“Draw!”

The command was snapped out; Bull’s gun whipped from the holster; and Pete Reeve drew in the same instant, carelessly, his eyes watching the movement of Bull instead of paying heed and put his gun up again, but Bull followed the example almost reluctantly.

“Nearly beat you that time, Pete,” he exclaimed happily.  “But maybe you weren’t half trying?”

“Beat me?” sneered Pete.  “I wasn’t half trying, but you didn’t beat me.  I shot you twice before you had your muzzle in line.  I shot you in the throat and through the teeth before your gun was ready.”

Bull, with a shrug of the massive shoulders, touched the mentioned places and looked with awe at the little man.

“Now, listen!”

Bull grew tense.

“Watch my draw!”

Pete did not put his hand near the butt of his weapon.  He held his arm out before him, dangling in the air.  There was a convulsive moment.  One could see the imaginary weapon shoot from the holster and become level and rigid, pointed at its mark.

“I’ve seen before—­fast as my eye could go,” Bull sighed.

“Look again,” said Pete, gritting his teeth with impatience.  “This time I’m going so slow a cow could see and beat me.”

He made the same motion, but to an ordinary eye it was still as fast as light.  Bull shook his head.

“Idiot!” cried Pete, his voice jumping up the scale, flat and harsh and piercing.  “It’s the wrist!  Not the arm, but the—­”

He stopped with an expression of dismay.  Even now he regretted revealing the mystery, it seemed.  But then he went on.

“I found out quick that I couldn’t beat a good gunman if I used the old methods.  Practice makes perfect; they practiced as much as I did.  So I studied the methods and the great idea come to me.  They all use the whole arm.  Look at you!  Your shoulder bulges up when you make the draw, and you raise the whole arm.  Matter of fact, you’d ought only to use your fingers.  Not stir a muscle above the wrist.  Now try!”

Bull tried—­the gun did come clear of the holster.

“No good,” he said gravely.  “It’s magic when you do it, Pete.  It just makes a fool of me.”

“Shut up and listen!” Pete said sharply.  “I’m telling you a thing that’ll save your life some day!”

He drew a little closer.  His emotion made him swell to a greater stature, and he rose a little on tiptoe as if partly to make up for the differences between their bulks.

Bull obeyed.

“Now start thinking.  Start concentrating on that right hand.  There’s nothing else to your body.  You see?  You forget you got a muscle.  There’s three things in the world.  You see?  Just three things and no more.  There’s your gun with a bullet in it; there’s your hand that’s going to get the gun out; and there’s your target—­that doorknob, say!  Keep on thinking.  They ain’t any more to your body.  You’re just a hand