another.

"Never let the baby play with matches," advised a third.

"Get pails, gents!" shouted Rule. "We gotta put it out. Where's a
pail? Who--"

"Aw, let 'er burn," said Galloway. "Hownell you gonna put it out?
She's all blazin' inside. You couldn't put it out with Shoshone
Falls."

"The wind's blowin' away from town," contributed Mike Flynn. "Nothin'
else'll catch. Besides, we been needing a new calaboose for a long
time. You done us a better turn than you think, Marie."

"If you say I set the jail afire, Mike Flynn," cried Marie, "Yo're a
liar by the clock."

"You set it afire," said the sheriff, sternly. "You'll find it a
serious business setting a jail afire."

"Prove I done it, then!" squalled Marie. "Prove it, you slab-sided
hunk! Yah, you can't prove it, and you know it!"

To this the sheriff made no reply.

"We gotta put her somewhere till the Judge gets sober," he said,
hurriedly. "Guess we'll put her in yore back room, Mike."

"Guess you won't," countered Mike. "They ain't any insurance on my
place, and I ain't taking no chances, not a chance."

"There's the hotel," suggested Kansas Casey.

"You don't use my hotel for no calaboose," squawked Bill Lainey.
"Nawsir. Not much. You put her in yore own house, Jake. Then if she
sets you afire, it's your own fault. Yeah."

Jake Rule scratched his head. It was patent that he did not quite know
what to do. Came then Dolan, the local justice of the peace. Dolan's
hair was plastered well over his ears and forehead. Dolan was pale
yellow of countenance and breathed strongly through his nose. He
looked not a little sick. He pawed a way through the crowd and cast a
bilious glance at Marie.

He inquired of Jake Rule as to the trouble and its cause. On being
told he convened court on the spot. Judge Dolan agreed with Mike
Flynn that the burning of the jail was a trivial matter requiring no
official attention. For was not Dolan's brother-in-law a carpenter and
would undoubtedly be given the contract for a new jail. Quite so.

"You can't prove anything about this jail-burning," he told Jake Rule
and the assembled multitude, "but this assault on Jack Harpe is a cat
with another tail. It was a lawless act and hadn't oughta happened.
Marie, yo're a citizen of Farewell, and you'd oughta take an interest
in the community instead of surging out and trying to massacre a
visitor in our midst, a visitor who's figuring on settlin' hereabouts,
I understand. Gawd kno