The next morning he went out to his work with a light heart.  They had had the help of several new men during the past ten days and now the frame of the roof was almost completed.  It would not be long before Bull’s services could be dispensed with and he connected the idea of the completion of the barn in a symbolic fashion with the completion of his conquest of the stallion.  The two would be accomplished in the same moment, as it were.  No wonder, then, that as he climbed the ladder up the side of the barn, with the ladder quaking beneath his weight, Bull Hunter began to sing, his thundering bass ringing among the ranch buildings until Mrs. Bridewell opened the kitchen window to hear the better, and old Bridewell stopped his ears in mock dismay at the thunder of Bull’s voice.

But the work was not two hours old when little Tod scampered up to his side.

“Bull,” he whispered, “Hal Dunbar is down yonder with a couple of men.  He’s come to ride Diablo.  What’ll we do, Bull?  What’ll we do?”

“Diablo will throw him,” said Bull with conviction.

“But he won’t.  He can’t,” stammered the boy in his excitement.  “Nothing could throw Hal Dunbar.  Wait till you see him!  Just you wait till you see.  Gee, Bull, he’s as big as you and—­”

The other qualifications were apparently too amazing to be adequately described by the vocabulary of Tod.

“If any other man can ride Diablo,” said Bull at length, “I don’t think I care about him so much.  I’ve been figuring that I’m the only man who can get on his back.  If somebody else can handle him, they’re welcome to the horse as far as I’m concerned.”

“Are you going to let him go like that?” Tod was bitter with shame and anger.  “After all our work, are you going to give him up without a fight?”

“A fight would be a gunfight, and a gunfight ends up in a death,” said Bull gently.  “I don’t like bloodshed, Tod!”

The boy writhed.  Here was an idol smashed with a vengeance!

“I might of knowed!” he groaned.  “You ain’t nothing but—­but a big hulk!”

And he turned on his heel and gave the exciting news to his father.

For an event of this caliber, Bridewell called down all his men from the building, and they started for the corral.  Hal Dunbar and his two men already were standing close to the bars, and Diablo stood quivering, high-headed, in the center of the inclosure.  But, of the picture, the attention of Bull Hunter centered mainly on Hal Dunbar.

His dreams of the man had been true.  He was a huge fellow, as tall as Bull, or taller, and nearly as bulky.  But about Bull Hunter there was a suggestion of ponderous unwieldiness, and there was none of that suggestion about Hal Dunbar.  He was lithe and straight as a poplar, and as supple in his movements.  The poise of his head and the alertness of his body and something of lightness in his whole posture told of the trained athlete.  Providence had given the man a marvelous body, and he had improved it to the uttermost.  To crown all, there was a remarkably handsome face, dark eyes and coal-black hair.