“And it made me mad.  Made me plumb mad to see them bother Diablo when he wasn’t doing no harm, when they wasn’t gaining anything by it, either.”

“I used to go out when nobody was around and stand by the bars with a bit of hay and grain heads in my hand.  First off he’d prance around even at me, but pretty soon he seen that I wasn’t big enough to do him no harm, and then he’d just stand still and snort and look at me.  Along about the third time he took notice of the grain heads and come and smelled them, and the next day he ate ’em.

“Well, I kept at it that way.  Pretty soon I went inside the corral.  Diablo just come up sort of excited and trembling and didn’t know whether to bash my head in with his forehoofs or let me go.  Then he seen the grain heads and ate them while he was making up his mind what to do about me.  And he winded up by just having a little talk with me.  He was terribly dirty and dusty, and he was shedding.  Nobody dared to brush him, and so I took a soft-haired brush and started to work on his neck.  He liked it, and so I dressed him down and left him pretty near shining.  And every day after that I went and had a talk with him and brushed him.  Then I rode Crackajack up to the bars and let Diablo see me on him, with no bridle or saddle.  Pretty soon I found out that it was the saddle and the bridle and the spurs that scared Diablo to death.  He didn’t mind anything else so very much.  So one day I climbed up the fence and slid onto Diablo’s back, and he just turned his head and snorted at me.  Just then Pa seen me and let out a terrible yell, and Diablo pitched me right off over his head and over the fence.  But I got right up and came back to him.  He seen that he could get me off whenever he wanted to and he seen that I didn’t do him no harm when I got on.

“After that everything was easy.  I never bothered him none with a saddle or a bridle.  And there you are.  D’you think you can do the same?”

“But the saddle and the bridle?” said Bull.  “What about them?”

“That’s up to you to figure out a way of getting him used to ’em.  I’ll go introduce you now, if I can.”

Bull rose, and the boy led the way.

“If he takes to you pretty kind,” said the boy, “you may have a chance.  But if he begins acting up, it won’t be no use.”

CHAPTER 16

Diablo greeted them with a throwing up of his formidable head.  He took his place in the very middle of his corral, but when Bull Hunter and his small guide reached the bars, the black stallion seemed to go suddenly mad.  He flung himself into the air and came down bucking.  Back and forth across the corral he threw himself in the wildest swirl of pitching that Bull Hunter had ever seen or ever dreamed of.

“He’s an educated bucker, you see?” said the boy in admiration.  “They ain’t any trick that he don’t know.  Look!”