and land him in jail, though it did seem rigorous treatment for so
common a fault as getting drunk. Meanwhile they kept out of his way as
well as they could, and dodged missiles and swore. Even that was
becoming more and more difficult--except the swearing--because Ford
developed a perfectly diabolic tendency to empty every store that
contained a man, so that it became no uncommon sight to see a back door
belching forth hurrying figures at the most unseasonable times. No man
could lift a full glass, that night, and feel sure of drinking the
contents undisturbed; whereat Sunset grumbled while it dodged.

It may have been nine o'clock before the sporadic talk of a jail
crystallized into a definite project which, it was unanimously agreed,
could not too soon be made a reality.

They built the jail that night, by the light of bonfires which the
slightly wounded kept blazing in the intervals of standing guard over
the workers; ready to give warning in case Ford appeared as a war-cloud
on their horizon. There were fifteen able-bodied men, and they worked
fast, with Ford's war-chant in the saloon down the street as an
incentive to speed. They erected it close to Tom Aldershot's house,
because the town borrowed lumber from him and they wanted to save
carrying, and because it was Tom's duty to look after the prisoner, and
he wanted the jail handy, so that he need not lose any time from his
house-building.

They built it strong, and they built it tight, without any window save a
narrow slit near the ceiling; they heated it by setting a stove outside
under a shelter, where Tom could keep up the fire without the risk of
going inside, and ran pipe and a borrowed "drum" through the jail high
enough so that Ford could not kick it. And to discourage any thought of