But, no matter how the letter was phrased, Bull felt that it was a case of desertion, plain and simple. Two great blows had fallen, one after the other. The Ghost was gone, and now Pete Reeve had followed, all in the space of a single night.
As if Diablo knew the heavy heart of the master, he came in a swinging gallop up the hill, circled the dead ashes of the camp fire thrice and then plunged to a halt before Bull Hunter, a magnificent creature, close to seventeen hands. If Diablo were a mustang, then certainly he was a freakish throwback to the Barb type from which the horses of the Western plains and mountains developed. But no Barb had ever stood such a type. Perhaps a strain of thoroughbred had crossed on the mustang blood. But whatever the reason, Diablo was a glorious picture of a horse.
Now, with his bright eyes gleaming and his forelock blowing in the wind, he seemed to invite the master to gallop with him over the hills. The heart of Bull Hunter lightened a little. He passed a gentle hand over the proud curve of that neck and murmured a word or two in that kind voice which horses love to hear.
He dared not stay long in the camp, for fear that he would begin to brood over the memory of the two whom he had lost. First he cooked a quick breakfast and noted with a pang that Pete Reeve had purposely left behind the choicest and best of their provisions. He found, too, tucked into his saddlebag, a fat money belt with a comfortable supply of coin. It warmed his heart. It also made him wince with the realization that all these days he had really been so dependent upon the little gun fighter.
Breakfast over, he made his pack, strapped it behind the saddle and was off across the hills on Diablo. Two shadows rose repeatedly, a gray wolf running before him and coming back to leap up at the nose of Diablo in playful ferocity, and a little withered man with wise eyes, who had once ridden beside him. But Bull Hunter drove the memories away by main force and allowed himself to see only one thing, the noble head and the shining neck of Diablo; and he allowed himself to dream but one dream, that he was to see Mary Hood!
How he should again gain that great objective was beyond him. She was the daughter of the foreman of the greatest ranch in the mountains, the ranch owned by Hal Dunbar. The foreman he had shot down; Hal Dunbar he had foiled in a first effort to obtain Diablo. Besides, Hal Dunbar was expected to marry Mary Hood. Indeed, all things conspired to make the wished-for interview difficult. Dunbar, Hood, or any of their men, he well knew, would shoot him on sight without question and make their explanation later. But Bull Hunter let ways and means take care of themselves. His first task was to get to the Dunbar ranch.
It lay south, far south, over difficult ridges, a country steadily rougher and more beautiful. Three days went into that long ride. Some of the fat came off the sides of the stallion, so that, when the saddle was taken from him at night, Bull Hunter could see every muscle of the shoulder and hip, could have picked them out with thumb and forefinger, almost. But he was not worried. He merely knew that Diablo was being trained down to racing condition.
In the rose of the dawn of the third morning he crossed the last range and came in sight of the big domain of the Dunbars. It was indeed a kingdom by itself, fenced with mountains in all directions and lying on a pleasantly rolling plateau.
There was fine tillable soil in that sweep of country. A little was already under the plow; a thousand times as much could be put to close cultivation, when a cleverer owner took the reins. Yet in a way it was better that there should be no such thrifty control. It left the fields wide and open, with only random fences; thousands and thousands of acres, spotted with single trees and lofty groves, and cut with pleasant watercourses and tumbled in places with long lines of natural hedges.
Bull Hunter, sitting his horse, atop the crest of the range, could see it all. He could see the great grove of trees near the center of the domain, marking the house of the owner. He could even make out myriad small dots in the nearer pastures. Those were the grazing cattle. The wind changed and blew the musical sound of their distant lowing to his ears.
Such was the kingdom of the Dunbars. Bull Hunter was filled with a kind of sad happiness, knowing that Mary Hood was one day to be queen of it. If there was a sadness about his worship for her, it was only that she was removed to a great distance from him. She was to him like a masterpiece to a connoisseur, a dream of reality rather than an image of what had once been real.
It was dangerous work, for Bull Hunter of all men, to approach the ranch building in broad daylight, but he was not thinking of danger. He was feeling his nearness to the girl, and worst of all, he was coming up toward the rear of the house, in which direction the barns and stables and corrals stretched.
On this side also was the long bunk house, sure to be filled with men who had not yet ridden out to work, and all of the Dunbar men were sure to be hard riders and good marksmen. They were led by the redoubtable Jack Hood and by the yet more celebrated Hal Dunbar.
Bull Hunter rode in a dream. He came out of the dream and the forest at the same time, and he saw before him first the corrals, then the ranging stables and the bunk house, and beyond, set off with great terraced lawns and gardens, the house of Dunbar itself. The sight shocked him. He felt for the first time keenly the temerity of any single man daring to brave all this power. A moment later his abstract alarm was given a point.
A rider swung out from behind the nearest shed, saw the big stranger, shouted once in shrill alarm and then whipped his horse about and spurred out of sight, still shouting and crouched over the saddlehorn, as though he feared a bullet might follow him. His fear was so real that Bull Hunter instinctively reached to the butt of his Colt.
Chapter XV
The Chase
In a moment his smile went out. The fellow had ridden in fear of his life, and now that Bull Hunter reflected, he remembered him to be Riley, the right-hand lieutenant of Hal Dunbar, particularly in all acts of deviltry.
Riley had fled in fear of death. If the men of Dunbar expected Hunter to shoot to kill they certainly would act likewise. The first impulse of Bull was to gather up his reins, turn Diablo, and send the black stallion across the hills at full speed. Certainly he had been a fool to blunder upon the house in this manner and call out the whole Dunbar force in pursuit.
Yet he hesitated. He was cold with fear, and yet there was an admixture of pleasure in his fear. There is something besides terror in the heart of the wolf as he flees from the pack of hounds. There is a fierce joy in the hunt, even though he is on the dangerous end of the work. For one thing, the imp of the perverse tempts the fugitive to dally with danger. Again there are chances to turn swiftly and rend the leading pursuers.
Some of these emotions made Bull Hunter remain quietly on the black stallion, wasting invaluable moments. Diablo himself seemed to understand that he should be off. He was dancing with short steps and tossing his head and snorting softly, as though he would reprove his careless master.
And now shouts echoed and reëchoed through the chill, quiet air of the morning. The alarm poured through the barns. It reached the house. Bull saw half a dozen men run out from the building and, standing on the terraces, peer down at him. It would have been the simplest thing in the world to pick him off with a rifle at that distance.
That knowledge at last wakened him, and yet he stayed a single instant longer. Where the great doors at the entrance were swung back, against the darkness of the interior, stood a girl dressed in white. Mary Hood, perhaps? At least his heart leaped as though he had been close enough to distinguish the features of her face. He caught off his hat and waved it with a shout, then turned Diablo and sent him away at full gallop, as a rout of the hunters poured out at him, a dozen men riding close together, between two of the outlying sheds.