Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/150

 red crisscrossed over the bound man's eyes. His jaw was dropped in terror.

Zang lifted Hilma, fighting, to her feet.

"There now, girl," he soothed, "that ain't exactly 'cordin' to Hoyle—not that the skunk don't deserve it, but he's hogtied, you see."

"But he killed my father!" Hilma panted. "Shot him from behind. He has no right to live."

"Leave him to the vengeance of the Most High," Uncle Alf droned. "A great fire will wither him up entirely." "But you 'll shoot him?" Hilma put the question to the evangelist in the innocence of a child certain of right dealing on the part of its elders.

"No, daughter. The Book says, 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.' I 'll take this here man of blood to the court in Two Moons, which is the Lord's instrument of vengeance. 'An eye for an eye,' says the law."

"Then I 'll go with you," Hilma declared. Determination came full formed on the wings of impulse. It was born of the mastering idea that no possible trick of circumstance, no satiric stratagem on the part of this genius of the wilderness that was her enemy, should