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!"
Diablo had begun to sunfish in the most approved method, and swirled from this to some fence rowing as swift as the jagged course of lightning. At every jump Bull could see an imaginary rider snapped from the back of the black giant. A cloud of dust was sent swishing up, and in the midst of this fog, Diablo came to a pause as sudden as the beginning of his strange struggle against an imaginary foeman; but it seemed to Bull Hunter that the ground beneath his feet was still quivering from the impacts of that mighty body.
"That's just his way of telling you what he'll do when you try to saddle him," chuckled the boy.
As he spoke he slipped through the bars of the corral.
"Look out!" exclaimed Bull in horror, for the stallion had rushed at the small intruder with gaping mouth. Bull reached for his gun—Diablo was already on the child, but at the last minute he swerved, and flashed around Tod in a circle.
"He's all right," Tod was shrilling through his laughter, for the horrified face of Bull amused him. "That's just his way of saying that he's glad to see me!"