Bull Hunter, Max Brand [top novels to read .TXT] 📗

a corner and were gone. Instinctively he drew off his hat and gaped.

He was startled back to himself by loud laughter nearby, and, looking up, he saw an old fellow in overalls with a handful of nails and a hammer. He stood among a scattering of uprights which represented, apparently, the beginnings of the skeleton of a barn. Now he leaned against one of these uprights and indulged his mirth. Bull regarded him mildly; he was used to being laughed at.

CHAPTER 14

"That's the way they all do," said the old man. "They all gape the same fool way when they see Diablo the first time."

"Is that the wild horse?" asked Bull in his gentle voice. "That's him. I s'pose after seeing Tod handle him, you'll want to try to ride him right off?"

Bull looked in the direction in which the horse had disappeared. He swallowed a lump that had risen in his throat and shook his head sadly.

"Nope. You see, I dunno nothing about horses, really."

The old man regarded him with a new and sudden interest.

"Takes a wise man to call himself a fool," he declared axiomatically.

Bull took this dubious bit of praise as an invitation and came slowly closer to the other. He had the child's way of eyeing a stranger with embarrassing steadiness at a first meeting and thereafter paying little attention to the face. He wrote the features down in his memory and kept them at hand for reference, as it were. As he drew nearer, the old man grew distinctly serious, and when Bull was directly before him he gazed up into the face of Bull with distinct amazement. At a distance the big man did not seem so large because of the grace of his proportions; when he was directly confronted, however, he seemed a veritable giant.

"By the Lord, you are big. And who might you be, stranger?"

"My name's Charlie Hunter; though mostly folks call me just plain
Bull."

"That's queer," chuckled the other. "Well, glad to know you. I'm
Bridewell."

They shook hands, and Bridewell noted the gentleness of the giant. As a rule strong men are tempted to show their strength when they shake hands; Bridewell appreciated the modesty of Charlie Hunter.

"And you didn't come to ride Diablo?"

"No. I just stopped in to see him. And—" Bull sighed profoundly.

"I know. He gives even me a touch now and then, though I know what a devil he is!"

"Devil?" repeated Bull, astonished. "Why, he's as gentle as a kitten!"

"Because you seen Tod ride him?" Bridewell laughed. "That don't mean nothing. Tod can bully him, sure. But just let a grown man come near him—with a saddle! That'll change things pretty pronto! You'll see the finest little bit of boiled-down hell-raising that ever was! The jingle of a pair of spurs is Diablo's idea of a drum—and he makes his charge right off! Gentle? Huh!" The grunt was expressive. "And what good's a hoss if he can't be rode with a saddle?" He waved the subject of Diablo into the distance. "They ain't any hope unless Hal Dunbar can ride him. If he can't, I'll shoot the beast!"

"Shoot him?" echoed Bull Hunter. He took a pace back, and his big, boyish face clouded to a frown. "Not that, I guess!"

"Why not?" asked Bridewell, curious at the change in the big stranger.
"Why not? What good is he?"

"Why—he's good just to look at. I'd keep him just for that."

"And you can have him just for that—if you can manage to handle him.
Want to try?"

Bull shook his head. "I don't know nothing about horses," he confessed again. He glanced at the skeleton of standing beams. "Building a barn, eh?"

"You wouldn't call it pitching hay or shoeing a hoss that I'm doing, I guess," said the old fellow crossly. "I'm fussing at building a barn, but a fine chance I got. I get all my timber here—look at that!"

He indicated the stacks of beams and lumber around him.

"And then I get some men out of town to work with me on it. But they get lonely. Don't like working on a ranch. Besides, they had a scrap with me. I wouldn't have 'em loafing around the job. Rather have no help at all than have a loafer helping me. So they quit. Then I tried to get my cowhands to give me a lift, but they wouldn't touch a hammer. Specialists in cows is what they say they are, ding bust 'em! So here I am trying to do something and doing nothing. How can I handle a beam that it takes three men to lift?"

He illustrated by going to a stack of long and massive timbers and tugging at the end of one of them. He was able to raise that end only a few inches.

"You see?"

Bull nodded.

"Suppose you give me the job handling the timbers?" he suggested. "I ain't much good with a hammer and nails, but I might manage the lifting."

"All by yourself? One man?" he eyed the bulk of Bull hopefully for a moment, then the light faded from his face. "Nope, you couldn't raise 'em. Not them joists yonder!"

"I think I could," said Bull.

Old Bridewell thrust out his jaw. He had been a combative man in his youth; and he still had the instinct of a fighter.

"I got ten dollars," he said, "that says you can't lift that beam and put her up on end! That one right there, that I tried to lift a minute ago!"

"All right," Bull nodded.

"You're on for the bet?" the old man chuckled gayly. "All right. Let's see you give a heave!"

Bull Hunter obediently stepped to the timber. It was a twelve footer of bulky dimensions, heavy wood not thoroughly seasoned. Yet he did not approach one end of it. He laid his immense hands on the center of it. Old Bridewell chuckled to himself softly as he watched; he was beginning to feel that the big stranger was a little simple-minded. His chuckling ceased when he saw the timber cant over on one edge.

"Look out!" he called, for Bull had slipped his hand under the lifted side. "You'll get your fingers smashed plumb off that way."

"I have to get a hold under it, you see," explained Bull calmly, and so saying his knees sagged a little and when they straightened the timber rose lightly in his hands and was placed on his shoulder.

"Where'd you like to have it?" asked Bull.

Bridewell rubbed his eyes. "Yonder," he said faintly.

Bull walked to the designated place, the great timber teetering up and down, quivering with the jar of each stride. There he swung one end to the ground and thrust the other up until it was erect.

"Is this the way you want it?" said Bull.

By this time Bridewell had recovered his self-possession to some degree, yet his eyes were wide as he approached.

"Yep. Just let it lean agin' that corner piece, will you, Hunter?"

Bull obeyed.

"That might make a fellow's shoulder sort of sore," he remarked, "if he had to carry those timbers all day."

"All day?" gasped Bridewell, and then he saw that the giant, indeed, was not even panting from his effort. He was already turning his attention to the pile of timbers.

"Here," he said, reluctantly drawing out some money. "Here's your ten."

But Bull refused it. "Can't take it," he explained. "I just made the bet by way of talk. You see, I knew I could lift it; and you didn't have any real idea about me. Besides, if I'd lost I couldn't have paid. I haven't any money."

He said this so gravely and simply that old Bridewell watched him quizzically, half suspecting that there was a touch of irony hidden somewhere. It gradually dawned on him that a man who was flat broke was refusing money which he had won fairly on a bet. The idea staggered Bridewell. He was within an ace of putting Bull Hunter down as a fool. Something held him back, through some underlying respect for the physical might of the big man and a respect, also, for the honesty which looked out of his eyes. He pocketed the money slowly. He was never averse to saving.

"But I've been thinking," said Bull, as he sadly watched the money disappear, "that you might be needing me to help you put up the barn? Do you think you could hire me?"

"H'm," grumbled Bridewell. "You think you could handle these big timbers all day?"

"Yes," said Bull, "if none of 'em are any bigger than that last one.
Yes, I could handle 'em all day easily."

It was impossible to doubt that he said this judiciously and not with a desire to overstate his powers. In spite of himself the old rancher believed.

"You see," explained Bull eagerly, "you said that you needed three men for that work. That's why I ask."

"And I suppose you'd want the pay of three men?"

Bull shook his head. "Anything you want to pay me," he declared.

The rancher frowned. This sounded like the beginning of a shrewd bargain, and his respect and suspicion were equally increased.

"Suppose you say what you want?" he asked.

"Well," Bull said slowly, "I'd have to have a place to sleep. And—I'm a pretty big eater."

"I guess you are," said Bridewell. "But if you do three men's work you got a right to three men's food. What else do you want?"

Bull considered, as though there were few other wishes that he could express. "I haven't any money," he apologized. "D'you think maybe you could pay me a little something outside of food and a place to sleep?"

Bridewell blinked, and then prepared himself to become angry, when it dawned on him that this was not intended for sarcasm. He found that Bull was searching his face eagerly, as though he feared that he were asking too much.

"What would do you?" suggested Bridewell tentatively.

"I dunno," said Bull, sighing with relief. "Anything you think."

It was plain that the big man was half-witted—or nearly so. Bridewell kept the sparkle of exultation out of his eyes.

"You leave it to me, then, and I'll do what's more'n right by you.
When d'you want to start work?"

"Right now."

CHAPTER 15

When Bull left the dining room that night after supper, Mrs. Bridewell looked across the table at her husband with horror in her eyes.

"Did you see?" she gasped. "He ate the whole pot of beans!"

"Sure I seen him," and he grinned.

"But—he'll eat us out of house and home! Why, he's like a wolf!"

Bridewell chuckled with superior knowledge. "He's ate enough for three," he admitted, "but he's worked enough for six—besides, most of his wages come in food. But work? I never seen anything like it! He handled more timbers than a dozen. When it come to spiking them in place he seen me swinging that twelve-pound sledge and near breaking my back. 'I think it's easier this way,' he says. 'Besides you can hit a lot faster if you use just one hand.' And he takes the hammer, and sends that big spike in all the way to the head with one lick. And he wondered why I didn't work the same way! Ain't got any idea how strong he is."

Mrs. Bridewell listened with wide eyes. "The idea," she murmured. "The idea! Where's he now?"

Her husband went to the back door. "He's sitting over by the pump talking to Tod. Sitting talking like they was one age. I reckon he's sort of half-witted."

"How come?" sharply asked Mrs. Bridewell. "Ain't Tod got more brains than most growed-up men?"

"I reckon he has," admitted the proud father.

And if they had put the same question to Bull Hunter, the giant would have agreed with them emphatically. He approached the child tamer of Diablo with a diffidence that was almost reverence. The freckle-faced boy looked up from his whittling when the shadow of Bull fell athwart him, with an equal admiration; also with suspicion, for the cowpunchers, on the whole, were apt to make game of the youngster and his grave, grown-up ways. He was, therefore, shrewdly suspicious of jests at his expense.

Furthermore, he had seen the big stranger heaving the great timbers about and whirling the sledge with one hand; he half suspected that the jokes might be pointed with the weight of