"This for boss," he said, and placed it by Pecos's head.
"All right, Wo," responded Angy, "my friend, he sleep. Bimeby wakum up, I give him pie." He finished up his plate, glanced at the surly faces behind the bars, and cast a longing look at the fresh-baked pie. There was going to be a ruction, that was sure, and ructions are bad for pies. He took Pecos by the shoulder and shook him tentatively; then with a sigh of Christian resignation he reached over and picked up the pie. "Dam' shame to go and waste it," he muttered, "an' it's all right, too."
The prisoners watched him eat his way through the crust and down through the middle until finally he licked his finger-tips and smiled.
"Him good pie, Wo," he observed, rising to his feet, "make me hip stlong." He shoved Pecos back into the corner, took his place before him, and balanced the strap for battle. "All right, deputy," he said, "turn them tarriers loose, and if I don't tan their hides with this strap they ain't no hell no mo'!"
The cell doors clanged and flew open, the balked cohorts of the enemy stepped forth and gathered about him, and as Angy paced back and forth before his friend he opened wide the flood-gates of his wrath.
"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,"