Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/220

 bars of the Capitol's feed lot rode twenty horsemen, divided at the bars and were swallowed in the maw of the alley. One party rode in a wide swing by the creek to get behind the jail; the other went at a walk through a scattered street of houses to come in and catch the Main Street mob on the flank.

The head of the mob on Main Street came to the picket line of deputies stretched before the big building which housed the jail; came to the line, wavered and halted. Suddenly the big figure of Red Agnew appeared on the courthouse steps behind his deputies. He held up a hand

"Boys, I know what you 're here for. You 've come for the Killer. Boys, you can't have him. He don't belong to you; he don't belong to me. The law owns him, and I promise you the law 'll give him what he deserves. Don't go for to spoil the fair name of Broken Horn County with mob law, because"

A shot from the cross street that cut Main Street along the courthouse front. A shot and the rush of horsemen bearing down breakneck upon the mob and the picket line of deputies.