But they were shrilling new directions at him; perhaps they had been calling to him several times.

“You blamed idiot, are you goin’ to stand there all day?  We didn’t give you that stump to rest on.  Pull it up!”

He started with a sense of guilt and tugged up.  His fingers slipped off their separate grips, and the stump, though it groaned against the taproot under the strain, did not come out.

“It don’t seem to budge, somehow,” said Bull in his big, soft, plaintive voice.  Then he waited for the laughter.  There was always laughter, no matter what he did or said, but he never grew calloused against it.  It was the one pain which ever pierced the mist of his brain and cut him to the quick.  And he was right.  There was laughter again.  He stood suffering mutely under it.

The girl’s face became grave.  She murmured to Harry, “Ever try praisin’ to big stupid?”

“Him?  Are you joshin’ me, Jessie?  What’s he ever done to be praised about?”

“You watch!” said the girl.  Growing excited with her idea, she called, “Say, Bull!”

He lifted his head, but not his eyes.  Those eyes studied the impatient feet of the girl’s mustang; he waited for another stroke of wit that would bring forth a fresh shower of laughter at his expense.

“Bull, you’re mighty big and strong.  About the biggest and strongest man I ever seen!”

Was this a new and subtle form of mockery?  He waited dully.

“I seen Harry and Joe both try to pull up that root, and they couldn’t so much as budge it.  But I bet you could do it all alone, Bull!  You just try!  I bet you could!”

It amazed him.  He lifted his eyes at length; his face suffused with a flush; his big, cloudy eyes were glistening with moisture.

“D’you mean that?” he asked huskily.

For this terrible, clear-eyed creature, this mocking mind, this alert, cruel wit was actually speaking words of confidence.  A great, dim joy welled up in the heart of Bull Hunter.  He shook the forelock out of his eyes.

“You just try, will you, Bull?”

“I’ll try!”

He bowed.  Again his thick fingers sought for a grip, found places, worked down through the soft dirt and the pulpy bark to solid wood, and then he began to lift.  It was a gradual process.  His knees gave, sagging under the strain from the arms.  Then the back began to grow rigid, and the legs in turn grew stiff, as every muscle fell into play.  The shoulders pushed forward and down.  The forearms, revealed by the short sleeves, showed a bewildering tangle of corded muscle, and, at the wrists, the tendons sprang out as distinct and white as the new strings of a violin.

The three spectators were undergoing a change.  The suppressed grins of the two brothers faded.  They glanced at the girl to see if she were not laughing at the results of her words to big Bull, but the girl was staring.  She had set that mighty power to work, and she was amazed by the thing she saw.  And they, looking back at Bull, were amazed in turn.  They had seen him lift great logs, wrench boulders from the earth.  But always it had been a proverb within the Campbell family that Bull would make only one attempt and, failing in the first effort, would try no more.  They had never seen the mysterious resources of his strength called upon.