BY
| 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 showdown--but are you pretty good with a gun yourself, Bull?" "No," answered Bull frankly. "I ain't any good compared to an expert like you. But I'm good enough to take a chance." "Them sort of chances ain't taken twice, Bull!" "You see," said Bull, "I'm going to make a rush as I pull the gun, and if I get to you before I'm dead, well--all I ask is to lay my hands on you, you see?" The little man shuddered and blinked. "I see," he said, and swallowed with difficulty. "But, in the name of reason, Bull, have sense! Lemme talk! I'll tell you what that uncle of yours was--" "Don't talk!" exclaimed Bull Hunter. "I sort of like you, partner, and it sort of breaks me down to hear you talk. Don't talk, but listen. The next time that frog croaks we go for our guns, eh? That frog off in the marsh!" He had hardly spoken before the ominous sound was heard, and Bull reached for his gun. For all his bulk of hand and unwieldy arms, the gun came smoothly, swiftly into his hand. He would have had an ordinary man covered, long before the latter had his gun muzzle-clear of the leather. But Pete Reeve was no ordinary man. His arm jerked down; his fingers flickered down and up. They went down empty; they came up with the burden of a long revolver, shining in the moonlight, and he fired before Bull's gun came to the level for a shot. Only Pete Reeve knew the marvel of his own shooting this day. He had sworn a solemn and silent oath that he would not kill this faithful, courageous fellow from the mountains. He could have planted a bullet where the life lay, at any instant of the fight. But he fired for another purpose. The moment Bull reached for his weapon he had lurched forward, aiming to shoot as he ran. Pete Reeve set himself a double goal. His first intention was to disarm the giant; the other was to stop his rush. For, once within the grip of those big fingers, his life would be squeezed out like the juice of an orange. His task was doubly difficult in the moonlight. But the first shot went home nicely, aimed as exactly as a scientist finds a spot with his instruments. Where the moon's rays splashed across the bare right forearm of Bull, he sent a bullet that slashed through the great muscles. The revolver dropped from the nerveless hand of the giant, but Bull never paused. On he came, empty-handed, but with power of death, as the little man well knew, in the fingers of his extended left hand. He came with a snarl, a savage intake of breath, as he felt the hot slash of Pete's bullet. But Reeve, standing erect like some duelist of old, his left hand tucked into the hollow of his back, took the great gambling chance and refused to shoot to kill. He placed his second shot more effectively, for this time he must stop that tremendous body, advancing upon him. He found one critical spot. Between the knee and the thigh, halfway up on the inside of the left leg, he drove that second bullet with the precision of a surgeon. The leg crumpled under Bull and sent him pitching forward on his face. Perhaps the marsh ground was unstable, but it seemed to Pete Reeve that the very earth quaked beneath his feet as the big man fell. He swung his gun wide and leaned to see how serious was the damage he had done. Bleeding would be the greater danger. But that fraction of a second brought him into another peril. The giant heaved up on his sound right leg and his sound left arm, and flung himself forward, two limbs dangling uselessly. With a hideously contorted face, Bull swung his left arm in a wide circle for a grip and scooped in Pete Reeve, as the latter sprang back with a cry of horror. The action swept Pete in and crushed his gun hand and arm against the body of his assailant, paralyzing his only power of attack or defense. Reeve was carried down to the ground as if beneath the bulk of a mountain. There was no question of sparing life now. Pete Reeve began to fight for life. He wrestled at his gun to tug it free, but found it anchored. He pulled the trigger, and the gun spoke loud and clear, but the bullet plunged into empty space. Then he felt that left arm begin to move, and the hand worked up behind his back like a great spider. Higher it rose, and the huge, thick fingers reached up and around his throat, fumbling to get at the windpipe. Pete Reeve made his last effort; it was like striving to free himself from a ton's weight. Hysteria of fear and horror seized him, and his voice gave utterance to his terror. As he screamed, the big fingers joined around his throat. Any further pressure would end him! He looked up into the glaring eyes and the contorted face of the giant; the rasping, panting breathing paralyzed his senses. There was a slight inward contraction of the grip; then it ceased. Miraculously he felt the great hand relax and fall away. The bulk was heaved away from him, and staggering to his own feet, he saw Bull Hunter supported against a tree, one leg useless, one arm streaming. "I couldn't seem to do it," said Bull Hunter thickly. "I couldn't noways seem to do it, Reeve. You see, I sort of like you, and I couldn't kill you, Pete." When Pete Reeve recovered from his astonishment he said, "You can do more. You can go home and tell that infernal hound of an uncle of yours that you had the life of Pete Reeve under your fingertips and that you didn't take it. It's the second time I've owed my life, and both times in one day, and both times to one man. You tell your uncle that!" The big man sagged still more against the tree. "I'll never go home, Pete, unless ghosts walk; and I'll never tell Uncle Bill anything, unless the ghosts talk. I'm dying pretty pronto, I think, Pete." "Dyin'? You ain't hurt bad, Bull!" "It's the bleeding; all the senses is running out of my head--like water--and the moon--is turning black--and--" He slumped down at the foot of the tree. CHAPTER 10 When old Farmer Morton and his son came in their buckboard through the marshes, they heard the screaming of Pete Reeve for help. Leaving their team, they bolted across country to the open glade. There they found Pete still shouting for help, kneeling above the body of a man, and working desperately to arrange an effectual tourniquet. They ran close and discovered the two men. Old Morton knew enough rude surgery to stop the bleeding. It was he who counted the pulse and listened to the heart. "Low," he said, "very low--life is just flickerin', stranger." "If they's as much light of life in him," said Pete Reeve, "as the flicker of a candle, I'll fan it up till it's as big as a forest fire. Man, he's got to live." "H'm!" said Morton. "And how come the shooting?" "Stop your fool questions," said Reeve. "Help me get him to town and to a bed." It was useless to attempt to carry that great, loose-limbed body. They brought the buckboard perilously through the shrubbery and then managed, with infinite labor, to lift Bull Hunter into it. With Pete Reeve supporting the head of the wounded man and cautioning them to drive gently, they managed the journey to the town as softly as possible. At the hotel a strong-armed cortege bore Bull to a bed, and they carried him reverently. Had his senses been with him he would have wondered greatly; and had his uncle, or his uncle's sons, been there, they would surely have laughed uproariously. In the hotel room Pete Reeve took command at once. "He's too big to die," he told the dubious doctor. "He's got to live. And the minute you say he can't, out you go and another doc comes in. Now do your work." The doctor, haunted by the deep, fiery eyes of the gunfighter, stepped into the room to minister to his patient. He had a vague feeling that, if Bull Hunter died, Pete Reeve would blame him for lack of care. In truth, Pete seemed ready to blame everyone. He threatened to destroy the whole village if a dog was allowed to howl in the night, or if the baby next door were permitted to cry in the day. Silence settled over the little town--silence and the fear of Pete Reeve. Pete himself never left the sickroom. Wide-eyed, silent-footed, he was ever about. He seemed never to sleep, and the doctor swore that the only reason Bull Hunter did not die was because death feared to enter the room while the awful Reeve was there. But the long hours of unconsciousness and delirium wore away. Then came the critical period when a relapse was feared. Finally the time came when it could be confidently stated that Bull was recovering his health and his strength. All this filled a matter of weeks. Bull was still unable to leave his bed. He was dull and listless, bony of hand, and liable to sleep many hours through the very heart of the day. At this point of his recovery the door opened one day, and, in the warmth of the afternoon, a big man came into the room, shutting the door softly behind him. Bull turned his head slowly and then blinked, for it was the unshaven face of his cousin, Harry Campbell, that he saw. With his eyes closed, Bull wondered why that face was so distinctly unpleasant. When he opened them again, Harry had drawn closer, his hat pushed on the back of his head after the manner of a baffled man, and a faint smile working at the corners of his lips. He took the limp hand of Bull in his and squeezed it cautiously. Then he laid the hand back on the sheet and grinned more confidently at Bull. "Well, I'll be hanged, Bull, here you are as big as life, pretty near, and you don't act like you knew me!" "Sure I do. Sit down, Harry. What brung you all this ways?" "Why, anxious to see how you was doing." Again Bull blinked. Such anxiety from Harry was a mystery. "They ain't talking about much else up our way," said Harry, "but how you come across the mountains in the storm, and how big you are, and how you got the sheriff, and how you rushed Pete Reeve bare-handed. Sure is some story! All the way down I just had to say that I was Bull Hunter's cousin to get free meals!" He licked his lips and grinned again. "So I come down to see how you was." "I'm doing tolerable fair," said Bull slowly, "and it was good of you to come this long ways to ask that question. How's things to home?" "Dad's bunged up for life; can't do nothing but cuss, but at that he lays over anything you ever hear." Harry's eyes flicked nervously about the room. "It was him that sent me down! Where's Reeve?" This was in a whisper. Bull gestured toward the next room. "Asleep? Can he hear if I talk?" "Asleep," said Bull. "Been up with me two days. I took a bad turn a while back. Pete's helping himself to a nap, and he needs one!" "Now, listen!" said Harry. "Dad figured this out, and Dad's mostly never wrong. He says, 'Reeve shot up Bull. Now he's hanging around trying to make up by nursing Bull, according to reports, because he's afraid of what Bull'll do when he gets back on his feet. But Bull has got to know that, even when he's back on his feet, he can't beat Reeve--not while Reeve can pull a gun. Nobody can beat that devil. If he wants to beat Reeve, just take advantage of him while Reeve ain't expecting anything--which means while Bull is sick.' Do you get what Dad means?" "Sort of," said Bull faintly. He shut out the eager, dirty, unshaven face. "I'll just close my eyes against the light. I can hear you pretty well. Go on." "Here's the idea. Everybody knows you hate Reeve, and Reeve fears you. Otherwise would he act like this, aside from being afraid of a lynching, in case you should die? No, he wouldn't. Well, one of these days you take this gun"--here Harry shoved one under the pillow of Bull--"and call Pete Reeve over to you, and when he leans over your bed, blow his brains out! That's easy, and it'll do what you'll want to do someday. You hear? Then you can say that Reeve started something--that you shot in self-defense. Everybody'll believe you, and you'll get one big name for killing Reeve! You foller me?" Bull opened his eyes, but they were squinting as though he was in the severest pain. "Listen, Harry," he said at last. "I been thinking things out. I owe a lot to your dad for taking me in and keeping me. But all I owe him I can pay back in cash--someday. I don't owe him no love. Not you, neither." Harry had risen to his feet with a snarl. "Sit down," said Bull, letting his great voice swell ever so little. "I'm pretty near dead, but I'm still man enough to wring the neck of a skunk! Sit down!" Harry obeyed limply, and his giant cousin went on, his voice softening again. "When you come in I closed my eyes," said Bull, "because it seemed to me like you was a dream. I'd been awake. I'd been living among men that sort of liked me and respected me and didn't laugh at me. And then you come, and I saw your dirty face, and it made me think of a bad nightmare I'd had when you and your brother and your dad treated me worse'n a dog. Well, Harry, I'm through with that dream. I'll never go back to it. I'm going to stay awake the rest of my life. It was your dad that put the wish to kill Reeve into my head with his talk. I met Reeve, and Reeve pumped some bullets with sense into me. He let out some of my life, but he let in a lot of knowledge. Among other things he showed me what a friend might be. He's stayed here and nursed me and talked to me--like I was his equal, almost, instead of being sort of simple, like I really am. And I've made up my mind that I'm going to cut loose from remembering you folks in the mountains. I ain't your kind. I don't want to be your kind. I want to fight, like Pete Reeve. I don't want to murder like a Campbell! All the way through, I want to be like Pete Reeve. He don't know it. Maybe when I'm well he'll go off by himself. But whether he's near or far, I've adopted him. I'm going to pattern after him, and the happiest day of my life will be when I earn the right to have this man, that I tried to kill, come and take my hand and call me 'friend'! I guess that answers you, Harry. Now get out and take my talk back to your dad, and don't trouble me no more--you spoil my sleep!" As he spoke the door of the next room opened softly. Peter Reeve stood at the entrance. Harry, shaking with fear, backed toward the other door, then leaped far out, and whirled out of sight with a slam and clatter of feet on the stairs. Pete Reeve came slowly to the bedside. "I was awake, son," he said, "and I couldn't help hearing." Bull flushed heavily. "It's the best thing I ever heard," said Pete. "The best thing that's ever come to my ears--partner!" With that word their hands joined. In reality, far more than he dreamed, Bull had been born again. CHAPTER 11 When they were together, they made a study in contrasts. By seeing one it was possible to imagine the other. For instance, seeing the high, narrow forehead, peaked face, the gray-flecked hair of Pete Reeve, his nervous step, his piercing and uneasy eyes--seeing this man with his body from which all spare flesh was wasted so that he remained only muscle and nerve, it was easy to conjure up the figure of Bull Hunter by thinking of opposites. Their very voices held a world of difference. The tone of Pete Reeve was pitched a little high, hard, and somewhat nasal, and when he was angry his words came shrill and ringing. The mere sound of his voice was irritating--it put one on edge with expectancy of action. Whereas the full, deep, slow, musical voice of Bull Hunter was a veritable sleep producer. Men might fear Charlie Bull Hunter because of his tremendous bulk; but children, hearing his voice, were unafraid. The motions of Pete Reeve were as fast and as deft as the whiplash striking of a snake. The motions of Bull Hunter were premeditated and cautious, as befitting one whose hands might crush what they touched, and whose footfall made a flooring groan. He sat cross-legged on the floor, his back against the wall. They had moved a ponderous stool into the room so that Bull might have something on which to sit, but long habit had made him uneasy in a chair, and he kept to the floor by preference, with the great square chin resting on his fist and his knee supporting his elbow. That position pressed the forearm against the biceps and the big muscles bulged out on either side, vast as the thigh of a strong man. With lionlike wrinkles of attention between his eyes, he listened to the exposition of the little man, and followed his movements with patient submission--like a pupil to whom a great master has consented to unfold the secrets of his brushwork; in such a manner did Bull Hunter drink in the words and the acts of Pete Reeve. And, indeed, where guns were the subject of conversation it would have been hard to find a man more thoroughly equipped to pose as an expert than Pete Reeve. That fleshless hand, all speed of motion as it whipped out the gun from the nerve and sinew, became an incredible ghost with the holster and the long, heavy Colt danced and flashed at his fingertips as though it were a gilded shadow. As he worked he talked, and as he talked he strode constantly back and forth through the room with his light-falling, mincing steps. He grew excited. He flushed. There came a thrill and a ring and a deepening of the voice. For the master was indeed talking of the secrets of his craft. A thousand men of the mountains and the cattle ranges, men who, for personal pride or for physical need, studied accuracy and speed in gunplay, would have paid untold prices to learn these secrets from the lips of the little man. To Bull Hunter the mysteries were revealed for nothing, freely, and drilled and drummed into him through the weeks of his convalescence; and still the lessons continued now that he was hale and hearty once more--as the clean-swept platters from which he ate three times a day gave evidence. "I've practiced, you admit," said Bull in his slow voice, as Pete Reeve came to a pause. "But I haven't got your way with a gun, Pete. You've got a genius for it. I don't blame you for laughing at me when I try to get out my gun fast. I can shoot straight. That's because I haven't any nerves, as you say, but I'll never be able to get out a gun as fast as a thought--the way you do. Fact is, Pete, I don't think fast, you know." "Shut up!" exploded Pete Reeve, who had been inwardly chafing with impatience during the whole length of this speech. "Sometimes you talk like a fool, Bull, and this is one time!" Bull shook his head. "My arms are too big," he said sadly. "The muscle gets in my way. I can feel it bind when I try to jerk out the gun fast. Better give up the job, Pete. I sure appreciate all the pains you've taken with me--but I'll never be a gunfighter." Pete Reeve shook his head with a sigh and then dropped into a chair, growing suddenly inert. "No use," he groaned. "All because you ain't got any confidence, Bull." He leaned forward in his sudden way. "Know something? I been keeping it back, but now I'll tell you the straight of it. You're faster with a gun right now than four men out of five!" Bull gaped in amazement. "Fact!" cried Reeve. "You get it out slicker than most; and after it's out, you shoot as straight as any man I've ever seen. Trouble is, you don't appreciate yourself. You've had it drilled into you so long that you're stupid that now you believe it. All nonsense! You got more than a million have and you're fast right now on the draw. Once get hold of how important it |