Free Bull Hunter by Max Brand Page B

looks to me," said Bull Hunter mildly, "that you're trying to force a fight on me. Stranger, I can't fight a man as old as you are."
    Perhaps it was a tactless speech, but Bull was too dazed to think of grace in words. It brought a murderous snarl from the other.
    "I'm old enough to be Jack Hood-maybe you've heard of me? And I'm young enough to polish off every unlicked cub in these parts. Now, curse you, what d'ye say to that?"
    "I can only say," said Bull miserably, feeling his way, "that I don't want to fight."
    With an oath Hood exclaimed, "A coward! They're all like that-every one of the big fellers. A yaller-hearted sneak!"
    "Easy, Jack!" broke in one of the men.
    "Let Jack alone," called the commanding voice of Hal Dunbar. "I saw Hunter trip him!"
    "But," pleaded Bull Hunter, "I give you my word-"
    "Shut up! I've heard enough of your talk."
    Bull Hunter obediently stopped his talk.
    A sickening quiet drew through the room. Men bowed their heads or turned them away, for such cowardice was not pleasant to see. The little man in the shadow raised one hand and brushed it across his face.
    "I'll let you off one way," said Jack Hood. "Stand up here, and face the crowd and tell 'em you're a liar, that you're sorry for what you done!"
    Bull faced the crowd. A shudder of expectancy went through them, and then they saw that his face was working, not with shame or fear but with a mental struggle, and then he spoke.
    "Gents, it seems like I may be wrong. I may have tripped him which I didn't mean to. But not knowing that I tripped him, I got to say that I can't call myself a liar. I can't apologize."
    They were shocked into a new attention; they saw him turn and face the frown of Jack Hood.
    "You're forcing this fight, stranger. And, if you keep on, you'll drop, sir. I promise you that!"
    The sudden change in affairs had astonished Jack Hood; now his astonishment gave way to a sort of hungry joy.
    "I never was strong on words. I got two ways of talking and here's the one I like best!" As he uttered the last word he reached for his gun.
    The little man glided out of the shadow, crouched, intense. It seemed to him that the hand of Bull Hunter hung motionless at his side while the gun flashed out from Hood's holster. He groaned at the thought, but in the last second, there was a move of Hunter's hand that no eye could follow, that singular convulsive twitch which Pete Reeve had taught him so long before. Only one gun spoke. Jack Hood spun sidewise and crashed to the floor, and his gun rattled far away.
    By the time the first man had rushed to the fallen figure, the gun was back in Bull's holster.
    The little man in the shadow heard him saying, "Pardners, he's not dead. He's shot through the right shoulder, low, beneath the joint. That bullet won't kill him, but get him bandaged quick!"
    A calm, clear voice, it rang through the room. The little man slipped back into his shadow, and straightened against the wall.
    "He's right," said Hal Dunbar, stepping back from the cluster. "Riley and Jerry, get him up to his room and bandage him, quick! The rest of you stay here. We got a job. Hood's gun hung in the holster, and this fellow shot him down. A murdering, cowardly thing to do. You hear? A murdering, cowardly thing to do!"
    Obviously he was wrong, and obviously not one of his henchmen would tell him so. For some reason the boss intended to take up the lost battle of Jack Hood. Why, was not theirs to reason, though plainly the fight had been fair, and Hood had been in the wrong from the first. They shifted swiftly, a man to each door, the others along the wall with their hands on their weapons. There was a change in Bull Hunter. One long leap backward carried him into a corner of the room. He stood erect, and they could see his eyes gleaming in the shadow.
    "I think you got me here to trap me, Dunbar," he called in such a voice that the little man in the shadow thrilled at the sound of it, "but you'll find that you're trapped first, my