"They drank in pairs, and I'd blistered my throat at their damn jail-raising! What sort of a fizzle would it have been if I hadn't been on hand to impart distinction to the occasion ?" "I don't begrudge 'em their liquor," said Mahaffy with acid dignity.
"I do," interrupted the judge.

"I hope it's poison to 'em.
"It will be in the long run, if it's any comfort to you to know it." "It's no comfort, it's not near quick enough," said the judge relentlessly.

The sudden noisy clamor of many voices, highpitched and excited, floated out to them under the hot sky.

"I wonder--" began the judge, and paused as he saw the crowd stream into the road before the tavern.

Then a cloud of dust enveloped it, a cloud of dust that came from the trampling of many pairs of feet, and that swept toward them, thick and impenetrable, and no higher than a tall man's head in the lifeless air.