Bull; he was still
bewildered by the change in her--something electric, to be felt rather
than noted with the eye.

"They ain't any reason for hurrying on," she urged. "I--I can hide
you, easy. Nobody could find where I'll put you, and there you can
rest up. You must be tolerable tired."

There was no doubt about it. There was kindness as well as anxiety in
her voice. For the second time in his entire life, Bull decided that a
woman could be something more than an annoyance. She was placing a
value on him, just as Jessie, three days before, had placed a value on
him; and it disturbed Bull. For so many years, he had been mocked and
scorned by his uncle and cousins that deep in his mind was engraved
the certainty that he was useless. He decided to hurry on before the
girl found out the truth.

"I can still walk," he said, "and, while I can walk, I got to go
south. But--you gimme heart, lady. You gimme a pile of heart to keep
going. Maybe"--he paused, uncertain what to say next, and yet
obviously she expected something more--"I'll get a chance to come back
this way, and if I do, I'll see you! You can lay to that--I'll
see you!"

He was gone before she could answer, and he was wondering why she had
looked down with that sudden color and that queer, pleased smile. It
would be long before Bull understood, but, even without understanding,
he found that his heart was lighter and an odd warmth suffused him.

The rising of the sun found him in the pale desert with the magic of
the hills growing distant behind him, and he settled to a different
step through the thin sand--a short, choppy step. His weight was
against him here, but it would be even a greater disadvantage to a
horseman, and with this in mind, he pressed steadily south.

Every day on that south trail was like a year in the life of Bull.
Heat and thirst wasted him, the constant labor of the march hardened
his muscles, and he got that forward look about his eyes, which comes
with shadows under the lids and a constant frown on the forehead. It
was long afterward that men checked up his march from date to date and
discovered that the distance between the shack of Bill Campbell and
Halstead in the South was one hundred and fifty miles over bitter
mountains and burning desert, and that Bull Hunter had made the
distance in five days.

All this was learned and verified later when Bull was a legend. When
he strode into Halstead on that late afternoon no one had ever heard
of the man out of the mountains. He was simply an oddity in a country
where oddities draw small attention.

Yet a rumor advanced before Bull. A child, playing in the incredible
heat of the sun, saw the dusty giant heaving in the distance and ran
to its mother, frightened, and the worn-faced mother came to the porch
and shaded her eyes to look. She passed on the word with a call that
traveled from house to house. So that, when Bull entered the long,
irregular street of Halstead, he found it lined on either side by
children, old men, women. It was almost as though they had heard of
the thing he had come to do and were there to watch.

Bull shrank from their eyes. He would far rather have slipped around
the back of the village and gone toward its center unobserved. A pair
of staring eyes to Bull was like the pointing of a loaded gun. He put
unspoken sentences upon every tongue, and the sentences were those he
had heard so often from his uncle and his uncle's sons.

"Too big to be any good."

"Bull's got the size of a hoss, and as a hoss he'd do pretty well, but
he ain't no account as a man."

His life had been paved with such burning remarks as these. Many an
evening had been long agony to him as the three sat about and baited
him. He hurried down the street, the pulverized sand squirting up
about his heavy boots and drifting in a mist behind him. When he was
gone an old man came out and measured those great strides with his eye
and then stretched his legs vainly to cover the same marks. But this,
of course, Bull did not see, and he would not have understood it, had
he seen, except as a mockery.

He paused in front of the hotel veranda, an awful figure to behold.
His canvas coat was rolled and tied behind his sweating shoulders; his
too-short sleeves had bothered him and they were now cut off at the
elbow and exposed the sun-blackened forearms; his overalls streamed in
rags over his scarred boots. He pushed the battered hat far back on
his head and looked at the silent, attentive line of idlers who sat on
the veranda.

"Excuse me, gents," he said mildly. "But maybe one of you might know
of a little gent with iron-gray hair and a thin face and quick ways of
acting and little, thin hands." He illustrated his meaning by
extending his own huge paws. "His name is Pete Reeve."

That name caused a sharp shifting of glances, not at Bull, but from
man to man. A tall fellow rose. He advanced with his thumbs hooked
importantly in the arm holes of his vest and braced his legs apart as
he faced Bull. The elevation of the veranda floor raised him so that
he was actually some inches above the head of his interlocutor, and
the tall man was deeply grateful for that advantage. He was, in truth,
a little vain of his own height, and to have to look up to anyone
irritated him beyond words. Having established his own superior
position, he looked the giant over from head to foot. He kept one eye
steadily on Bull, as though afraid that the big man might dodge out of
sight and elude him.

"And what might you have to do with Pete Reeve?" he asked. "Mightn't
you be a partner of Pete's? Kind of looks like you was following him
sort of eager, friend."

While this question was being asked, Bull saw that the line of idlers
settled forward in their chairs to hear the answer. It puzzled him.
For some mysterious reason these men disapproved of any one who was
intimately acquainted with Pete Reeve, it seemed. He looked blandly
upon the tall man.

"I never seen Pete Reeve," said Bull apologetically.

"Ah? Yet you're follerin' him hotfoot?"

"I was aiming to see him, you know," answered Bull.

The tall man regarded him with eyes that began to twinkle beneath his
frown. Then he jerked his head aside and cast at his audience a
prodigious wink. The cloudy eyes of Bull had assured him that he had
to do with a simpleton, and he was inviting the others in on the game.

"You never seen him?" he asked gruffly, turning back to Bull. "You
expect me to believe talk like that? Young man, d'you know who I am?"

"I dunno," murmured Bull, overawed and drawing back a pace.

The action drew a chuckle from the crowd. Some of the idlers even rose
and sauntered to the edge of the veranda, the better to see the
baiting of the giant. His prodigious size made his timidity the
more amusing.

"You dunno, eh?" asked the other. "Well, son, I'm Sheriff Bill
Anderson!" He waited to see the effect of this portentous
announcement.

"I never heard tell of any Sheriff Bill Anderson," said Bull in the
same mild voice.

The sheriff gasped. The idlers hastily veiled their mouths with much
coughing and clearing of the throat. It seemed that the tables had
been subtly turned upon the sheriff.

"You!" exclaimed the sheriff, extending a bony arm. "I got to tell
you, partner, that I'm a pile suspicious. I'm suspicious of anybody
that's a friend of Pete Reeve. How long have you knowed him?"

Bull was very anxious to pacify the tall man. He shifted his weight to
the other foot. "Something less'n nothing," he hastened to explain. "I
ain't never seen him."

"And why d'you want to see him? What d'you know about him?"

It flashed through the mind of Bull that it would be useless to tell
what he knew of Pete. Obviously nobody would believe what he could
tell of how Reeve had met and shot down Uncle Bill Campbell. For Bill
Campbell was a historic figure as a fighter in the mountain regions,
and surely his face must be bright even at this distance from his
home. That he could have walked beyond the sphere of Campbell's fame
in five days never occurred to Bull Hunter.

"I dunno nothing good," he confessed.

There was a change in the sheriff. He descended from the floor of the
veranda with a stiff-legged hop and took Bull by the arm, leading him
down the street.

"Son," he said earnestly, walking down the street with Bull, "d'you
know anything agin' this Pete Reeve? I want to know because I got Pete
behind the bars for murder!"

"Murder?" asked Bull.

"Murder--regular murder--something he'll hang for. And if you got any
inside information that I can use agin' him, why I'll use it and I'll
be mighty grateful for it! You see everybody knows Pete Reeve.
Everybody knows that, for all these years, he's been going around
killing and maiming men, and nobody has been able to bring him up for
anything worse'n self-defense. But now I think I got him to rights,
and I want to hang him for it, stranger, partly because it'd be a
feather in my cap, and partly because it'd be doing a favor for every
good, law-abiding citizen in these parts. So do what you can to help
me, stranger, and I'll see that your time ain't wasted."

There was something very wheedling and insinuating about all this
talk. It troubled Bull. His strangely obscure life had left him a
child in many important respects, and he had a child's instinctive
knowledge of the mental processes of others. In this case he felt a
profound distrust. There was something wrong about this sheriff, his
instincts told him--something gravely wrong. He disliked the man who
had started to ridicule him before many men and was now so
confidential, asking his help.

"Sheriff Anderson," he said, "may I see this Reeve?"

"Come right along with me, son. I ain't pressing you for what you
know. But it may be a thing that'll help me to hang Reeve. And if it
is, I'll need to know it. Understand? Public benefit--that's what I'm
after. Come along with me and you can see if Reeve's the man
you're after."

They crossed the street through a little maelstrom of fine dust which
a wind circle had picked up, and the sheriff led Bull into the jail.
They crossed the tawdry little outer room with its warped floor
creaking under the tread of Bull Hunter. Next they came face to face
with a cage of steel bars, and behind it was a little gray man on a
bunk. He sat up and peered at them from beneath bushy brows, a
thin-faced man, extremely agile. Even in sitting up, one caught many
possibilities of catlike speed of action.

Bull knew at once that this was the man he sought. He stood close to
the bars, grasping one in each great hand, and with his face pressed
against the steel, he peered at Pete Reeve. The other was very calm.

"Howdy, sheriff," he said. "Bringing on another one to look over your
bear?"

CHAPTER 7

The prisoner's good humor impressed Bull immensely. Here was a man
talking commonplaces in the face of death. A greater man than Uncle
Bill, he felt at once--a far greater man. It was impossible to
conceive of that keen, sharp eye and that clawlike hand sending a
bullet far from the center of the target.

He gave his eyes long sight of that face, and then turned from the
bars and went out with the sheriff.

"Is that your man?" asked the sheriff.

"I dunno," said Bull, fencing for time as they stood in front of the
jail. "What'd he do?"

"You mean why he's in jail? I'll tell you that, son, but first I want
to know what you got agin' him--and your proofs--mostly your proofs!"

The distaste which Bull had felt for the sheriff from the first now
became overpowering. That he should be the means of bringing that
terrible and active little man to an end seemed, as a matter of fact,
absurd. Guile must have played a part in that capture.

Suppose he were to tell the sheriff about the shooting of Uncle Bill?
That would be enough to convince men that Pete Reeve was capable of
murder, for the shooting of Uncle Bill had been worse than murder. It
spared the life and ruined it at the same time. But suppose he added
his evidence and allowed the law to take its course with Pete Reeve?
Where would be his own reward for his long march south and all the
pain of travel and the crossing of the mountains at the peril of his
life? There would be nothing but scorn from Uncle Bill when he
returned, and not that moment of praise for which he yearned. To gain
that great end he must kill Pete Reeve, but not by the aid of the law.

"I dunno," he said to the sheriff who waited impatiently. "I figure
that what I know wouldn't be no good to you."

The sheriff snorted. "You been letting me waste all this time on you?"
he asked Bull. "Why didn't you tell me that in the first place?"

Bull scratched his head in perplexity. But as he raised the great arm
and put his hand behind his head, the sheriff winced back a little.
"I'm sorry," said Bull.

The sheriff dismissed him with a grunt of disgust, and strode off.

Bull started out to find information. This idea was growing slowly in
his mind. He must kill Pete Reeve, and to accomplish that great end he
must first free him from the jail. He went back to the hotel and went
into the kitchen to find food. The proprietor himself came back to
serve him. He was a pudgy little man with a dignified pointed beard of
which he was inordinately proud.

"It's between times for meals," he declared, "but you being the
biggest man that ever come into the hotel, I'll make an exception."
And he began to hunt through the cupboard for cold meat.

"I seen Pete Reeve," began Bull bluntly. "How come he's in jail?"

"Him?" asked the other. "Ain't you heard?"

"No."

The little man sighed with pleasure; he had given up hope of finding a
new listener for that oft-told tale. "It happened last night," he
confided. "Along late in the afternoon in rides Johnny Strange. He
tells us he was out to Dan Armstrong's place when, about noon, a
little gray-headed man that give the name of Pete Reeve came in and
asked for chow. Of course Johnny Strange pricks up his ears when he
hears the name. We all heard about Pete Reeve, off and on, as about
the slickest gunman that the ranges ever turned out. So he looks Pete
over and wonders at finding such a little man."

The proprietor drew himself up to his full height. "He didn't know
that size don't make the man! Well, Armstrong trotted out some chuck
for Reeve, and after Pete had eaten, Johnny Strange suggested a game.
They sat in at three-handed stud poker.

"Things went along pretty good for Johnny. He made a considerable
winning. Then it come late in the afternoon, and he seen he'd have to
be getting back home. He offered to bet everything he'd won, or double
or nothing, and when the boys didn't want to do that, it give him a
clean hand to stand up and get out. He got up and said good-bye and
hung around a while to see how the next hands went. So far as he could
make out, Pete Reeve was losing pretty steady. Then he come on in.

"Well, when Johnny Strange told about Pete being out there, Sheriff
Anderson was in the room and he rises up.

"'Don't look good to me,' he says. 'If a gunfighter is losing money,
most like he'll fight to win it back. Maybe I'll go out and look that
game over.'

"And saying that he slopes out of the room.

"Well, none of us took much stock in the sheriff going out to take
care of Armstrong. You see Armstrong was the old sheriff, and he give
Anderson a pretty stiff run for his money last election. They both
been spending most of their time and energy the last few years hating
each other. When one of 'em is in office the other goes around saying
that the gent that has the plum is a crook; and then Anderson goes
out, and Armstrong comes in, and Anderson says the same thing about
Armstrong. Take 'em general and they always had the boys worried when
they was together, for fear of a gunfight and bullets flying. And so,
when Anderson stands up and says he's going out to see that Reeve
don't do no harm to Armstrong, we all sat back and kind of laughed.

"But we laughed at the wrong thing. Long about an hour or so after
dark we hear two men come walking up on the veranda, and one of 'em we
knowed by the sound was the sheriff."

"How could you tell by the sound?" asked Bull innocently.

"Well, you see the sheriff always wears steel rims on his heels like
he was a horse. He's kind of close with his money is old Anderson,
I'll tell a man! We hear the ring of them heels on the porch, and
pretty soon in comes the sheriff, herding a gent in ahead of him. And
who d'you think that gent was? It was Reeve! Yes, sir, the old sheriff
had stepped out and grabbed his man. He wasn't there quick enough to
stop the killing of Armstrong, but he got there fast enough to nab
Reeve. Seems that when he was riding up to the house he heard a shot
fired, and then he seen a man run out of the house and jump on his
hoss, and the sheriff didn't stop to ask no questions. He just out
with his gat and drills the gent's hoss. And while Reeve was
struggling on the ground, with the hoss flopping around and dying, the
sheriff runs up and sticks the irons on Reeve. Then he goes into the
house and finds Armstrong lying shot through the heart. Clear as day!
Reeve loses a lot of money, and when it comes to a pinch he hates to
see that money gone when he could get it back for the price of one
slug. So he outs with his gun and shoots Armstrong. And the worst part
of it was that Armstrong didn't have no gun on at the time. The
sheriff found Armstrong's gun hanging on the wall along with his
cartridge belt. Yep, it was plain murder, and Pete Reeve'll hang as
high as the sky--and a good thing, too!"

This story was a shock to Bull for a reason that would not have
affected most men. That a man who had had the courage to stand up and
face Uncle Bill in a fair duel should have been so cowardly, so
venomous as to take a mean advantage of a gambling companion seemed to
Bull altogether too strange to be reasonable. Certainly, if he had had
a difference with this fellow, thought Bull, Pete Reeve was the man to
let the other use his own weapons before he fought. But to shoot him
down across a table, unwarned--this was too much to believe! And yet
it was the truth, and Pete Reeve was to hang for it.

The big man sat shaking his head. "And they found the money on Pete
Reeve?" he asked gloomily. "They found the money he took off this
Armstrong?"

"There's the funny part of the yarn," said the proprietor glibly.
"Pete had the nerve to shoot the gent down in cold blood, but when he
seen him fall he lost his nerve. He didn't wait to grab the money, but
ran out and jumped on his hoss and tried to get away. So there you
are. But it pretty often happens that way! Take the oldest gunfighter
in the world, and, if his stomach ain't resting just right, it sort of
upsets him to see a crimson stain. I seen it happen that way with the
worst of 'em, and in the old days they used to be a rough crowd in my
barroom. They don't turn out that style of gent no more!" He sighed as
his mind flickered back into the heroic past.

"And Reeve--he admits he done the killing?" Bull asked hopelessly.

"Him? Nope, he's too foxy for that. But the only story he told was so
foolish that we laughed at him, and he ain't had the nerve to try to
bluff us ever since. He says that he was sitting peaceable with
Armstrong when all at once without no warning they was a shot from the
window--the east window, I remember he was particular to say--and
Armstrong dropped forward on the table, shot through the heart.

"Reeve says that he didn't wait to ask no questions. He blew the
candle out, and having got the darkness on his side, he made a jump
through the door and got onto his hoss. He says that he wanted to
break away to the trees and try to get a shot at the murderer from
cover, but the minute he got onto his hoss, he had his hoss shot from
under him."

"Was they any shots fired then?"

"Yep. Reeve says that he fired a couple of times when he fell. But the
sheriff says that Reeve only fired once, as his hoss was falling, and
that the other shot that was found fired out of Reeve's gun was fired
into the heart of Armstrong. Oh, they ain't any doubt about it. All
Reeve has got is a cock-and-bull yarn that would make a fool laugh!"

Although Bull had been many times assured by his uncle and his cousins
that he was a fool of the first magnitude, he was in no mood for
laughter. Somewhere in the tale there was something wrong, for his
mind refused to conjure up the picture of Reeve pulling his gun and
shooting across the table into the breast of a helpless, unwarned man.
That would not be the method of a man who could stand up to Uncle
Bill. That would not be the method of the man who had sat up on his
bunk and looked so calmly into the face of the sheriff.

Bull stood up and dragged his hat firmly over his eyes. "I'd kind of
like to see the place where that shooting was done," he declared.

"You got lots of time before night," said the proprietor. "Ain't
more'n a mile and a half out the north trail. Take that path right out
there, and you can ride out inside of five minutes."

There was no horse for Bull Hunter to ride. But, having thanked his
host, he stepped out into the cooler sunshine of the late afternoon.

The trail led through scattering groves of cottonwood most of the way,
for it was bottom land, partially flooded in the winter season of
rain, and, even in the driest and hottest part of the summer, marshy
in places. He followed the twisting little trail through spots of
shadow and stretches of open sky until he reached the shack which was
obviously that of the dead Armstrong.

The moment he entered the little cabin he received proof positive.

The furniture had not apparently been disturbed since the shooting.
The table still leaned crazily, as though it had not recovered from a
violent shock on one side. One chair was overturned. A box had been
smashed to splinters, probably by having someone put a foot
through it.

Bull examined the deal table. Across the center of it there was a dark
stain, and on the farther side, two hands were printed distinctly into
the wood, in the same dull color. The whole scene rose revoltingly
distinct in the mind of Bull.

Here sat Dan Armstrong playing his cheerful game, laughing and
jesting, because forsooth he was the winner. And there, on the
opposite side of the table, sat Pete Reeve, the guest in the house of
his host, growing darker and darker as the money was transferred from
his pocket to the pocket of the jovial Armstrong. Then, a sudden
taking of offense at some harmless jest, the cold flash of steel as
Reeve leaned and jumped to his feet, and then the explosion of the
revolver, with Armstrong settling slowly, limply forward on the table.
There he lay with a stream pouring across the table from the death
wound, his helpless arms outstretched on the wood.

Then Reeve, panic-stricken, perhaps with a sudden stirring of remorse,
started for the door, struck the box on his way, smashing it to bits,
and as soon as he got outside, leaped for his horse. Luckily
retribution had overtaken the murderer in the very moment of escape.
Bull Hunter sighed. Never had the strength of the arm of the law been
so vividly brought home to him as by this incident. Suppose that he
had fulfilled his purpose and killed Reeve? Would not the law have
reached for him in the same fashion and taken and crushed him?

He shuddered, and looking up from his broodings, he glanced through
the opposite window and saw that the woods were growing dark in that
direction. Night was approaching, and, with the feeling of night,
there was a ghostly sense of death, as though the spirit of the dead
man were returning to his old home. On the other side of the house,
however, the woods showed brighter. This was the east window--the east
window through which Reeve declared that the shot had been fired.

Bull shook his head. He stepped out of the cabin and looked about. It
was a prosperous little stretch of meadow, cleared into the
cottonwoods and reclaiming part of the marshland--all very rich soil,
as one could see at a glance. There was a field which had been
recently upturned by the plow, perhaps the work of yesterday. The
furrows were still black, still not dried out by the sun. Today would
have been the time for harrowing, but that work was indefinitely
postponed by the grim visitor. No doubt this Armstrong was an
industrious man. The sense of a wasted life was brought home to Bull;
a bullet had ended it all!

Absent-mindedly he passed around the side of the house and started for
the east window through which Reeve had said that the bullet was
fired, but he shook his head at once.

On the east side the house leaned against a mass of white stone. It
rose high, rough, ragged. Certainly a man stalking a house to fire a
shot would never come up to it from this side! His own words were
convicting Reeve of the murder!

Still he continued to clamber over the stones until he stood by the
window. To be sure, if a man stood there, he could easily have fired
into the room and into the breast of a man sitting on the far side of
the table. Armstrong was found there. Bull looked down to his feet as
a thoughtful man will do, and there, very clearly marked against the
white of the stone, he saw a dark streak--two of them, side by side.

He bent and looked at them. Then he rubbed the places with his
fingertips and examined the skin. A stain had come away from the rock.
It was as if the rocks had been rubbed with lead or a soft iron. And
then, strangely, into the mind of Bull came the memory of what the
hotel man had said of the sheriff's iron-shod heels.

The sheriff had gone for many a year hating Armstrong. The truth
rushed over the brain of the big man. What a chance for a crafty mind!
To kill his enemy and place the blame on the shoulders of one already
known to be a man-killer! Bull Hunter leaped from the rocks and
started back for the town with long, ground-devouring strides.

CHAPTER 8

There were two reasons for the happiness which lightened the step of
Bull Hunter as he strode back for the town. In the first place he saw
a hope of liberating Reeve from jail and accomplishing his own mission
of killing the man. In the second place he felt a peculiar joy at the
thought of freeing such a man from the imputation of a cowardly murder.

Yet he had small grounds for his hopes. Two little dark marks on the
white, friable stone, marks that the first small shower of rain would
wash away, marks that the first keen sandstorm would rub off--this was
his only proof. And with this to free one man from danger of the rope
and place the head of another under the noose--it was a task to try
the resources of a cleverer man than Bull.

Indeed, the high spirits of Bull in some measure left him as he drew
nearer and nearer to the village. How could he convict the sheriff?
How, with his clumsy wits and his clumsy tongue, could he bring the
truth to light? Had he possessed the keen eyes of his uncle he felt
that a single glance would have made the guilt stand up in the face of
Anderson. But his own eyes, alas, were dull and clouded.

Thoughtfully, with bowed head, he held his course. A strange picture,
surely, this man who so devoutly wished to free another from the
danger of the law in order that he might take a life into his own
hands. But the contrast did not strike home to Bull. To him everything
that he did was as clear as day. But how to go to work? If the man
were like himself it would be an easy matter. More than once he
remembered how his cousins had shifted the blame for their own boyish
pranks upon him. In the presence of their father they would accuse
Bull with a well-planned lie, and the very fact that he had been
accused made Bull blush and hang his head. Before he could be heard in
his own behalf the cruel eye of his uncle had grown stern, and Bull
was condemned as a culprit.

"The only time you show any sense," his uncle had said more than once,
"is when you want to do something you hadn't ought to do!"

Steadily through the years he had served as a scapegoat for his
cousins. They set a certain value upon him for his use in this
respect. Ah, if only he had that keen, embarrassing eye of Bill
Campbell with which to pierce to the guilty heart of the sheriff and
make him speak! The eye of his uncle was like the eye of a crowd. It
was an audience in itself and condemned or praised with the strength
of numbers.

It was this thought of numbers that brought the clue to a possible
solution to Bull Hunter. When it came to him he stopped short in the
road, threw back his head and laughed.

"And what's all the celebration about?" asked a voice behind him.

He turned and found Sheriff Anderson on his horse directly behind him.
The soft loam of the trail had covered the sound of the sheriffs
approach. Bull blushed with a sudden sense of shame. Moreover, the
sheriff seemed unapproachably stern and dignified. He sat erect in the
saddle, a cavalier figure with his long, well-drilled mustaches.

"I dunno," said Bull vaguely, pushing his hat back to scratch his
thatch of blond hair. "I didn't know I was celebrating, particular."

The sheriff watched him with small, evil eyes. "You been snooping
around, son," he said coldly. "And we folks in this part, we don't
like snoopers. Understand?"

"No," said Bull frankly, "I don't exactly figure what you mean." Then
he dropped his hand to his hip.

"Git your hand off that gun!" said the sheriff, his own weapon
flashing instantly in the light.

It had been a move like lightning. Its speed stunned and baffled Bull
Hunter. Something cold formed in his throat, choking him, and he
obediently drew his hand away. He did more. He threw both immense arms
above his head and stood gaping at the sheriff.

The latter eyed him for a moment with stern amusement, and then he
shoved the gun back into its holster. "I guess they ain't much harm in
you," he said more to himself than to Bull. "But I hate a snooper
worse than I do a rat. You can take them arms down."

Bull lowered them cautiously.

"You hear me talk?" asked the sheriff.

"I hear," said Bull obediently.

"I don't like snoopers. Which means that I don't like you none too
well. Besides, who in thunder are you? A wanderin' vagrant you look
to me, and we got a law agin' vagrants. You amble along on your trail
pretty pronto, and no harm'll come to you. But if you're around town
tomorrow--well, you've heard me talk!"

It was very familiar talk to Bull; not the words, but the commanding
and contemptuous tone in which they were spoken. Crestfallen, he
submitted. Of one thing he must make sure: that no harm befell him
before he faced Pete Reeve and Pete Reeve's gun. Then he could only
pray for courage to attack. But the effect of the sheriff's little
gunplay entirely disheartened Bull at the prospect of facing Pete.

With a noncommittal rejoinder he started down the road, and the
sheriff put the spurs to his horse and plunged by at a full gallop,
flinging the dust back into the face of the big man. Bull wiped it out
of his eyes and went on gloomily. He had been trodden upon in spirit
once more. But, after all, that was so old a story that it made little
difference. It convinced him, however, of one thing; he could never do
anything with the sheriff man to man. Certainly he would need the help
of a crowd before he faced the tall man and his cavalier mustaches.

He waited until after the supper at the hotel. It was a miserable
meal for Bull; he had already eaten, and he could not find a way of
refusing the invitation of the proprietor to sit down again. Seated at
the end of the long table he looked miserably up and down it. Nobody
had a look for him except one of contempt. The sheriff, it seemed, had
spread a story around about his lack of spirit, and if Bull remained
long in the village, he would be treated with little more respect than
he had been in the house of his uncle. Even now they held him in
contempt. They could not understand, for instance, why he sat so far
forward. He was resting most of his weight on his legs, for fear of
the weakness of the chair under his full bulk. But that very bulk made
them whisper their jokes and insults to one another.

When the long nightmare of that meal was ended, Bull began making his
rounds. He had chosen his men. Every man he picked was sharp-eyed like
Uncle Bill Campbell. They were the men whose inlooking eyes would
baffle the sheriff; they were the men capable of suspicions, and such
men Bull needed--not dull-glancing people like himself.

He went first to the proprietor of the hotel. "I got something to say
to the sheriff," he declared. "And I want to have a few important
gents around town to be there to listen and hear what I got to say. I
wonder, could you be handy?"

He was surprised at the avidity with which his invitation was
accepted. It was a long time since the hotel owner had been referred
to as an "important man."

Then he went with the same talk to five others--the blacksmith, the
carpenter and odd-jobber, the storekeeper, and two men whom he had
marked when he first halted near the hotel veranda. To his invitation
each of them gave a quick assent. There had been something mysterious
in the manner in which this timid-eyed giant had descended upon the
town from nowhere, and now they felt that they were about to come to
the heart of the reason of his visit.

The invitation to the sheriff was delivered by the proprietor of the
hotel, and he said just enough--and no more--to bring the sheriff
straight to the hotel. Anderson arrived with his best pair of guns in
his holsters, for the sheriff was a two-gun man of the best variety.
He came with the aggressive manner of one ready to beat down all
opposition, but when he stepped into the room, his manner changed. For
he found sitting about the table in the dining room, which was to be
the scene of the conference, the six most influential men of the
town--men strong enough to reelect him next year, or to throw him
permanently out of office.

At the lower end of the table stood Bull Hunter, his arms folded, his
face blank. Standing with the light from the lamp shining upon his
face, the others seated, he seemed a man among pygmies.

"Shall I lock the door?" asked the proprietor, and he turned to Bull,
as if the latter had the right to dictate.

Bull nodded.

"All right, sheriff," the proprietor went on to explain. "Our young
friend yonder says that he's got something to say to you. He's asked
each of us to hang around and be a witness. Are you ready?"

"Jud," burst out the sheriff, "you're an idiot! This overgrown booby
needs a horsewhipping, and that's the sort of an answer I'd like to
make to him."

Having delivered this broadside he strode up and confronted Bull. It
was a very poor move. In the first place, the sheriff had insulted one
of the men who was about to act as his official judge. In the second
place, by putting himself so close to Bull, he made himself appear a
trifle ludicrous. Also, if he expected to throw Bull out of the poise
with this blustering, he failed. It was not that Bull did not feel
fear, but he had seen a curious thing--the sinewy, long neck of the
sheriff--and he was wondering what would happen if one of his hands
should grip that throat for a single instant. He grew so fascinated by
this study that he forgot his fear of the sheriff's guns.

Anderson hastened to retreat from his false position. "Gents," he
said, "excuse me for getting edgy. But, if you want me to listen to
this fellow's talk--"

"Hunter is his name--Bull Hunter," said the proprietor.

The sheriff took his place at the far end of the long table. Like
Bull, he preferred to stand. "Start in your talk," he commanded.

"It looks to me," said Bull gently, "that they's only one gent here
that's wearing a gun." He had thrown his own belt on a chair; and now
he fixed his eyes on the weapons of Anderson.

The sheriff glared. "You want me to take off my guns? Son, I'd rather
go naked!"

Jud, the hotel man, had already been insulted once by the sheriff, and
he had been biding his time. This seemed an excellent opening. "Looks
to me," he remarked, "like Mr. Hunter was right. He's got something
pretty serious to say, and he don't want to take no chances on your
cutting him short with a bullet!"

The sheriff glared at Bull and then cast a swift glance over the faces
of the others. He read upon them only one expression--a cold
curiosity. Plainly they agreed with Jud, and the sheriff gave way. He
took off his belt and tossed it upon a chair near him. Then he faced
Bull again, but he faced the big man with half his confidence
destroyed. As he had said, he felt worse than naked without his
revolvers under his touch, but now he attempted to brave out the
situation.

"Well," he said jocularly, "what you going to accuse me of, Bull
Hunter?"

"I'm just going to tell a little story that I been thinking about,"
said Bull.

"Story--nothing!" exclaimed Anderson.

"Wait a minute," broke in Jud. "Let him tell this his own way--I think
you'd best, sheriff!"

Bull was looking at the sheriff and through him into the distance.
After all, it was a story, as distinctly a story as if he had it in a
book. As he began to tell it, he forgot Sheriff Anderson at the
farther end of the table. He talked slowly, bringing the words out one
by one, as if what he said were coming to him by inspiration--a kind
of second sight.

"It starts in," said Bull, "the other night when the gent come in with
word that Pete Reeve was out playing cards with Armstrong and losing
money. When the sheriff heard that, he started to thinking. He was
remembering how he'd hated Armstrong for a good many years, and that
made him think that maybe Armstrong would get into trouble with Reeve,
because Reeve is a pretty good shot, and the sheriff hoped that, if it
come to a showdown, Reeve would shoot Armstrong full of holes. And
that started him wishing pretty strong that Armstrong would
get killed!"

"Do I have to stand here and listen to this fool talk?" demanded the
sheriff.

"I'm just supposing," said Bull. "Surely they ain't any harm in just
supposing?"

"Not a bit," decided Jud, who had taken the position of main arbiter.

"Well, the sheriff got to wishing Armstrong was dead so strong that it
didn't seem he could stand to have him living much more. He told the
folks that he was going out to see that no harm come to Armstrong from
Reeve. Then he got on his hoss and went out. All the way he was
thinking hard. Armstrong was the gent that was sheriff before
Anderson; Armstrong was the gent that might get the job and throw him
out again. Ain't that clear? Well, the sheriff gets close to the
cabin and--"

He paused and slowly extended his long arm toward the sheriff. "What'd
you do then?"

"Me? I heard a shot--"

"You left your hoss standing in the brush near the house," interrupted
Bull, "and you went along on foot."

"Does that sound reasonable, a gent going on foot when he might ride?"
demanded the sheriff.

"You didn't want to make no noise," said Bull, and his great voice
swallowed the protest of the sheriff.

Anderson cast another glance at the listeners. Plainly they were
fascinated by this tale, and they were following it step by step
with nods.

"You didn't make no noise, either," went on Bull Hunter. "You slipped
up to the cabin real soft, and you climbed up on the east side of the
house over some rocks."

"Why in reason should a man climb over rocks? Why wouldn't he go right
to the door?"

"Because you didn't want to be seen."

"Then why not the west window, fool!"

"You tried that window first, but they was some dry brush lying in
front of it, and you couldn't come close enough to look in without
making a noise stepping on the dead wood. So then you went around to
the other side and climbed over the rocks until you could look into
the cabin. Am I right?"

"I--no, curse you, no! Of course you ain't right!" shouted Anderson.

"Looking right through that window," said Bull heavily, "you seen
Armstrong, the man you hated, facing you, and, with his back turned,
was Pete Reeve. You said to yourself, 'Drop Armstrong with a bullet,
catch Reeve, and put the blame on him!' Then you pulled your gun."

He pushed aside the ponderous armchair which stood beside him at the
head of the table.

"Say," shouted the sheriff, paler than ever now, "what are you
accusing me of?"

"Murder!" thundered Bull Hunter.

The roar of Bull's voice chained every one in his place, the sheriff
with staring eyes, and Jud in the act of raising his hand.

"I'll jail you for slander!" said the sheriff, fighting to assurance
and knowing that he was betrayed by his pallor and by the icy
perspiration which he felt on his forehead.

"Anderson," said Bull, "I seen the marks of them iron heels of yours
on the rock!"

That was a little thing, of course. As evidence it would not have
convinced the most prejudiced jury in the world, but Sheriff Anderson
was not weighing small points. Into his mind leaped one image--the
whiteness of those rocks on which he had stood and the indelible mark
his heels must have made against that whiteness. He was lost, he felt,
and he acted on the impulse to fight for his life.

One last glance he cast at the six listeners, and in their wide-eyed
interest he read his own damnation. Then Anderson whirled and leaped
for his belt with the guns.

Out of six throats came six yells of fear; there was a noise of chairs
being pushed back and a wild scramble to find safety under the table.
Jud, risking a moment's delay, knocked the chimney off the lamp before
he dived. The flame leaped once and went out, but the pale moonshine
poured through the window and filled the room with a weird play
of shadows.

What Bull Hunter saw was not the escape of the sheriff, but a sudden
blind rage against everything and everybody. It was a passion that set
him trembling through all of his great body. One touch of trust, one
word of encouragement had been enough to make him a giant to tear up
the stump in the presence of Jessie and his cousins; how far more
mighty he was in the grip of this new emotion, this rage.

His own gun was far away, but guns were not what he wanted. They were
uncongenial toys to his great hands. Instead, he reached down and
caught up that massive chair of oak, built to resist time, built to
bear even such a bulk as that of Bull Hunter with ease. Yet he caught
it up in one hand, weighed it behind his head at the full limit of his
extended arm, and then, bending forward, he catapulted the great
missile down the length of the table. It hit the lamp on the way and
splintered it to small bits, its momentum unimpeded. Hurtling on
across the table it shot at the sheriff as he whirled with his guns in
his hands.

Fast as the chair shot forward, the hand of the sheriff was faster
still. Bull saw the big guns twitch up, silver in the moonshine. They
exploded in one voice, as if the flying mass of wood were an animate
object. Then the sheriff was struck and hurled crashing along
the floor.

CHAPTER 9

At that fall the six men scampered from beneath the table to seize the
downed man. There was no need of their haste. Sheriff Anderson was a
wreck rather than a fighting man. One arm was horribly crumpled
beneath him; his ribs were shattered, there was a great gash where the
rung of the chair had cut into the bone like a knife.

They stood chattering about the fallen man, straightening him out,
feeling his pulse, making sure that he, who would soon hang at the
will of the law, was alive. Outside, voices were rushing toward them,
doors slamming.

Bull Hunter broke through the circle, bent over the limp body, and
drew a big bundle of keys from a pocket. Then, without a word, he went
back to the far end of the room, buckled on his gun belt, and in
silence left the room.

The others paid no heed. They and the newcomers who had poured into
the room were fascinated by the work of the giant rather than the
giant's self. They had a lantern, swinging dull light and grotesque
shadows across the place now, and by the illumination, two of the men
went to the wall and picked up the great oaken chair. They raised it
slowly between them, a battered mass of disconnected wood. Then they
looked to the far end of the long table where he who had thrown the
missile had stood. Another line had been written into the history of
Bull Hunter--the first line that was written in red.

Bull himself was on his way to the jail. He found it unguarded. The
deputy had gone to find the cause of the commotion at the hotel. The
steel bars, moreover, were sufficient to retain the prisoner and keep
out would-be rescuers.

In the dim light of his lantern, Bull saw that Pete Reeve was sitting
cross-legged on his bunk, like a little, dried-up idol, smoking a
cigarette. His only greeting to the big man was a lifting of the
eyebrows. But, when the big key was fitted into the lock and the lock
turned, he showed his first signs of interest. He was standing up when
Bull opened the door and strode in.

"Have you got your things?" said Bull curtly.

"What things, big fellow?"

"Why, guns and things--and your hat, of course."

Pete Reeve walked to the corner of the cell and took a sombrero off
the wall. "Here's that hat," he answered, "but they ain't passing out
guns to jailbirds--not in these parts!"

"You ain't a jailbird," answered Bull, "so we'll get that gun. Know
where it is?"

Reeve followed without a question through the open door, only stopping
as he passed beyond the bars, to look back to them with a shudder. It
was the first sign of emotion he had shown since his arrest. But his
step was lighter and quicker as he followed Bull into the front room.

"In that closet, yonder," said Reeve, pointing to a door. "That's
where they keep the guns."

Bull shook out his bundle of keys into the great palm of his hand.

"Not those keys--the deputy has the key to the closet," said Pete. "I
saw Anderson give it to him."

Bull sighed. "I ain't got much time, partner," he said. Approaching
the door, he examined it wistfully. "But, maybe, they's another way."
He drew back a little, raised his right leg, and smashed the heavy
cowhide boot against the door. The wood split from top to bottom, and
Bull's leg was driven on through the aperture. He paused to wrench the
fragments of the door from lock and hinges and then beckoned to Pete
Reeve. "Look for your gun in here, Reeve."

The little man cast one twinkling glance at his companion and then was
instantly among the litter of the closet floor. He emerged strapping a
belt about him, the holster tugging far down, so that the muzzle of
the gun was almost at his knee. Bull appreciated the diminutive size
of the man for the first time, seeing him in conjunction with the big
gun on his thigh.

There was an odd change in the little man also, the moment his gun was
in place. He tugged his broad-brimmed hat a little lower across his
eyes and poised himself, as if on tiptoe; his glance was a constant
flicker about the room until it came to rest on Bull. "Suppose you
lemme in on the meaning of all this. Who are you and where do you
figure on letting me loose? What in thunder is it all about?"

"We'll talk later. Now you got to get started."

Bull waved to the door. Pete Reeve darted past him with noiseless
steps and paused a moment at the threshold of the jail. Plainly he was
ready for fight or flight, and his right hand was toying constantly
with the holstered butt of his gun. Bull followed to the outside.

"Hosses?" asked the little man curtly.

"On foot," answered Bull with equal brevity, and he led the way
straight across the street. There was no danger of being seen. All the
life of the town was drawn to a center about the hotel. Lights were
flashing behind its windows, men were constantly pounding across the
veranda, running in and out. Bull led the way past the building and
cut for the cottonwoods.

"And now?" demanded Pete Reeve. "Now, partner?"

That word stung Bull. It had not been applied to him more than a half
a dozen times in his life, together with its implications of free and
equal brotherhood. To be called partner by the great man who had
conquered terrible Uncle Bill Campbell!

"They's a mess in the hotel," said Bull, explaining as shortly as he
could. "Seems that Sheriff Anderson was the gent that done the killing
of Armstrong. It got found out and the sheriff tried to get away. Lots
of noise and trouble."

"Ah," said Reeve, "it was him, then--the old hound! I might have
knowed! But I kep' on figuring that they was two of 'em! Well, the
sheriff was a handy boy with his gun. Did he drop anybody before they
got him? I heard two guns go off like one. Them must of been the
sheriff's cannons."

"They was," said Bull, "but them bullets didn't hit nothing but wood."

"Wild, eh? Shot into the wall?"

"Nope. Into a chair."

The little man was struggling and panting sometimes breaking into a
trot to keep up with the immense strides of his companion. "A chair?
You don't say so!"

Bull was silent.

"How come he shot at a chair? Drunk?"

"The chair was sailing through the air at him."

"H'm!" returned Pete Reeve. "Somebody throwed a chair at him, and the
sheriff got rattled and shot at it instead of dodging? Well, I've seen
a pile of funnier things than that happen in gun play, off and on. Who
threw the chair?"

"I did."

"You?" He squinted up at the lofty form of Bull Hunter. "What name did
you say?" he asked gently.

"Hunter is my name. Mostly they call me Bull."

"You got the size for that name, partner. So you cleaned up the
sheriff with a chair?" he sighed. "I wish I'd been there to see it.
But who got the inside on the sheriff?"

"I dunno what you mean?"

Pete Reeve looked closely at his companion. Plainly he was bewildered,
somewhere between a smile and a frown.

"I mean who found out that the sheriff done it?"

"He told it himself," said Bull.

"Drunk, en?"

"Nope. Not drunk. He was asked if he didn't do the murder."

"Great guns! Who asked him?"

"I done it," said Bull as simply as ever.

Reeve bit his lip. He had just put Bull down as a simple-minded hulk.
He was forced to revise his opinion.

"You done that? You follered him up, eh?"

"I just done a little thinking. So I asked him."

Reeve shook his head. "Maybe you hypnotized him," he suggested.

"Nope. I just asked him. I got a lot of folks sitting around, and then
I began telling the sheriff how he done the shooting."

"And he admitted it?"

"Nope. He jumped for a gun."

"And then you heaved a chair at him." Pete Reeve drew in a long
breath. "But what reason did you have, son? I got to ask you that
before I thank you the way I want to thank you. But, before you kick
out, you'll find that Pete Reeve is a friend."

"My reason was," said Bull, "that I had business to do with you that
couldn't be done in a jail. So I had to get you out."

"And now where're we headed?"

"Where we can do that business."

They had reached a broad break in the cottonwoods; the moonlight was
falling so softly and brightly.

Bull paused and looked around him. "I guess this'll have to do," he
declared.

"All right, son. You can be as mysterious as you want. Now what you
got me here for?"

"To kill you," said Bull gently.

Pete Reeve flinched back. Then he tapped his holster, made sure of the
gun, became more easy. "That's interesting," he announced. "You
couldn't wait for the law to hang me, eh?"

Bull began explaining laboriously. He pushed back his hat and began to
count off his points into the palm of one hand. "You shot up Uncle
Bill Campbell," he explained. "It ain't that I got any grudge agin'
you for that, but you see, Uncle Bill took me in young and give me a
home all these years. I thought it would sort of pay him back if I run
you down. So I walked across the mountains and come after you."

"Wait!" exclaimed Pete Reeve. "You walked?"

"Yep," he went on, heedless of the fact that Pete Reeve was peering
earnestly into the face of his companion, now puckered with the
earnest frown of thought. "I come down hoping to get you and kill you.
Besides, that wouldn't only pay back Uncle Bill. It would make him
think that I was a man. You see, Reeve, I ain't quick thinking, and I
ain't bright. I ain't got a quick tongue and sharp eyes, and they been
treating me like I was a kid all my life. So I got to do something. I
got to! I ain't got anything agin' you, but you just happen to be the
one that I got to fight. Stand over yonder by that stump. I'll stand
here, and we'll fight fair and square."

Pete Reeve obeyed, his movements slow, as if they were the result of
hypnotism. "Bull," he said rather faintly, looking at the towering
bulk of his opponent, "I dunno. Maybe I'm going nutty. But I figure
that you come down here to kill me for the sake of getting your uncle
to pat you on the back once or twice. And you find you can't get at me
because I'm in jail, so you work out a murder mystery to get me out,
and then you tackle me. You say you ain't very bright. I dunno. Maybe
you ain't bright, but you're mighty different!"

He paused and rubbed his forehead. "Son, I've seen pretty good men in
my day, but I ain't never seen one that I cotton to like I do to you.
You've saved my life. How can you figure on me going out and taking
yours, now?"

"You ain't going to, maybe," said Bull calmly. "Maybe I'll get to
you."

"Son," answered the other almost sadly, shaking his head, "when I'm
right, with a good, steady nerve, they ain't any man in the world that
can sling a gun with me. And tonight I'm right. If it comes to a