The Uphill Climb

to Dro

. Ford waved away the bottle and leaned, not on the bar but across it, and clutching Sam by the necktie, slapped him first upon one ear and next upon the other, until he was forced by the tingling of

nterest. Since Sam's face had the pasty pallor of the badly scared, the ears appeared much redder by contrast than they really were. Next, Fo

a cow on bacon-rinds when she done lost her cud. You try it, Sam. Mebby it might help them ears! Shove that there trouble-killer over this way, Sammy, and don't look so fierce at your uncle Bill; he's liable to turn you across his knee and dust your pants proper." He turned again to Ford, scowling at the group and at life in general, while the sn

ause unknown to the chronicler, and somewhat hazy to Ford also after it was all over. By mid-afternoon he had Sammy entrenched in the tiny stronghold where barreled liquors were kept, and scared to the babbling stage. Aleck had been put to bed with a gash over his right eye where For

e ducking to avoid painful contact with flying glasses from the bar, and a few had retreated in search of bandages and liniment; the luckier ones remained as near t

igar! You're just hanging around out there till I drink myself to sleep-but I'm fooling you a few! I'm watching the clock with one eye, and I take my dose regular and not too frequent. I'm going to kill off a few of these smart boys tha

en door. "I've got him right where I want him." And he stated, with

plintered a beer bottle against the casing; glanced solemnly up at the barroom clock and, retreating to the nearly denuded bar, gravely poured himself another drink; held up the glass to the dusk-filmed window, squinted through it, decided that he needed a little more than that, and added another tea

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 stopp

arshal. Tom, however, was working on the house he hoped to have ready for his prospective

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.

tion hinted a doubt of hi

'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

avoid a painful meeting with a billiard ball. Mother McGrew had piled two tables against the dining-room door and b

can't do nothing," stated

hat man is doin' it would take a year's profits to make up. You gotta do something, Tom Aldershot-you that calls yourself a marshal, swore to pertect the citizens uh Sunset! No, sir-I ain't a-goin' to

lation of Sunset on certain previous occasions. He left her

pretending an assault upon him by way of the storeroom window, which could be barred from without by heavy planks. Secure in his belief in Ford's friendship for him, Sandy even volunteered to

and hurled a hammer and considerable vituperation at the opening. Whereupon Sandy scuttled in and slammed the door, according to his own plan, and locked it. There was a season of fr

the waste, on the ground that whisky costs money. They fell upon him in a body, bundled him up, hustled him over to the ice-house, and shut him in; and within ten minutes he kicked three boa

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

a jail crystallized into a definite project which, it wa

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

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 suicide by hanging,

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 fai

arpenter 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 inves

icken house?" he asked, a quirk of

of the strip of paper, which tore with a dull sound of ripping, and remarked that he would be damned. Necks craned, up on the roof, and s

served, in the tone which indicates a conscious effort

time you bowl up, you'd pick on somebody that ain't too g

t a hole and crawl into it, Bill. I don't want to hurt you-but seems like I've kinda got the habit. You'll have to excuse me

ay?" he inquired of

just when we've got a jail built to put you into! That ain't no way for a man to do-I'll leave it to Bill if it is! I've a darned good mind to swear out a warrant, anyway

th a you-take-the-consequences sort of indifference. "Only, I'd advise

ill complained, with deep reproach in his watery eyes. "I made sure you was due to keep things agit

d and steely. "I'd like to help you out, all right. Maybe I'd better kill you, Bill; they might stretch a point

Bill alm

openly at Bill, the marshal, the jail, and the town which owned it, an

not too large for easy carrying on horseback; and when Sandy, hovering uneasily around him, asked questions, he told

nounceable count who owned the castle in the Black Forest and had much tribulation and no joy until the last chapter, and when Ford went out, with his battered, so