“Why—­he’s good just to look at.  I’d keep him just for that.”

“And you can have him just for that—­if you can manage to handle him.  Want to try?”

Bull shook his head.  “I don’t know nothing about horses,” he confessed again.  He glanced at the skeleton of standing beams.  “Building a barn, eh?”

“You wouldn’t call it pitching hay or shoeing a hoss that I’m doing, I guess,” said the old fellow crossly.  “I’m fussing at building a barn, but a fine chance I got.  I get all my timber here—­look at that!”

He indicated the stacks of beams and lumber around him.

“And then I get some men out of town to work with me on it.  But they get lonely.  Don’t like working on a ranch.  Besides, they had a scrap with me.  I wouldn’t have ’em loafing around the job.  Rather have no help at all than have a loafer helping me.  So they quit.  Then I tried to get my cowhands to give me a lift, but they wouldn’t touch a hammer.  Specialists in cows is what they say they are, ding bust ’em!  So here I am trying to do something and doing nothing.  How can I handle a beam that it takes three men to lift?”

He illustrated by going to a stack of long and massive timbers and tugging at the end of one of them.  He was able to raise that end only a few inches.

“You see?”

Bull nodded.

“Suppose you give me the job handling the timbers?” he suggested.  “I ain’t much good with a hammer and nails, but I might manage the lifting.”

“All by yourself?  One man?” he eyed the bulk of Bull hopefully for a moment, then the light faded from his face.  “Nope, you couldn’t raise ’em.  Not them joists yonder!”

“I think I could,” said Bull.

Old Bridewell thrust out his jaw.  He had been a combative man in his youth; and he still had the instinct of a fighter.

“I got ten dollars,” he said, “that says you can’t lift that beam and put her up on end!  That one right there, that I tried to lift a minute ago!”

“All right,” Bull nodded.

“You’re on for the bet?” the old man chuckled gayly.  “All right.  Let’s see you give a heave!”

Bull Hunter obediently stepped to the timber.  It was a twelve footer of bulky dimensions, heavy wood not thoroughly seasoned.  Yet he did not approach one end of it.  He laid his immense hands on the center of it.  Old Bridewell chuckled to himself softly as he watched; he was beginning to feel that the big stranger was a little simple-minded.  His chuckling ceased when he saw the timber cant over on one edge.

“Look out!” he called, for Bull had slipped his hand under the lifted side.  “You’ll get your fingers smashed plumb off that way.”

“I have to get a hold under it, you see,” explained Bull calmly, and so saying his knees sagged a little and when they straightened the timber rose lightly in his hands and was placed on his shoulder.

“Where’d you like to have it?” asked Bull.