His weight was against him here, but it would be even a greater disadvantage to a horseman, and with this in mind, he pressed steadily south.
Every day on that south trail was like a year in the life of Bull.
Heat and thirst wasted him, the constant labor of the march hardened his muscles, and he got that forward look about his eyes, which comes with shadows under the lids and a constant frown on the forehead.

It was long afterward that men checked up his march from date to date and discovered that the distance between the shack of Bill Campbell and Halstead in the South was one hundred and fifty miles over bitter mountains and burning desert, and that Bull Hunter had made the distance in five days.
All this was learned and verified later when Bull was a legend.

When he strode into Halstead on that late afternoon no one had ever heard of the man out of the mountains.

He was simply an oddity in a country where oddities draw small attention.
Yet a rumor advanced before Bull.

A child, playing in the incredible heat of the sun, saw the dusty giant heaving in the distance and ran to its mother, frightened, and the worn-faced mother came to the porch and shaded her eyes to look.