The group outside withdrew across the street to grapple with the problem
before them. It was obviously impossible for civilized men to sacrifice
Sam, even if they could catch him--which they could not. Sam had bolted
through the dining-room, upset the Chinaman in the kitchen, and fallen
over a bucket of ashes in the coal-shed in his flight for freedom. He
had not stopped at that, but had scurried off up the railroad track. The
general opinion among the spectators was that he had, by this time,
reached the next station and was hiding in a cellar there.

Bill Wright hysterically insisted that it was up to Tom Aldershot, who
was a deputy town marshal. Tom, however, was working on the house he
hoped to have ready for his prospective bride by Thanksgiving, and hated
to be interrupted for the sake of a few broken heads only.

"He ain't shooting up nobody," he argued from the platform, where he was
doing "inside work" on his dining-room while the storm lasted. "He
never does cut loose with his gun when he's drunk. If I arrested him,
I'd have to take him clear up to Garbin--and I ain't got time. And it
wouldn't be nothin' but a charge uh disturbin' the peace, when I got him
there. Y'oughta have a jail in Sunset, like I've been telling yuh right
along. Can't expect a man to stop his work just to take a man to
jail--not for anything less than murder, anyhow."

Some member of the deputation hinted a doubt of his courage, and Tom
flushed.

"I ain't scared of him," he snorted indignantly. "I should say not! I'll
go over and make him behave--as a man and a citizen. But I ain't going
to arrest him as an officer, when there ain't no place to put him." Tom
reluctantly threw down his hammer, grumbling because they would not wait