suicide by hanging, they ceiled the place tightly with Tom's matched
flooring of Oregon pine. Tom did not like that, and said so; but the
citizens of Sunset nailed it on and turned a deaf ear to his complaints.

Chill dawn spread over the town, dulling the light of the fires and
bringing into relief the sodden tramplings in the snow around the jail,
with the sharply defined paths leading to Tom Aldershot's lumber-pile.
The watchers had long before sneaked off to their beds, for not a sign
of Ford had they seen since midnight. The storm had ceased early in the
evening and all the sky was glowing crimson with the coming glory of the
sun. The jail was almost finished. Up on the roof three crouching
figures were nailing down strips of brick-red building paper as a fair
substitute for shingles, and on the side nearest town the marshal and
another were holding a yard-wide piece flat against the wall with
fingers that tingled in the cold, while Bill Wright fastened it into
place with shingle nails driven through tin disks the size of a
half-dollar.

Ford, partly sober after a sleep on the billiard table in the hotel
barroom, heard the hammering, wondered what industrious soul was up and
doing carpenter work at that unseemly hour, and after helping himself to
a generous "eye-opener" at the deserted bar, found his cap and went over
to investigate. He was much surprised to see Bill Wright working, and
smiled to himself as he walked quietly up to him through the soft,
step-muffling snow.

"What you doing, Bill--building a chicken house?" he asked, a quirk of
amusement at the corner of his lips.

Bill jumped and came near swallowing a nail; so near that his eyes