Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/206

 her—first of her father, then of her substance.

"With these hands"—he shook them high above his head—"with these hands I made the coffin for to bury Ole Man Ring in, whiles his orphan darter digs the grave among God's wild bloomin' flowers that 's to contain his poor clay. An' there—there, my brothers, out yander on Teapot Creek, where the ravenin' wolf whelps his kind an' the buzzard of the air calls to his mate from on high, I left her alone under the protection of a pitying God."

In the lump of the mob conscience Uncle Alf's bitter leaven worked swiftly and with a sure ferment. Shadows lengthened across Main Street, and still he talked. Orange and purple twilight came flooding down from the dike of the Broken Horns, yet that organ voice pealed on. Main Street seethed.

Near dark certain men whom the sheriff had tapped on the arm and summoned to his office—twenty in all—appeared suddenly on Main Street in front of the courthouse. Each had a white handkerchief tied about his right arm. Each carried a rifle.

Near dark, too, groups of riders began to converge on the roads leading from the Big