The enormity of this lack made Tod stare, for travel and horses were inseparably connected in his mind.  He shuddered a little at the thought of the big man stalking across the burning and interminable sands of the desert or toiling through the mountains.  It seemed to him that he could see the signs of that pain stamped in the face of Bull Hunter, and his heart leaped again in sympathy.

“So when I saw Diablo—­” Bull paused.  But Tod had understood.  Suddenly the boy became excited.

“Suppose you was to learn to ride Diablo before Hal Dunbar come to try him out?  Suppose that?”

“Could you teach me?” the giant asked in an almost awed whisper.

The child looked over his companion with a vague wonder.  It would be a tremendous responsibility, this teaching of the giant, but what could be more spectacular than to have such a man as his pupil?  But to share his unique empire over Diablo—­that would be a great price to pay!

“No,” he decided, “it wouldn’t do.  Besides, suppose even I could teach you how to ride Diablo—­with a saddle, which I don’t think I could—­what would happen when Hal Dunbar come up to these parts and found that the hoss he wanted was somebody else’s?  He’d make an awful fuss—­and he’s a fighting man, Bull.”

He said this impressively, leaning a little toward the giant, and he was rewarded infinitely by seeing the right hand of the giant stir a little toward the holster at his thigh.

“I guess I’d have to take my chance with him,” was all Bull answered in his mildest tone.

Tod was beginning to guess that there was a certain amount of mental strength under this quiet exterior.  He had often noted that his father, who made by far the most noise, was more easily placated than his mother, in spite of her gentle silences.  The strength of Bull Hunter had a strain of the same thing about it.

“You’d take a chance with Hal Dunbar?” he repeated wonderingly.  He trembled a little, with a sort of nervous ecstasy at the thought of that coming encounter.  “That’s more’n anybody else in these parts would do.  Why, everybody’s heard about Hal Dunbar.  Everybody’s scared of him.  He can ride anything that’s big enough to carry him; he can fight like a wildcat with his hands; and he can shoot like”—­his eye wandered toward a superlative—­“like Pete Reeve, almost,” he concluded with a tone of awe.

A spark of tenderness shone in the eye of Bull.  “D’you know Pete Reeve?”

“No, and I don’t want to.  Ma had a brother once, and he met up with Pete Reeve.”

A tragedy was inferred in that oblique reference.  Bull decided that this was a conversational topic on which he must remain silent, and yet he yearned to speak of the little withered catlike fellow with the wise brain who had done so much for him.

“When I’m big enough,” mused the boy with a quiet savagery, “maybe I’ll meet up with Pete Reeve.”