THE STEADFAST HEART
masked mob bearing a noosed rope—but he faced them, in terror, it is true, but he faced them.
Sammy Hammond added a cry to the clamor which achieved immediate popularity. “Murderer! Murderer!” he shouted.
That name sent a chill inward to Angus’s heart, a chill which was the forerunner of panic.
“Jailbird! Jailbird!” young Cuyler contributed. “Chase him out of town.” That was it, chase him. Your boy loves to see any creature scamper before his pursuit in terror.
Angus’s face went wild, his eyes distended, his mouth opened so that his teeth gleamed through, and, head down, he charged the line of his tormentors. His was the unreasoning fury of deadly fear. He kicked, he screamed, he struck out with fists and butted with his head. In an instant there was a seething, scrambling, rolling mêlée, a bedlam of shouts and cries of sudden pain…. Then Angus, crying with fear, worked himself free of the mass and took to his heels in a wild scurry for the refuge of Dave Wilkins’s office.
This was Angus’s last appearance on the streets of Rainbow unprotected. The attack put Dave Wilkins in a savage humor and impelled Craig Browning to bring with him to Wilkins’s rooms a set of worn boxing gloves and other apparatus for the betterment of Angus’s physical
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