Bull Hunter | Page 7

down at his empty fingers, dreaming
over his own thoughts as contentedly as though the living page were in
his vision. There was small satisfaction in tormenting him in these
ways.

Tonight they dared not bother him. The stained hands were still in their
minds, and the tremendous, joyous laughter as he whirled the stump
over his head still rang in their ears. But they watched him with a sullen
envy of his immobility. Just as a man without an overcoat envies the
woolly coat of a dog on a windy December day.
Only one sound roused the reader. It was a sudden loud snorting from
the shed behind the house and a dull trampling that came to him
through the noise of the rising wind. It brought Bull lurching to his feet,
and the stove jingled as his weight struck the yielding center boards of
the floor. Out into the blackness he strode. The wind shut around him at
once and plastered his clothes against his body as if he had been
drenched to the skin in water. Then he closed the door.
"What brung him to life?" asked Harry.
"Nothin', He just heard ol' Maggie snort. Always bothers him when
Maggie gets scared of something--the old fool!"
Maggie was an ancient, broken-down draft horse. Strange vicissitudes
had brought her up into the mountains via the logging camp. She was
kept, not because there was any real hauling to be done for Bill
Campbell, but because, having got her for nothing, she reminded him
of the bargain she had been. And Bull, apparently understanding the
sluggish nature of the old mare by sympathy of kind, use to work her to
the single plow among the rocks of their clearing. Here, every autumn,
they planted seed that never grew to mature grain. But that was Bill
Campbell's idea of making a home.
Presently Bull came back and settled with a slump into his old place.
"Going to snow?" asked Harry.
"Yep."
"Feel it in the wind?"
It was an old joke among them, for Bull often declared with ridiculous

solemnity that he could foretell snow by the change in the air.
"Yep," answered Bull, "I felt the wind."
He looked up at them, abashed, but they were too hungry to waste
breath with laughter. They merely sneered at him as he settled back into
his book. And, just as his head bowed, a far shouting swept down at
them as the wind veered to a new point.
"Uncle Bill!" said Bull and rose again to open the door.
The others wedged in behind his bulk and stared into the blackness.

CHAPTER 3
They stood with the wind taking them with its teeth and pressing them
heavily back. They could hear the fire flare and flutter in the stove; then
the wind screamed again, and the wail came down to them.
"Uncle Bill!" repeated Bull and, lowering his head, strode into the
storm.
The others exchanged frightened glances and then followed, but not
outside of the shaft of light from the door. In the first place it was
probably not their father. Who could imagine Bill shouting for help?
Such a thing had never been dreamed of by his worst enemies, and they
knew that their father's were legion. Besides it was cold, and this was a
wild-goose chase which meant a chilled hide and no gain.
But, presently, through the darkness they made out the form of a
horseman and the great bulk of Bull coming back beside him. Then
they ran out into the night.
They recognized the hatless, squat figure of their father at once, even in
the dark, with the wind twitching his beard sideways. When they called
to him he did not speak. Then they saw that Bull was leading the horse.

Plainly something was wrong, and presently they discovered that Bill
Campbell was actually tied upon his horse. He gave no orders, and they
cut the ropes in silence. Still he did not dismount.
"Bull," he commanded, "lift me off the hoss!"
The giant plucked him out of the saddle and placed him on the ground,
but his legs buckled under him, and he fell forward on his face. Any of
the three could have saved him, but the spectacle of the terrible old
man's helplessness benumbed their senses and their muscles.
"Carry me in!" said Bill at last.
Bull lifted him and bore him gingerly through the door and placed him
on the bunk. The light revealed a grisly spectacle. Crimson stains and
dirt literally covered him; his left leg was bandaged below the knee; his
right shoulder was roughly splinted with small twigs and swathed in
cloth.
The long ride, with his legs tied in place, had apparently paralyzed his
nerves below the hips. He