Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/196

 courthouse came the mob. It filled the street from gutter to gutter. Like the Wood of Birnam it came, all tossing foliage of heads and hats and arms upthrust. An ugly clamor of cries and bellowings swirled out from it.

Above the forefront of the mob appeared a grotesque and agonized figure, hatless, collar ripped and pronging upward like a horn, face bloodied, hands desperately gripped on something hidden by the heads below him.

The figure was that of Warren C. Von Tromp. He was riding the top rail of a corral.

Original saw all this in a glance. He stepped out into the middle of Main Street and stood there for an instant, right hand hanging easily from the lapel of his jacket. A figure alone in the path of the mob, dwarfed by it almost to pygmy proportions.

He began to walk slowly forward to meet the mad hundreds.