Cowboys -- Fiction; Ranch life -- West (U.S.) -- Fiction; Western stories
"See the skulkin' curs and cowards," he cried, lashing out at them with
his strap, "see them cringe before the whip like the servile slaves
they are. What has this man done that you should fall upon him? Broke
up your court, hey? Well, what was the court to you? Didn't it punish
you whether you were right or wrong? Didn't it tyrannize over you and
force you to do its will? Ah, despicable dogs, that would lick the hand
that strikes you—come out here, any one of you, and I swear I'll beat
you to death. Hah! You are afraid! You are afraid to face an honest
man and fight him hand to hand! Or is it something else?" The defiant
tone left his voice of a sudden and he looked eagerly into their tense
faces. "Or is it something else?" he cried. "Friends, you have been
shut up here for months by that great crime they call the law. You
know that law—how it protects the rich and crushes down the poor! What
then—do you still worship its outworn forms so that you must suffer
them even in jail? Must you still have a sheriff to harass you, a judge
to condemn you, a district attorney to talk you blind? Must you still
be tyrannized over by a false and illegal court, even in the shadow of
the jail? God forbid! But what then? Ah, yes; what then! Friends, I
bring you the Gospel of Equality; I stand before you to proclaim as our
forebears proclaimed before us, that all men are born free and equal;
I call upon you, even in this prison, to cast aside the superstition
of government and proclaim the revolution! To hell with the Kangaroo
Court! My friend here has beaten up its officers—let us abolish it
forever! What? Is it a go? Then here's to the revolution!"
He waved his hand above his head, smiling upward at that fair Goddess
of Liberty whom he discerned among the rods; and the gaping prisoners,
carried away by his eloquence, let out a mighty yell of joy. Worn and
jaded by the dull monotony of their life they seized upon the new
religion with undiscriminating zest, passing up the big words and the
moonshine and rejoicing in their noble freedom from restraint. As the
first symptoms of a jail-riot began to develop Boone Morgan and his
deputies rushed out to quell the disturbance, but the revolution gave
no promise of a rough-house. As was to be expected, the prostrate
form of Pecos Dalhart was draped across the foreground—and served him
right, for trying to get too gay—but the other figures were not in good
support. Angevine Thorne stood above the body of his friend, waving
the alcalde's strap, but the Roman mob was sadly out of part. It was
dancing around the room singing "Kansas."
"I'll tell you what they do—_in Kansas_,"
they howled.
"I'll tell you what they do—_in Kansas_,"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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