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 bulged at the feel of it next his palate.

Tom Aldershot dropped his end 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 startled eyes peered down like chipmunks from a tree.

Some one up there dropped a hammer which hit Bill on the head, but no one said a word.
"You act like you were nervous, this morning," Ford observed, in the tone which indicates a conscious effort at good-humored ignorance.
"Working on a bet, or what ?" "What!" snarled Bill sarcastically.