Elliott Belt is a ruthless, feared and despised bounty hunter since his very childhood. He proposes an alliance to Lucky Luke, who outright rejects it. The day wealthy horse rancher Bronco Fortworth puts out a bounty with a $100,000 for anyone who would bring him Tea Spoon, a Cheyenne he hired as horse carer and thinks stole his favorite horse Lord Washmouth III, Belt jumps on the case while Luke tries to both find Tea Spoon to solve the case of the disappearance of the horse and avoid a war with Tea Spoon's tribe.
The album was adapted in the second season of the Lucky Luke animated series.
The Bounty Hunter provides examples of:
- Bounty Hunter:
- Elliott Belt's profession. It runs deep in him since his childhood, up to denouncing himself to his father or schoolmates to his teachers and building himself a clandestine breeding of rats to bring them for rewards during times of rat extermination. He also named his horse "Wanted".
- Luke gets offered reward money too for bringing wanted criminals to prison, but he insists on the money being used for charity or for the families of the criminals' victims. The latest criminal he brings to prison is genuinely moved by this and congratulates him for that gesture.
- Comfort Food: Whenever Bronco Fortworth is in a fit of rage, his servant rushes in with a piece of sugar (in French the word "susucre" is used, as in a reward given to animals, including horses, when they behave as asked from them) which he then eats to calm down.
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Belt was clearly based off Spaghetti Western star Lee Van Cleef. More precisely, he's based off Sentenza/Angel Eyes from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: The virtuous Luke smokes cigarettes while Elliott Belt smokes his pipe.
- Hated by All: Bounty hunters are particularly despised by everyone in The Wild West, even moreso than criminals and outlaws somehow. Belt is hated enough so that the reward money is thrown at his feet, drinks aren't served to him in glasses (they're poured on the bar instead) and in the saloon The Chanteuse won't sing and the piano player won't play as long as he's there.
- Loophole Abuse: There is a law against refusing to serve a bounty hunter, and Elliot Belt threatens to denounce the bartender if he denies him buying a drink. The bartender simply pours the whisky on the counter for Belt to lick, pointing out that the law never specifies that the drink has to be in a glass.
- A Round of Drinks for the House: At the saloon, Belt announces to everyone in the bar that he's buying drinks for all of them. The bartender then empties several bottles on the bar.
- "Wanted!" Poster: Plenty are seen in this story, for obvious reasons.
- Belt waits outside of the printing business then follows the print worker who puts the Wanted posters for Tea Spoon all over the town to rip them off the walls so he'll be the only Bounty Hunter who knows of the enormous reward for Tea Spoon.
- By the end, Belt himself has a bounty on his head for nearly causing a war with the Cheyenne natives and someone rips his Wanted poster from a wall, meaning the hunt for him is on.
- We Can Rule Together: Belt proposes an alliance with Luke so they can become the richest bounty hunters in the West. Luke's response?Lucky Luke: I like to drink my whisky in a glass.
