There was a snarl of dissent.

“You all better go slow, and hold your tongues, and mind your own business.  Remember what I say; that girl does not owe a red cent in this town, neither does her father.  She’s paid in full, and you’ve spent a lot of it in here, too!” The Judge wiped his red face.

“Oh, come on, Jedge; you don’t want to be hard on the house,” protested the man in the red sweater, waving his arms as frantically as a freight brakeman.  “Say, you boys! don’t ye git excited!  The Jedge didn’t mean that; you got him kind of het up with argufying....  Down in front, boys!  You, Lute—­”

But it was too late:  half a dozen voices were shouting at once.  There was a simultaneous descent upon the bar, with loud demands for liquor of the sort Lute Parsons filled up on.  Then the raucous voice of the ringleader pierced the tumult.

“Come on, boys!  Let’s go out to the old place and get our rights off that gal of Bolton’s!”

“That’s th’ stuff, Lute!” yelled the others, clashing their glasses wildly.  “Come on!  Come on, everybody!”

In vain Judge Fulsom hammered on the bar and called for order in the court room.  The majesty of the law, as embodied in his great bulk, appeared to have lost its power.  Even his faithful henchman in the red sweater had joined the rioters and was yelling wildly for his rights.  Somebody flung wide the door, and the barroom emptied itself into the night, leaving the oily young man at his post of duty gazing fearfully at the purple face of Judge Fulsom, who stood staring, as if stupefied, at the overturned chairs, the broken glasses and the empty darkness outside.

“Say, Jedge, them boys was sure some excited,” ventured the bartender timidly.  “You don’t s’pose—­”

The big man put himself slowly into motion.

“I’ll get th’ constable,” he growled.  “I—­I’ll run ’em in; and I’ll give Lute Parsons the full extent of the law, if it’s the last thing I do on earth.  I—­I’ll teach them!—­I’ll give them all they’re lookin’ for.”

And he, too, went out, leaving the door swinging in the cold wind.

At the corner, still meditating vengeance for this affront to his dignity, Judge Fulsom almost collided with the hurrying figure of a man approaching in the opposite direction.

“Hello!” he challenged sharply.  “Where you goin’ so fast, my friend?”

“Evening, Judge,” responded the man, giving the other a wide margin.

“Oh, it’s Jim Dodge—­eh?  Say, Jim, did you meet any of the boys on the road?”

“What boys?”

“Why, we got into a little discussion over to the Brookville House about this Andrew Bolton business—­his coming back unexpected, you know; and some of the boys seemed to think they hadn’t got all that was coming to them by rights.  Lute Parsons he gets kind of worked up after about three or four glasses, and he sicked the boys onto going out there, and—­”