worked down through the soft dirt and the pulpy bark to solid wood,
and then he began to lift. It was a gradual process. His knees gave,
sagging under the strain from the arms. Then the back began to grow
rigid, and the legs in turn grew stiff, as every muscle fell into
play. The shoulders pushed forward and down. The forearms, revealed by
the short sleeves, showed a bewildering tangle of corded muscle, and,
at the wrists, the tendons sprang out as distinct and white as the new
strings of a violin.

The three spectators were undergoing a change. The suppressed grins of
the two brothers faded. They glanced at the girl to see if she were
not laughing at the results of her words to big Bull, but the girl was
staring. She had set that mighty power to work, and she was amazed by
the thing she saw. And they, looking back at Bull, were amazed in
turn. They had seen him lift great logs, wrench boulders from the
earth. But always it had been a proverb within the Campbell family
that Bull would make only one attempt and, failing in the first
effort, would try no more. They had never seen the mysterious
resources of his strength called upon.

Now they watched first the settling and then the expansion of the body
of their big cousin. His shoulders began to tremble; they heard deep,
harsh panting like the breathing of a horse as it tugs a ponderous
load up a hill, and still he had not reached the limit of his power.
He seemed to grow into the soil, and his feet ground deeper into the
soft dirt, and ever there was something in him remaining to be tapped.
It seemed to the brothers to be merely vast, unexplored recesses of
muscle, but even then it was a prodigious thing to watch the strain on
the stump increase moment by moment. That something of the spirit was
being called upon to aid in the work was quite beyond their