With lionlike wrinkles of attention between his eyes, he listened to the exposition of the little man, and followed his movements with patient submission--like a pupil to whom a great master has consented to unfold the secrets of his brushwork; in such a manner did Bull Hunter drink in the words and the acts of Pete Reeve. And, indeed, where guns were the subject of conversation it would have been hard to find a man more thoroughly equipped to pose as an expert than Pete Reeve. That fleshless hand, all speed of motion as it whipped out the gun from the nerve and sinew, became an incredible ghost with the holster and the long, heavy Colt danced and flashed at his fingertips as though it were a gilded shadow.
As he worked he talked, and as he talked he strode constantly back and forth through the room with his light-falling, mincing steps. He grew excited. He flushed. There came a thrill and a ring and a deepening of the voice. For the master was indeed talking of the secrets of his craft.
A thousand men of the mountains and the cattle ranges, men who, for personal pride or for physical need, studied accuracy and speed in gunplay, would have paid untold prices to learn these secrets from the lips of the little man. To Bull Hunter the mysteries were revealed for nothing, freely, and drilled and drummed into him through the weeks of his convalescence; and still the lessons continued now that he was hale and hearty once more--as the clean-swept platters from which he ate three times a day gave evidence.
"I"ve practiced, you admit," said Bull in his slow voice, as Pete Reeve came to a pause. "But I haven"t got your way with a gun, Pete.
You"ve got a genius for it. I don"t blame you for laughing at me when I try to get out my gun fast. I can shoot straight. That"s because I haven"t any nerves, as you say, but I"ll never be able to get out a gun as fast as a thought--the way you do. Fact is, Pete, I don"t think fast, you know."
"Shut up!" exploded Pete Reeve, who had been inwardly chafing with impatience during the whole length of this speech. "Sometimes you talk like a fool, Bull, and this is one time!"
Bull shook his head. "My arms are too big," he said sadly. "The muscle gets in my way. I can feel it bind when I try to jerk out the gun fast. Better give up the job, Pete. I sure appreciate all the pains you"ve taken with me--but I"ll never be a gunfighter."
Pete Reeve shook his head with a sigh and then dropped into a chair, growing suddenly inert.
"No use," he groaned. "All because you ain"t got any confidence, Bull." He leaned forward in his sudden way. "Know something? I been keeping it back, but now I"ll tell you the straight of it. You"re faster with a gun right now than four men out of five!"
Bull gaped in amazement.
"Fact!" cried Reeve. "You get it out slicker than most; and after it"s out, you shoot as straight as any man I"ve ever seen. Trouble is, you don"t appreciate yourself. You"ve had it drilled into you so long that you"re stupid that now you believe it. All nonsense! You got more than a million have and you"re fast right now on the draw. Once get hold of how important it is, and you"ll keep trying. But you think it"s only a game. You just play at it; you don"t work! I wish you could have seen me when I was first practicing with a gun! I lived with it. Hours every day it was my companion, and right up to now, there ain"t a day goes by that I don"t spend some time keeping on edge with my revolver.
Bull, you"ll have to do the same thing. You hear?"
He sprang up again. It was impossible for him to remain seated a long time.
"You think it don"t mean much. Look here!"
The Colt flicked into his hand and lay trembling in his palm, and as he talked, it shifted smoothly, as if of its own volition, forward toward his fingertips, backward, to the side, dropping out until it seemed about to fall, only to be caught with one finger through the trigger-guard and spun up again. Always the heavy weapon was in motion as though some of the nervous spirit of Reeve had entered the heavy metal. It responded to his thoughts rather than to his muscles. Bull Hunter gazed enchanted. He was accustomed to forgetting himself and admiring others.
"Look here!" went on the little man. "Look at me. I weigh about a hundred and twenty. I"m skinny. I"m a runt. And look at you. You weigh--heaven knows what! No fat, but all muscle from your head to your feet. You"re the strongest man that I"ve ever seen. Take me, I"m not a coward; but you, Bull, you don"t know what fear means. Well, there you are, without fear, and stronger than three strong men.
You"re pretty fast with a gun, and you shoot straight as a hawk looks.
And still, if we stood face to face and went for our guns, I"d live; and you with your muscle would be dead, Bull."
"I know," Bull nodded.
"That"s what this gun means," cried Pete. "This gun, and the fact that I can get it out of the leather faster"n you do. Not very much faster.
But by just as much quicker as it takes for an eyelid to wink. That ain"t much time, but it"s enough time to mean life or death! That"s all! I"m not the only man that"s faster"n you are. They"s others. I"ve never been beat to the draw, but they"s some that"s shot so close to me that it sounded like one gun going off--with a sort of a stammer.
And any one of those men would of shot you dead, Bull, if you"d fought "em. Now, knowing that, tell me, are you going to keep practicing?"
"I"ll keep tryin", Pete. But I"ll never get much faster. You see, my arm--it"s too big, too heavy. It gets in my way, handling a little thing like a revolver!"
Pete spun the big Colt and shoved it back into the holster so incredibly fast that the steel hissed against the leather.
"There you go running yourself down," he muttered.
He began to pace the room again, biting his nether lip, and now and then shooting side glances at Bull, glances partly guilty and partly scornful. Presently he came to a halt. He had also come to a new resolution, one that cost him so much that beads of perspiration came out on his forehead.
"Bull," he said gravely, "I"m going to tell you the secret."
"You"ve told me a dozen already," Bull sighed. "You"ve taught me how to swing the muzzle up, and not too far up, and how to lean back instead of forward, and how to harden the arm muscles just as I pull the trigger, and how to squeeze with the whole hand and keep my wrist stiff, and how--"
"None of them things counts," said Pete gravely, almost sadly, "compared to what I"m going to tell you. Stand up!"
It was plain that he was going to give something from the depths of his mind. The cost and importance of it made his eyes like steel and drew his mouth to a thin, straight line.
Bull Hunter arose; and as the great body unfolded and the legs straightened, it seemed that he would never reach his full height.
At length he stood, enormous, wide, towering. He was not a freak, but simply a perfectly proportioned man increased to a huge scale.
Pete Reeve canted his head back and looked into the face of the giant.
There was a momentary affectionate appreciation in his eye. Then he hardened his expression.
"Let your arm hang loose."
Bull Hunter obeyed. The hand came just above the holster that was strapped on his thigh. All these weeks Pete Reeve had kept him from going an instant without that gun except when he slept. And even when he slept the gun had to be under his pillow.
"Because it helps to have it near all the time," Pete had explained.
"It sort of soaks into your dreams. It"s never out of your mind. It haunts you, like the face of the girl you love. You see!"
Bull Hunter did not see, but he had nodded humbly, after his fashion, and obeyed. Now, with his arm fallen loose at his side he peered studiously into the face of his master gunman and waited for the next order.
"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 ma.s.sive 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 b.u.t.t 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!"