Free Bull Hunter by Max Brand Page A

food, but it was the fact that Mary Hood was continually smiling across the table into that big, calm face. Dunbar began to feel that the devil was indeed behind the wit of Riley.
    He began to wait nervously for the coming of the girl's father and the explosion. As soon as supper was over, following the time-honored custom which the first Dunbar established on the ranch, Mary left the room, and the men gathered in groups for cards or dice or talk, for they were not ordinary hired hands, but picked men. Many of them had grown gray in the Dunbar service. Now was the time for the coming of Jack Hood, and Hal had not long to wait.
    The door at the far side of the big room was thrown open not five minutes after the disappearance of Mary Hood, and her father entered. He came with a brow as black as night, tossed a sharp word here and there in reply to the greetings, and going to the fireplace leaned against the mantel and rolled a cigarette. While he smoked, from under his shaggy brows he looked over the company.
    Hal Dunbar waited, holding his breath. One brilliant picture was dawning on his mind-himself mounted on great black Diablo and swinging over the hills at a matchless gallop.
    The picture vanished. Jack Hood had left the fireplace and was crossing the room with his alert, quick step. His nerves showed in that step; and it was nerve power that made him a dreaded gunfighter. His gloom seemed to have vanished now. He smiled here; he paused there for a cheery word; and so he came to where Bull Hunter sat with his long legs stretched before him and the unchanging, dreamy smile on his face.
    Over those long legs Jack Hood stumbled. When he whirled on the seated man his cheer was gone and a devil was in his face.
    "You damned lummox," he said, "what d'ye mean by tripping me?"
    "Me?" gasped Bull, the smile gradually fading and blank amazement taking its place.
    It was at this moment that a man stepped out of the shadow of the kitchen doorway, a very small withered man. No doubt he was some late arrival asking hospitality for the night; and having come after supper was over, he had been fed in the kitchen and then sent in among the other men; for no one was turned away hungry from the Dunbar house. He was so small, so light-footed, that he would hardly have been noticed at any time, and now that the roar from Jack Hood had focused all eyes on Bull Hunter, the newcomer was entirely overlooked. He seemed to make it a point to withdraw himself farther, for now he stepped into a dense shadow near the wall where he could see and remain unseen.
    Jack Hood had shaken his fist under the nose of the seated giant.
    "I meant it," he cried. "You tripped me, you skunk, and Jack Hood ain't old enough to take that from no man!"
    Bull Hunter cast out deprecatory hands. The words of this fire-eyed fellow were bad enough, but the tigerish tenseness of his muscles was still worse. It meant battle, and the long, black, leather holster at the thigh of Hood meant battle of only one kind. It had come so suddenly on him that Bull Hunter was dazed.
    "I'm sorry," he said. "I sure didn't mean to trip you-but maybe my foot might of slipped out a little and-"
    "Slipped out!" sneered Hood. He stopped, panting with fury. That a comparative stranger should have dared to speak familiarly with his daughter was bad enough; that a blank-faced coward should have dared flirt with her, dared take her hand, was maddening.
    "You infernal sneak!" he growled. "Are you going to try to get out of it, now that you've seen you can't bluff me down-that I won't stand for your tricks?"
    Bull Hunter rose, slowly, unfolding his great bulk until he towered above the other; and yet the condensed activity of Hood was fully as formidable. There were pantherlike suggestions of speed about the arm that dangled beside his holster.
    The withered little man in the shadow by the kitchen door took one noiseless step into the light-and then shrank back as though he had changed his mind.
    "It