Bull Hunter

h the labors of the climb. Yonder was the dark streak of the timberline again. Far down the valley he watched it curving in and out along the mountainside like a water level.

nothing until it was pointed out to him, heard nothing that was not first called to his attention. He had always wondered at the acuteness of the senses of all other men. But now, looking on the mountains for himself, he decided, with a

te against a blue sky. Again the heart of Bull Hunter leaped. Here was a great trea

re he was to cross the flight of Pete Reeve, if Pete were indeed flying. But it was incredible

ey. A dull noise came down to him from the m

was twisting swiftly down. He looked curiously. The thing grew, traveling with grea

ntain, but, in his experience, slides were as treacherous as serpents. Bull started h

which had twisted across the surface of the old snows of the winter, had been gaining in weight, in momentum, picking up claws of shrubbery, teeth of stone, and eating through layer after layer of the old snow, packed hard as ic

moment that he reached this decision, the front of the slide smashed with a noise like volleyed canyon against the side of a hill, tossed immense arms of white in the air, floundered, and then veered with the speed of an express train rounding a curve a

roar, his senses were drowned. He could feel his knees weaken and buckle, but the cliff, now just before him, gave him fresh strength. But was the cliff high enough? He hurried up to higher grou

floor, tossing the great trees in its top and poured straight at him. He watched it in one of those dazes during which one sees everything. The whole body came like water down a chute, but one part of

t the sun, misty at the edges of each column, whose center was solid tons and tons of snow. Old pines and spruces, their branches shaved away in the tumult of the slide, were picked up and hur

t down in a broadening scar, black and raw, across forest and snow. Far down the valley the last echoes of thu

alley wall until he could descend to the clear floo

t when, at the conclusion of that first heroic march, he reached Johnstown. Wit

e idlers around the stove, "Has any of you gents s

emed taller than the entrance-taller and as wide, a mountain of a man. The efforts of the march had collected a continual frown o

Talk was his commercial medium and staff of

ched the face of the proprietor carefully to detect mockery. To his surprise the ot

ughed uneasily, "I figure it's pretty lucky tha

r eyes upon the giant at the door. He was leaning against the w

g; hands like the claws of a bird's; iron-gray hai

e came over the mountains and just got past the summit, he said, before the storm hit. Lucky, eh

I was at the timberline on the o

o man could have traveled that distance between dawn and dark, but it was as

o eat,"

out of his chair. "I

ked after him, stride by stride. It was beginning to seem possible that this man had done what he said he had done. When

d the name of the big man. And it was fitting that the huge figure of Bull Hunter should ha

ic was far from the mind of Bull

" his host was saying, pl

d simply. "Besides I'm more used to sitting on the floor." He dropped to the floor accordingly, with the effect of a small

u got?"

ng with a dozen fresh eggs. Got some

d then a platter of bacon, and you might mix up a bowl of fla

only nod, for he dare

he repeated the prodi

back way and communic

round th

r four quarts of milk and a bowl of flapjacks and a platter of bacon," was t

and peer through the window at the huge, bunched figure that sat on the floor. They found hi

with the assistance of a rope and a limb of a tree. Somewhere he must cut in ahead of this Reeve and start out at him if possible. As for his ability to keep pace with a horse he had no doubt that he could do it fairly well. More than once he had go

Reeve?" asked the host, as

, and instantly he beg

He came back with the first stack of flapjacks and bacon and more questions. "But I'd think that a gent like you'd

"But they's so much of me to kill that I don'

he could answer Bull continued in the exposition of his theory.

ght him bare han

ch good with a gun, but I feel sort of curious a

dation on which anoth

egend wa