"He knew I was nothing. But you're a growed man. But--what's this, Bull? Your back's all wet."

"It's nothing much," said Bull calmly. "When I fell, my head hit a stone. There's some things worth paying for, and Diablo's one of them."

CHAPTER 17

The cut proved, as he had said, to be a small thing; but it turned out that Diablo was far from won. He was haltered and he would carry Bull bareback. The saddle was quite another affair. So Bull returned to the idea of the barley sack, with gradual additions. On each side of the sack he attached hanging straps. Diablo snorted at these and tried them with his teeth. They reminded him vaguely of the swinging stirrups that had so often battered his tender sides. He discovered that the straps were not alive, however, and were not harmful. And when their length was increased and an uncovered stirrup was tied on each side, he gradually became accustomed to these also. The next stage was pa.s.sing the straps under his belly. They were tied there loosely, the circle was completed, and Diablo, examining them critically, found nothing wrong. Then, a dozen times in a single evening, the straps were drawn up, tighter and tighter, until they touched him. At this he became excited, and it required all the resourcefulness of Bull to quiet him. But in three days the barley sack and its queer-looking additions had been changed for a true saddle--with the cinches drawn up tight enough for riding. And this without eliciting a single bucking spasm from Diablo!

Not even to Tod did Bull Hunter impart his great tidings. He had not yet climbed into that real saddle; Diablo had not yet heard the creak of the stirrup leathers under the weight of his rider. Indeed, there was still much to be done before the happy day when he saddled the black stallion and took down the bars of the corral gate and rode him out. And rode him without a bit! For on the point of steel in the mouth of Diablo, Bull Hunter knew that the horse would be against it resolutely. So he confined himself to a light hackamore alone. That was enough, for Diablo had learned to rein over the neck and stop at the slightest pull of the reins.

The next morning he went out to his work with a light heart. They had had the help of several new men during the past ten days and now the frame of the roof was almost completed. It would not be long before Bull's services could be dispensed with and he connected the idea of the completion of the barn in a symbolic fashion with the completion of his conquest of the stallion. The two would be accomplished in the same moment, as it were. No wonder, then, that as he climbed the ladder up the side of the barn, with the ladder quaking beneath his weight, Bull Hunter began to sing, his thundering ba.s.s ringing among the ranch buildings until Mrs. Bridewell opened the kitchen window to hear the better, and old Bridewell stopped his ears in mock dismay at the thunder of Bull's voice.

But the work was not two hours old when little Tod scampered up to his side.

"Bull," he whispered, "Hal Dunbar is down yonder with a couple of men.

He's come to ride Diablo. What'll we do, Bull? What'll we do?"

"Diablo will throw him," said Bull with conviction.

"But he won't. He can't," stammered the boy in his excitement.

"Nothing could throw Hal Dunbar. Wait till you see him! Just you wait till you see. Gee, Bull, he's as big as you and--"

The other qualifications were apparently too amazing to be adequately described by the vocabulary of Tod.

"If any other man can ride Diablo," said Bull at length, "I don't think I care about him so much. I've been figuring that I'm the only man who can get on his back. If somebody else can handle him, they're welcome to the horse as far as I'm concerned."

"Are you going to let him go like that?" Tod was bitter with shame and anger. "After all our work, are you going to give him up without a fight?"

"A fight would be a gunfight, and a gunfight ends up in a death," said Bull gently. "I don't like bloodshed, Tod!"

The boy writhed. Here was an idol smashed with a vengeance!

"I might of knowed!" he groaned. "You ain't nothing but--but a big hulk!"

And he turned on his heel and gave the exciting news to his father.

For an event of this caliber, Bridewell called down all his men from the building, and they started for the corral. Hal Dunbar and his two men already were standing close to the bars, and Diablo stood quivering, high-headed, in the center of the inclosure. But, of the picture, the attention of Bull Hunter centered mainly on Hal Dunbar.

His dreams of the man had been true. He was a huge fellow, as tall as Bull, or taller, and nearly as bulky. But about Bull Hunter there was a suggestion of ponderous unwieldiness, and there was none of that suggestion about Hal Dunbar. He was lithe and straight as a poplar, and as supple in his movements. The poise of his head and the alertness of his body and something of lightness in his whole posture told of the trained athlete. Providence had given the man a marvelous body, and he had improved it to the uttermost. To crown all, there was a remarkably handsome face, dark eyes and coal-black hair.

Yet, more than the imposing body of this hero of the ranges, Bull was impressed by the spirit of the man. The thing that Tod had felt, he felt in turn. It shone from the eye, it spoke in the set of Dunbar's mouth, something unconquerable. It was impossible, after a single glance, to imagine this man failing. Diablo, it was true, had the same invincible air. Indeed, they seemed meant for each other, this horse and this man. They might have been picked from a crowd and the one a.s.signed to the other. Huge, lithe, fleet, powerful, and fiercely free, surely Hal Dunbar was intended by fate to sit in the saddle and govern Diablo according to his will.

The heart of Charlie Hunter sank. Here was the end, then, of all the love he had put into his work, of all the feminine gentleness with which he had petted Diablo and soothed him. And he discovered, in that bitter moment, that he had not worked merely to gain control of the horse. There would be no joy in making Diablo bend to his will. His aim was, and from the first unconsciously had been, to win Diablo so that the stallion would serve him joyously and freely out of the love he bore him. As he thought of this, his glance rested on the long, spoon-handled spurs of big Hal Dunbar.

Dunbar was shaking hands with Bridewell, leaning a trifle over the little old man.

"Here's one that'll be sorry to see you ride Diablo," said Bridewell.

He pointed to Hunter. "He's been working weeks, trying to make a pet out of the hoss."

"A pet out of him? A pet?" echoed Dunbar.

He measured Bull Hunter with a certain bright interest. The sleeves of Bull were rolled up to the elbows and down the forearms ran the tangling ma.s.ses of muscle. But the interest of Dunbar was only monetary. Presently his lip curled slightly, and he turned his haughty head toward the great stallion.

"I'll do something more than pet him. Ill make something useful out of the big brute. Saddle him, boys!"

He gestured carelessly, and his two attendants started toward the corral, one with a heavy saddle and one with a rope. As he stood rolling his cigarette and watching negligently, he impressed Bull as a veritable knight of the ranges, a baron with baronial adherents. It came partly from his splendid stature, and more from his flauntingly rich costume. The heavy gold braid on the sombrero, the gilded spurs, the brilliant silk shirt would have been out of place on another man, but they fit in with Hal Dunbar. They were adjuncts to the pride of his face. Bull's attention wavered to Tod.

"Are--are they going to rope Diablo?"

Tod flashed a half-disgusted, half-despairing glance up at his companion.

"What d'you think they're going to do? What do you think?"

Bull turned away, sick hearted. He could not bear the thought of the great stallion struggling helpless in the snaky coils of the rope. But of course there was no other way. Yet his muscles tightened, and the perspiration poured out on his forehead as he heard a shout from one of the men, then a brief drumming of Diablo's hoofs, and finally the heavy thud as the stallion struck full length on the ground.

That sound stunned Bull as though he had received a blow himself.

Every nerve in him was tingling, revolting against the brutality. They were idiots, hopeless fools, to dream of conquering Diablo by brute force. And if they succeeded, they would have a broken-spirited horse on their hands, worse than useless, or else a treacherous man-killer to the end of his days.

He looked again. Diablo, saddled and blindfolded was being driven out of the corral; a man held him on either side, and his mouth, dragged out, was already bleeding from the cruel Spanish bit. At that Bull Hunter saw red.

When his senses returned to him, he went hurriedly to Dunbar.

"Friend," he said, earnestly pleading, "will you let me make a suggestion?"

The insolent dark eyes ran over him mockingly.

"Oh, you're the fellow who tried to make a pet out of Diablo? Well, what's the suggestion?"

"If you wear those spurs you'll drive him mad! Take 'em off, Mr.

Dunbar!"

Dunbar stared at him in amazement, and then looked to the others. "Did you hear that? This wise one wants me to try to ride without spurs.

Who taught you to ride, eh?"

"I don't know much about it," confessed Bull humbly, "but I know you're apt to cut him up badly with those big spurs."

"And what the devil difference does that make to you?" cried Dunbar with heat. "And what do you mean by all these fool suggestions? I'm riding the horse!"

Bull drew back, downheaded. Hal Dunbar cast one contemptuous glance toward him and then stepped to the side of Diablo. The stallion was quivering and crouching with fear and anger, and shaking his head from time to time to get clear of the bandage which blinded him and made him helpless. Now and then he reared a little and came down on prancing forefeet, and Bull noted the spring and play of the fetlock joints. The whole running mechanism of the horse, indeed, seemed composed of coiled springs. Once released, what would the result be?

And the first hope entered his mind, the first hope since he had seen the proud form of Hal Dunbar.

Now the big man set his hand on the pommel and vaulted into the saddle with a lightness that Bull admired hugely. Under the impact of that descending bulk the stallion crouched almost to the earth, but he came up again with a snort and a strangled neigh of rage.

"Are you ready?" called Dunbar, gathering the reins, and giving the string of his quirt another twist around his right hand.