As for Bull Hunter, he sat again on the floor, his chin dropped upon his great fist, and wondered for a time at his uncle.  It was the second great event to him, all in one day.  First he had discovered that by fighting a thing, one can actually conquer.  Second, he discovered that great fighter, his uncle, had been beaten.  The impossible had happened twice between one sunrise and sunset.

But men and the affairs of men could not hold his eye overlong.  Presently he dropped his head again and was deep in the pages of his book.  At length Bill Campbell heaved up his head.  It was to glare into the scared faces of his sons.

“How long are you goin’ to keep me waiting for food?”

The order snapped them into action.  They sprang here and there, and presently the thick slices of bacon were hissing on the pan, and the clouds of bacon smoke wafted through the cabin.  When they reached Bill Campbell he blinked.  Pain had given him a maddening appetite, yet he puffed steadily on his pipe and said nothing.

The tin plate of potatoes and bacon was shoved before him, and the big tin cup of coffee.  The three younger men sat in silence and devoured their own meal; the two sons swiftly, but Bull Hunter fell into musings, and part of his food remained uneaten.  Then his glance wandered to his uncle and saw a thing to wonder at—­a horrible thing in its own way.

The nerveless left hand of the mountaineer, which had barely possessed steadiness to light a match, was far too inaccurate to handle a fork; and Bull saw his uncle stuffing his mouth with his fingers and daring the others to watch him.

Something like pity came to Bull.  It was so rare an emotion to connect with human beings that he hardly recognized it, for men and women, as he knew them, were brilliant, clever creatures, perfectly at home in the midst of difficulties that appalled him.  But, as he watched the old man feed himself like an animal, the emotion that rose in Bull was the sadness he felt when he watched old Maggie stumbling among the rocks.  There was something wrong with the forelegs of Maggie, and she was only half a horse when it came to going downhill on broken ground.  He had always thought of the great strength that once must have been hers, and he pitied her for the change.  He found himself pitying Uncle Bill Campbell in much the same way.

When Bill raised his tin cup he spilled scalding coffee on his breast.  The old man merely set his teeth and continued to glare his challenge at the three.  But not one of the three dared speak a word, dared make an offer of assistance.

What baffled the slow mind of Bull Hunter was the effort to imagine a force so great that battle with it had reduced the invincible Campbell to this shaken wreck of his old self.  Mere bullets could tear wounds in flesh and break bones; but mere bullets could not wreck the nerves of a man so that his hand trembled as if he were drunk or hysterical with weariness.