CHAPTER 17
The cut proved, as he had said, to be a small thing; but it turned outthat Diablo was far from won. He was haltered and he would carry Bullbareback. The saddle was quite another affair. So Bull returned to theidea of the barley sack, with gradual additions. On each side of thesack he attached hanging straps. Diablo snorted at these and triedthem with his teeth. They reminded him vaguely of the swingingstirrups that had so often battered his tender sides. He discoveredthat the straps were not alive, however, and were not harmful. Andwhen their length was increased and an uncovered stirrup was tied oneach side, he gradually became accustomed to these also. The nextstage was passing the straps under his belly. They were tied thereloosely, the circle was completed, and Diablo, examining themcritically, found nothing wrong. Then, a dozen times in a singleevening, the straps were drawn up, tighter and tighter, until theytouched him. At this he became excited, and it required all theresourcefulness of Bull to quiet him. But in three days the barleysack and its queer-looking additions had been changed for a truesaddle--with the cinches drawn up tight enough for riding. And thiswithout eliciting a single bucking spasm from Diablo!
Not even to Tod did Bull Hunter impart his great tidings. He had notyet climbed into that real saddle; Diablo had not yet heard the creakof the stirrup leathers under the weight of his rider. Indeed, therewas still much to be done before the happy day when he saddled theblack stallion and took down the bars of the corral gate and rode himout. And rode him without a bit! For on the point of steel in themouth of Diablo, Bull Hunter knew that the horse would be against itresolutely. So he confined himself to a light hackamore alone. Thatwas enough, for Diablo had learned to rein over the neck and stop atthe slightest pull of the reins.
The next morning he went out to his work with a light heart. They hadhad the help of several new men during the past ten days and now theframe of the roof was almost completed. It would not be long beforeBull's services could be dispensed with and he connected the idea ofthe completion of the barn in a symbolic fashion with the completionof his conquest of the stallion. The two would be accomplished in thesame moment, as it were. No wonder, then, that as he climbed theladder up the side of the barn, with the ladder quaking beneath hisweight, Bull Hunter began to sing, his thundering bass ringing amongthe ranch buildings until Mrs. Bridewell opened the kitchen window tohear the better, and old Bridewell stopped his ears in mock dismay atthe thunder of Bull's voice.
But the work was not two hours old when little Tod scampered up to hisside.
"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 waittill you see. Gee, Bull, he's as big as you and--"
The other qualifications were apparently too amazing to be adequatelydescribed by the vocabulary of Tod.
"If any other man can ride Diablo," said Bull at length, "I don'tthink I care about him so much. I've been figuring that I'm the onlyman who can get on his back. If somebody else can handle him, they'rewelcome to the horse as far as I'm concerned."
"Are you going to let him go like that?" Tod was bitter with shame andanger. "After all our work, are you going to give him up withouta fight?"
"A fight would be a gunfight, and a gunfight ends up in a death," saidBull 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 bighulk!"
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 fromthe building, and they started for the corral. Hal Dunbar and his twomen already were standing close to the bars, and Diablo stoodquivering, high-headed, in the center of the inclosure. But, of thepicture, 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 asBull, or taller, and nearly as bulky. But about Bull Hunter there wasa suggestion of ponderous unwieldiness, and there was none of thatsuggestion about Hal Dunbar. He was lithe and straight as a poplar,and as supple in his movements. The poise of his head and thealertness of his body and something of lightness in his whole posturetold of the trained athlete. Providence had given the man a marvelousbody, and he had improved it to the uttermost. To crown all, there wasa remarkably handsome face, dark eyes and coal-black hair.
Yet, more than the imposing body of this hero of the ranges, Bull wasimpressed by the spirit of the man. The thing that Tod had felt, hefelt in turn. It shone from the eye, it spoke in the set of Dunbar'smouth, something unconquerable. It was impossible, after a singleglance, to imagine this man failing. Diablo, it was true, had the sameinvincible air. Indeed, they seemed meant for each other, this horseand this man. They might have been picked from a crowd and the oneassigned to the other. Huge, lithe, fleet, powerful, and fiercelyfree, surely Hal Dunbar was intended by fate to sit in the saddle andgovern Diablo according to his will.
The heart of Charlie Hunter sank. Here was the end, then, of all thelove he had put into his work, of all the feminine gentleness withwhich he had petted Diablo and soothed him. And he discovered, in thatbitter moment, that he had not worked merely to gain control of thehorse. There would be no joy in making Diablo bend to his will. Hisaim was, and from the first unconsciously had been, to win Diablo sothat the stallion would serve him joyously and freely out of the lovehe 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 thelittle 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 petout of the hoss."
"A pet out of him? A pet?" echoed Dunbar.
He measured Bull Hunter with a certain bright interest. The sleeves ofBull were rolled up to the elbows and down the forearms ran thetangling masses of muscle. But the interest of Dunbar was onlymonetary. Presently his lip curled slightly, and he turned his haughtyhead toward the great stallion.
"I'll do something more than pet him. Ill make something useful out ofthe big brute. Saddle him, boys!"
He gestured carelessly, and his two attendants started toward thecorral, one with a heavy saddle and one with a rope. As he stoodrolling his cigarette and watching negligently, he impressed Bull as averitable knight of the ranges, a baron with baronial adherents. Itcame partly from his splendid stature, and more from his flauntinglyrich 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 ofhis face. Bull's attention wavered to Tod.
"Are--are they going to rope Diablo?"
Tod flashed a half-disgusted, half-despairing glance up at hiscompanion.
"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 thegreat stallion struggling helpless in the snaky coils of the rope. Butof course there was no other way. Yet his muscles tightened, and theperspiration poured out on his forehead as he heard a shout from oneof the men, then a brief drumming of Diablo's hoofs, and finally theheavy 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. Theywere idiots, hopeless fools, to dream of conquering Diablo by bruteforce. And if they succeeded, they would have a broken-spirited horseon their hands, worse than useless, or else a treacherous man-killerto the end of his days.
He looked again. Diablo, saddled and blindfolded was being driven outof the corral; a man held him on either side, and his mouth,
draggedout, was already bleeding from the cruel Spanish bit. At that BullHunter saw red.
When his senses returned to him, he went hurriedly to Dunbar.
"Friend," he said, earnestly pleading, "will you let me make asuggestion?"
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. "Didyou 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 knowyou're apt to cut him up badly with those big spurs."
"And what the devil difference does that make to you?" cried Dunbarwith heat. "And what do you mean by all these fool suggestions? I'mriding the horse!"
Bull drew back, downheaded. Hal Dunbar cast one contemptuous glancetoward him and then stepped to the side of Diablo. The stallion wasquivering and crouching with fear and anger, and shaking his head fromtime to time to get clear of the bandage which blinded him and madehim helpless. Now and then he reared a little and came down onprancing forefeet, and Bull noted the spring and play of the fetlockjoints. The whole running mechanism of the horse, indeed, seemedcomposed of coiled springs. Once released, what would the result be?And the first hope entered his mind, the first hope since he had seenthe proud form of Hal Dunbar.
Now the big man set his hand on the pommel and vaulted into the saddlewith a lightness that Bull admired hugely. Under the impact of thatdescending bulk the stallion crouched almost to the earth, but he cameup again with a snort and a strangled neigh of rage.
"Are you ready?" called Dunbar, gathering the reins, and giving thestring of his quirt another twist around his right hand.
One of his men had mounted his horse with a rope, the noose end ofwhich was around Diablo's neck. This would serve as a pivot block tokeep Diablo running in a circle. If he tried to run in a straight linethe running noose would stop him and choke him down. He would have togallop in a circle for his bucking, and to help keep him in thatcircle, the spectators now grouped themselves loosely in a wide rim.But Bull Hunter did not move. From where he stood he could see allthat he wished.
"All ready!" called the man with the rope.
"Let her go, then!"
The bandage was torn from the eyes of the stallion by Dunbar's secondassistant, and the fellow leaped aside as he did so. Even then hebarely escaped. Diablo had launched himself in pursuit, and his teethsnapped a fraction of an inch from the shoulder of the fugitive as therope came taut and jerked him aside, and the full weight of Dunbar wasthrown back on the reins.
That mighty wrench of back and shoulder and arm would have broken thejaw of an ordinary horse; it hardly disturbed Diablo. His head wasfirst tucked back until his chin was against his breast, but a momentlater he was head down, bucking as never horse bucked before. Onesecond earlier Hal Dunbar had seemed almost as powerful as the animalhe rode; now he suddenly became small.
For one thing Diablo wasted no time running against the rope. Hefollowed the line of least resistance and bolted around the widecircle with tremendous leaps, gathering impetus as he ran--thenstopping in mid-career by the terrific process of hurling himself inthe air and coming down on four stiff legs and with his back humped sothat the rider sat at the uneasy apex of a pyramid. And this wasmerely a beginning. That wild category of tricks which Bull had seenpartially unraveled the first time he visited the horse was nowbrought forth again, enlarged, improved upon, made more intricate,intensified. But well and nobly did Hal Dunbar sustain his fame as apeerless rider. He rode straight up, and a cheer came from thespectators when they saw that he was not touching leather in the midstof the fiercest contortions of Diablo. It seemed that the great brutewould snap the very saddle off his back, but still the rider saterect, swaying as though in a storm, but still firmly glued tothe saddle.
Even the heart of Bull Hunter warmed to the battle. They were abrutally glorious pair as they struggled. The wrenching hand of therider and the Spanish bit had bloodied the mouth of the stallion, thespurs were clinging horribly at his sides, and he fought back like amad thing. He flung himself on the ground, Dunbar barely slipped fromthe saddle in time, and whipped onto his feet again, but as he lurchedup, he carried the weight of the rider again, for Dunbar had leapedinto his seat, and as Diablo came up on all fours, it could be seenthat the big man had secured both stirrups--the difficult thing inthat feature of the fight. Dunbar urged the stallion on with a yell;and swinging the quirt over his head, he brought it down with astinging cut on the silky flanks of the great horse. Bull Huntercrouched as though the lash had cut into his own flesh. He becamesavage for the moment. He wanted to have his hands on that rider!
But the cut of the quirt transformed Diablo. If he had fought hardbefore, he now fell into a truly demoniacal frenzy. The long flashinglegs were springs indeed, and the moment his hoofs struck the earth hewas flung up again to a greater height. He was sunfishing now in thatmost deadly manner when the horse lands on one forehoof, the riderreceiving a double jar from the down-shock and then the whiplash snapto the side. Hal Dunbar was no longer using his quirt. It dangled idlyat his side. The joy had gone from his face. In its place, as shockafter shock benumbed his brain, there was an expression of fiercedespair. Neither was he riding straight up, but he was pullingleather.
Otherwise, nothing human could have retained a seat in the saddle foran instant. Diablo, squealing, snorting, and grunting with effort, wasdashing back and forth, flinging himself aloft, coming down on onestiff leg, doubling back with jackrabbit agility.
There was no longer applause from the onlookers. Old Bridewell himselfin all of his years had never seen riding such as this, and it seemedthat Diablo at last had met his master. Never had he fought as hefought now; never had he been stayed with as he was now. With foam andsweat the great black was reeking, but never once were the effortsrelaxed. It was too terrible a sight to be applauded.
Then, at the end of a run, instead of hurling himself into the air ashe had usually done before, Diablo flung himself down and rolled. Itcaught Dunbar by surprise, but the yell of horror from the bystandersstimulated him to sharp action, and he was out of the saddle in thelast hair's breadth of time.
Diablo had been carried on over to his feet by the impetus of thefall, and he was already rising when Dunbar leaped for the saddle.Fair and true he struck the saddle and with marvelous skill his leftfoot caught the stirrup and clung to it--but the right foot missed itsaim, and, before Dunbar could lodge his foot squarely, the stirrup wasdancing crazily as Diablo began a wild combination of cross-buckingand sunfishing. The hat snapped from the head of Dunbar and his longblack hair tossed; with both hands he was clinging. All joy of battlewas gone from him. In its place was staring fear, for his right footwas still out of the stirrup.
"Choke him down! Choke him--" he shrieked.
Before he could be obeyed by his confused henchmen, Diablo shot intothe air and at the very crest of his rise, bucked. Dunbar lurched toone side. There was a groan from the bystanders; and the next instantthe stallion, landing on the one stiffened foreleg, had snapped hisrider from the saddle and hurled him to the ground.
He lay in a shapeless heap, and the stallion whirled to finish hisenemy.