He pushed aside the ponderous armchair which stood
beside him at the head of the table.
“Say,” shouted the sheriff, paler than
ever now, “what are you accusing me of?”
“Murder!” thundered Bull Hunter.
The roar of Bull’s voice chained every one in
his place, the sheriff with staring eyes, and Jud
in the act of raising his hand.
“I’ll jail you for slander!” said
the sheriff, fighting to assurance and knowing that
he was betrayed by his pallor and by the icy perspiration
which he felt on his forehead.
“Anderson,” said Bull, “I seen the
marks of them iron heels of yours on the rock!”
That was a little thing, of course. As evidence
it would not have convinced the most prejudiced jury
in the world, but Sheriff Anderson was not weighing
small points. Into his mind leaped one image—the
whiteness of those rocks on which he had stood and
the indelible mark his heels must have made against
that whiteness. He was lost, he felt, and he
acted on the impulse to fight for his life.
One last glance he cast at the six listeners, and
in their wide-eyed interest he read his own damnation.
Then Anderson whirled and leaped for his belt with
the guns.
Out of six throats came six yells of fear; there was
a noise of chairs being pushed back and a wild scramble
to find safety under the table. Jud, risking
a moment’s delay, knocked the chimney off the
lamp before he dived. The flame leaped once and
went out, but the pale moonshine poured through the
window and filled the room with a weird play of shadows.
What Bull Hunter saw was not the escape of the sheriff,
but a sudden blind rage against everything and everybody.
It was a passion that set him trembling through all
of his great body. One touch of trust, one word
of encouragement had been enough to make him a giant
to tear up the stump in the presence of Jessie and
his cousins; how far more mighty he was in the grip
of this new emotion, this rage.
His own gun was far away, but guns were not what he
wanted. They were uncongenial toys to his great
hands. Instead, he reached down and caught up
that massive chair of oak, built to resist time, built
to bear even such a bulk as that of Bull Hunter with
ease. Yet he caught it up in one hand, weighed
it behind his head at the full limit of his extended
arm, and then, bending forward, he catapulted the great
missile down the length of the table. It hit the
lamp on the way and splintered it to small bits, its
momentum unimpeded. Hurtling on across the table
it shot at the sheriff as he whirled with his guns
in his hands.
Fast as the chair shot forward, the hand of the sheriff
was faster still. Bull saw the big guns twitch
up, silver in the moonshine. They exploded in
one voice, as if the flying mass of wood were an animate
object. Then the sheriff was struck and hurled
crashing along the floor.
