In the morning the arduous labors of the building began again, and
though the prodigious appetite of Bull at the breakfast table made
even old Bridewell look askance, Bull had not been at work an hour
handling the ponderous uprights and joists before his employer was
smiling to himself. His new hand was certainly worth his keep, and
more, for weariness seemed a stranger to that big body, and no weight
was too great to be cheerily assumed. And always he worked with a sort
of nervous anxiety as though he feared that he might not be
doing enough.
During the day Bridewell attempted to probe the past history of his
hired man, expecting a story as big as the body of the man, but Bull
was discreetly vague, for he had no wish to reveal his connection with
Pete Reeve; and if he left out Reeve, he felt that there was nothing
in his life worth talking about. Many a time he wondered what the
little gunfighter was doing, and what trail he was riding now. A
dangerous trail, he doubted not, and a lawless trail, he greatly
feared. But someday he might be able to find the terrible little man
and bring him back to a truer place in society.
That night he began again the long, quiet struggle with Diablo; and
before he ended, Diablo had gathered some of the dried fruit from the
palm of his hand with a sensitive, trembling pair of lips. And he had
come back for more, and more. Yet it was not until the next night that
Bull ventured inside the bars of the corral and sat cross-legged on
the ground, with a vague feeling that Diablo would be less alarmed if
his visitor bulked less large.
Inside the bars he seemed an entirely new proposition to the stallion.
The big black kept discreetly on the far side of the corral with much
snorting and stamping, and it was not until the next evening that he
ventured to approach the man. Still another day passed before Bull was
allowed to stand and touch the neck of the black; and that, it seemed
to him, was the greatest forward step toward the conquest.
It was terribly slow work, and in the meantime the skeleton frame of
the barn was fast rising. Would he accomplish his purpose by the time
the barn was completed and Bridewell no longer had a use for him? Or
would Hal Dunbar arrive before that appointed time? That night,
however, another portentous event happened. Waking in the night, Bull
heard a sound of deep, regular breathing close to him, and, turning on
his side, he saw that Diablo had lain down as close to him as the
corral fence would allow, and there he slept, panther-black, sleek in
the starlight. Bull stretched out his hand. The head of the stallion
jerked up, but a moment later he carelessly sniffed the extended
fingers and resumed his position of repose. And the heart of Bull
Hunter swelled with triumph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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