Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/204

 the first corner he paused and shot both arms high above his head.

"Woe!" he screamed in a terrifying falsetto. "Woe to the taskmasters!"

He could make no forward step, for now the crowd was about him, pressing close, volleying questions: Where was Zang Whistler; what had become of the girl with the yellow hair; and what of the Killer? Uncle Alf professed to be aware of the crowd's presence for the first time. He looked dazedly about the ring of intent faces. He swept his hand through his beard.

"Are ye avengers of the blood of the innercent?" he demanded thunderously. Eagerness prompted assent even from those who did not grasp his meaning. "Then," commanded the evangelist, "prepare ye for the day of reckoning, for I, even I, Alpheus, servant of the Lord, am sent to lead against the might of the usurpers. Their murderers lurk in the hedges, an' their horned cattle tromp down my people's corn. My sheep they slay in the night."

Impatience had to abide Uncle Alf's circumlocutions and restrain itself to interpret his phraseology in terms of the present, but in