and an eye. All your nerves are down there in
that hand. They’re all piled down there.
That hand is full of electricity. Don’t
let your eyes wander. Keep on concentrating.
You’re stocking the electricity in that hand.
When your hand moves, it’ll be as fast as the
jump of a spark! And when that hand moves, the
gun is going to come out clean in it. It’s
got to come out with it! You hear?
It’s got to! Your fingertips catch
under the butt; they flick up. They don’t
draw the gun; they throw it out of the holster; they
pitch the muzzle up, and the butt comes smack back
against the palm of your hand. And in the same
part of a second you pull the trigger. You hear?”
He leaned forward, trembling from head to foot.
The eyes of the big man were beginning to narrow.
“I hear; I understand!” he said through
his teeth.
“You don’t pull the gun. You think
it out of the leather. And then the bullet hits
the doorknob. You don’t move your arm.
Your arm doesn’t exist. You’re just
a hand and a brain—thinking! And that
thought sends a bullet at the mark!” He leaped
back. “Draw!”
There was a wink of light at the hip of Bull Hunter,
and the gun roared.
Instantly he cried out, alarmed, confused, ashamed.
“I didn’t mean to shoot, Pete. I’m
a fool! I didn’t mean to! It—I
sort of couldn’t help it. The—the
trigger was just pulled without my wanting it to!
Lord, what’ll people think!”
But Pete Reeve had flung his arms around the big man
as far as they would go, and he hugged him in a hysteria
of joy. Then he leaped back, dancing, throwing
up his hands.
“You done it!” he cried, his voice squeaking,
hysterical.
“I made a fool of myself, all right,”
said Bull, bewildered by this exhibition of joy where
he had expected anger.
“Fool nothing! Look at that knob!”
The doorknob was a smashed wreck, driven into the
thick wood of the door by the heavy slug of the revolver.
Footsteps were running up the stairs of the hotel.
Pete Reeve ran to the door and flung it open.
“It’s all right, boys,” he called.
“Cleaning a gun and it went off. No harm
done!”
“And now,” said Pete Reeve, looking almost
ruefully at his pupil, “with a little practice
on that, they ain’t a man in the world that
could safely take a chance with you. I couldn’t
myself.”
“Pete!”
“I mean it, son. Not a man in the world.
I was afraid all the time. I was afraid you didn’t
have that there electricity in you or whatever they
call it. I was afraid you had too much beef and
not enough nerves. But you haven’t.
And now that you have the knack, keep practicing every
day—thinking the gun out of the leather—that’s
the trick!”
Bull Hunter looked down to the gun with great, staring
eyes, as though it was the first time in his life
that he had seen the weapon. Pete Reeve noted
his expression and abruptly became silent, grinning
happily, for there was the dawn of a great discovery
in the eyes of the big man.
