It did work, up to a certain point.  Ford heard a noise in the storeroom and went to investigate, caught a glimpse of Tom Aldershot apparently about to climb through the little window, 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 frenzied hammering outside, and after that Sunset breathed freer, and discussed the evils of strong drink, and washed down their arguments by copious draughts of the stuff they maligned.

Later, they had to take him out of the storeroom, because he insisted upon knocking the bungs out of all the barrels and letting the liquor flood the floor, and Mike McGrew’s wife objected to 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 boards off one side and emerged breathing fire and brimstone like the dragons of old.  He had forgotten about wanting to kill Sam; he was willing—­nay, anxious—­to murder every male human in Sunset.

They did not know what to do with him after that.  They liked Ford when he was sober, and so they hated to shoot him, though that seemed the only way in which they might dampen his enthusiasm for blood.  Tom said that, if he failed to improve in temper by the next day, he would try 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.