He bent and looked at them. Then he rubbed the
places with his fingertips and examined the skin.
A stain had come away from the rock. It was as
if the rocks had been rubbed with lead or a soft iron.
And then, strangely, into the mind of Bull came the
memory of what the hotel man had said of the sheriff’s
iron-shod heels.
The sheriff had gone for many a year hating Armstrong.
The truth rushed over the brain of the big man.
What a chance for a crafty mind! To kill his
enemy and place the blame on the shoulders of one already
known to be a man-killer! Bull Hunter leaped from
the rocks and started back for the town with long,
ground-devouring strides.
There were two reasons for the happiness which lightened
the step of Bull Hunter as he strode back for the
town. In the first place he saw a hope of liberating
Reeve from jail and accomplishing his own mission
of killing the man. In the second place he felt
a peculiar joy at the thought of freeing such a man
from the imputation of a cowardly murder.
Yet he had small grounds for his hopes. Two little
dark marks on the white, friable stone, marks that
the first small shower of rain would wash away, marks
that the first keen sandstorm would rub off—this
was his only proof. And with this to free one
man from danger of the rope and place the head of
another under the noose—it was a task to
try the resources of a cleverer man than Bull.
Indeed, the high spirits of Bull in some measure left
him as he drew nearer and nearer to the village.
How could he convict the sheriff? How, with his
clumsy wits and his clumsy tongue, could he bring the
truth to light? Had he possessed the keen eyes
of his uncle he felt that a single glance would have
made the guilt stand up in the face of Anderson.
But his own eyes, alas, were dull and clouded.
Thoughtfully, with bowed head, he held his course.
A strange picture, surely, this man who so devoutly
wished to free another from the danger of the law
in order that he might take a life into his own hands.
But the contrast did not strike home to Bull.
To him everything that he did was as clear as day.
But how to go to work? If the man were like himself
it would be an easy matter. More than once he
remembered how his cousins had shifted the blame for
their own boyish pranks upon him. In the presence
of their father they would accuse Bull with a well-planned
lie, and the very fact that he had been accused made
Bull blush and hang his head. Before he could
be heard in his own behalf the cruel eye of his uncle
had grown stern, and Bull was condemned as a culprit.
“The only time you show any sense,” his
uncle had said more than once, “is when you
want to do something you hadn’t ought to do!”
Steadily through the years he had served as a scapegoat
for his cousins. They set a certain value upon
him for his use in this respect. Ah, if only
he had that keen, embarrassing eye of Bill Campbell
with which to pierce to the guilty heart of the sheriff
and make him speak! The eye of his uncle was
like the eye of a crowd. It was an audience in
itself and condemned or praised with the strength
of numbers.
