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No two words in the English language can make people run away faster than "street evangelist." In Couy Griffin's case, however, they stand in line to talk to him.

Of course, it's not every day a cowboy with a big white flag rides a quarter horse through downtown traffic on East Market Street, with a miniature mule named Blackjack in tow.

But there he was Tuesday morning, bringing office workers to their windows and lighting up the switchboard at the 911 dispatch center from callers wanting to know: Who is that guy on the horse, and isn't there some kind of law?

The answer: Griffin, 33, is an elk hunters' guide from New Mexico who for the past two summers has made a cross-country trek to hand out copies of the Book of John city to city.

And no, according to Officer K.B. Johnson, who arrived on a mountain bike to answer one of the numerous calls about a man on a horse, there is no ordinance against riding a horse down the street.

"Just try to clean up if he ... you know," Johnson told him.

Which Griffin had already done with the equipment he brought, along with a supply of paperback gospels in the mule's saddlebags. And though he may be following in the footsteps of a long line of itinerant evangelists on horseback, he brings neither hellfire nor damnation. He never raises his voice, but just lets his horse, Daisy, break the ice.

"The Bible speaks about being gentle. Not a bunch of religious fanatics running around condemning each other," he said, pausing in the shade next to the hot dog vendor on Greene Street. "I've met people who have never even seen a horse up close."

After six years in France, where he drove a stagecoach in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show at the Paris Disneyland, Griffin realized the captivating power horses hold for people — and got the idea for spreading his message.

Though most of the cross-country trip is in his camper pulling the animals in a horse trailer, Griffin this spring rode from San Francisco to Spanish Fork, Utah, on his horse.

His five-month trek last year ran the gamut. He went from the solitude of U.S. Route 50 through Nevada — officially designated "The Loneliest Road in America" — to what is unofficially the least lonely, Broadway in New York City.

"It's so busy, people are just stepping on each other," he said.

"But I found a way to make people slow down in New York. Just ride a horse down the street."

But there's a loneliness in crowds as well. Even in Greensboro, traffic streamed around him, some drivers too preoccupied to notice him.

"Doing this kind of work, the hardest people to reach are corporate people — the ones with a briefcase under their arm, a cell phone in their ear, on their way to a meeting," Griffin said as the little mule nibbled at the leather of his ornate saddle. "They're so caught up in this world."

Just then, Mayor Keith Holliday walked briskly from City Hall, necktie flapping over his shoulder, and kept right on going across Greene Street. As if a cowboy on horseback with a white flag and a mule in tow is, well, just a typical Tuesday morning in Greensboro.

Contact 373-7334 or lahearn@news-record.com