The Valley of Fear

It was the fourth of February in the year 1875. It had been a severe
winter, and the snow lay deep in the gorges of the Gilmerton
Mountains. The steam ploughs had, however, kept the railroad open,
and the evening train which connects the long line of coal-mining and
iron-working settlements was slowly groaning its way up the steep
gradients which lead from Stagville on the plain to Vermissa, the
central township which lies at the head of Vermissa Valley. From this
point the track sweeps downward to Bartons Crossing, Helmdale, and
the purely agricultural county of Merton. It was a single-track
railroad; but at every siding–and they were numerous–long lines of
trucks piled with coal and iron ore told of the hidden wealth which
had brought a rude population and a bustling life to this most
desolate corner of the United States of America.

For desolate it was! Little could the first pioneer who had traversed
it have ever imagined that the fairest prairies and the most lush
water pastures were valueless compared to this gloomy land of black
crag and tangled forest. Above the dark and often scarcely penetrable
woods upon their flanks, the high, bare crowns of the mountains,
white snow, and jagged rock towered upon each flank, leaving a long,
winding, tortuous valley in the centre. Up this the little train was
slowly crawling.

The oil lamps had just been lit in the leading passenger car, a long,
bare carriage in which some twenty or thirty people were seated. The
greater number of these were workmen returning from their day’s toil
in the lower part of the valley. At least a dozen, by their grimed
faces and the safety lanterns which they carried, proclaimed
themselves miners. These sat smoking in a group and conversed in low
voices, glancing occasionally at two men on the opposite side of the
car, whose uniforms and badges showed them to be policemen.

Several women of the labouring class and one or two travellers who
might have been small local storekeepers made up the rest of the
company, with the exception of one young man in a corner by himself.
It is with this man that we are concerned. Take a good look at him,
for he is worth it.

He is a fresh-complexioned, middle-sized young man, not far, one
would guess, from his thirtieth year. He has large, shrewd, humorous
gray eyes which twinkle inquiringly from time to time as he looks
round through his spectacles at the people about him. It is easy to
see that he is of a sociable and possibly simple disposition, anxious
to be friendly to all men. Anyone could pick him at once as
gregarious in his habits and communicative in his nature, with a
quick wit and a ready smile. And yet the man who studied him more
closely might discern a certain firmness of jaw and grim tightness
about the lips which would warn him that there were depths beyond,
and that this pleasant, brown-haired young Irishman might conceivably
leave his mark for good or evil upon any society to which he was
introduced.

Having made one or two tentative remarks to the nearest miner, and
receiving only short, gruff replies, the traveller resigned himself
to uncongenial silence, staring moodily out of the window at the
fading landscape.

It was not a cheering prospect. Through the growing gloom there
pulsed the red glow of the furnaces on the sides of the hills. Great
heaps of slag and dumps of cinders loomed up on each side, with the
high shafts of the collieries towering above them. Huddled groups of
mean, wooden houses, the windows of which were beginning to outline
themselves in light, were scattered here and there along the line,
and the frequent halting places were crowded with their swarthy
inhabitants.

The iron and coal valleys of the Vermissa district were no resorts
for the leisured or the cultured. Everywhere there were stern signs
of the crudest battle of life, the rude work to be done, and the
rude, strong workers who did it.

The young traveller gazed out into this dismal country with a face of
mingled repulsion and interest, which showed that the scene was new
to him. At intervals he drew from his pocket a bulky letter to which
he referred, and on the margins of which he scribbled some notes.
Once from the back of his waist he produced something which one would
hardly have expected to find in the possession of so mild-mannered a
man. It was a navy revolver of the largest size. As he turned it
slantwise to the light, the glint upon the rims of the copper shells
within the drum showed that it was fully loaded. He quickly restored
it to his secret pocket, but not before it had been observed by a
working man who had seated himself upon the adjoining bench.

“Hullo, mate!” said he. “You seem heeled and ready.”

The young man smiled with an air of embarrassment.

“Yes,” said he, “we need them sometimes in the place I come from.”

“And where may that be?”

“I’m last from Chicago.”

“A stranger in these parts?”

“Yes.”

“You may find you need it here,” said the workman.

“Ah! is that so?” The young man seemed interested.

“Have you heard nothing of doings hereabouts?”

“Nothing out of the way.”

“Why, I thought the country was full of it. You’ll hear quick enough.
What made you come here?”

“I heard there was always work for a willing man.”

“Are you a member of the union?”

“Sure.”

“Then you’ll get your job, I guess. Have you any friends?”

“Not yet; but I have the means of making them.”

“How’s that, then?”

“I am one of the Eminent Order of Freemen. There’s no town without a
lodge, and where there is a lodge I’ll find my friends.”

The remark had a singular effect upon his companion. He glanced round
suspiciously at the others in the car. The miners were still
whispering among themselves. The two police officers were dozing. He
came across, seated himself close to the young traveller, and held
out his hand.

“Put it there,” he said.

A hand-grip passed between the two.

“I see you speak the truth,” said the workman. “But it’s well to make
certain.” He raised his right hand to his right eyebrow. The
traveller at once raised his left hand to his left eyebrow.

“Dark nights are unpleasant,” said the workman.

“Yes, for strangers to travel,” the other answered.

“That’s good enough. I’m Brother Scanlan, Lodge 341, Vermissa Valley.
Glad to see you in these parts.”

“Thank you. I’m Brother John McMurdo, Lodge 29, Chicago. Bodymaster
J. H. Scott. But I am in luck to meet a brother so early.”

“Well, there are plenty of us about. You won’t find the order more
flourishing anywhere in the States than right here in Vermissa
Valley. But we could do with some lads like you. I can’t understand a
spry man of the union finding no work to do in Chicago.”

“I found plenty of work to do,” said McMurdo.

“Then why did you leave?”

McMurdo nodded towards the policemen and smiled. “I guess those chaps
would be glad to know,” he said.

Scanlan groaned sympathetically. “In trouble?” he asked in a whisper.

“Deep.”

“A penitentiary job?”

“And the rest.”

“Not a killing!”

“It’s early days to talk of such things,” said McMurdo with the air
of a man who had been surprised into saying more than he intended.
“I’ve my own good reasons for leaving Chicago, and let that be enough
for you. Who are you that you should take it on yourself to ask such
things?” His gray eyes gleamed with sudden and dangerous anger from
behind his glasses.

“All right, mate, no offense meant. The boys will think none the
worse of you, whatever you may have done. Where are you bound for
now?”

“Vermissa.”

“That’s the third halt down the line. Where are you staying?”

McMurdo took out an envelope and held it close to the murky oil lamp.
“Here is the address–Jacob Shafter, Sheridan Street. It’s a boarding
house that was recommended by a man I knew in Chicago.”

“Well, I don’t know it; but Vermissa is out of my beat. I live at
Hobson’s Patch, and that’s here where we are drawing up. But, say,
there’s one bit of advice I’ll give you before we part: If you’re in
trouble in Vermissa, go straight to the Union House and see Boss
McGinty. He is the Bodymaster of Vermissa Lodge, and nothing can
happen in these parts unless Black Jack McGinty wants it. So long,
mate! Maybe we’ll meet in lodge one of these evenings. But mind my
words: If you are in trouble, go to Boss McGinty.”

Scanlan descended, and McMurdo was left once again to his thoughts.
Night had now fallen, and the flames of the frequent furnaces were
roaring and leaping in the darkness. Against their lurid background
dark figures were bending and straining, twisting and turning, with
the motion of winch or of windlass, to the rhythm of an eternal clank
and roar.

“I guess hell must look something like that,” said a voice.

McMurdo turned and saw that one of the policemen had shifted in his
seat and was staring out into the fiery waste.

“For that matter,” said the other policeman, “I allow that hell must
be something like that. If there are worse devils down yonder than
some we could name, it’s more than I’d expect. I guess you are new to
this part, young man?”

“Well, what if I am?” McMurdo answered in a surly voice.

“Just this, mister, that I should advise you to be careful in
choosing your friends. I don’t think I’d begin with Mike Scanlan or
his gang if I were you.”

“What the hell is it to you who are my friends?” roared McMurdo in a
voice which brought every head in the carriage round to witness the
altercation. “Did I ask you for your advice, or did you think me such
a sucker that I couldn’t move without it? You speak when you are
spoken to, and by the Lord you’d have to wait a long time if it was
me!” He thrust out his face and grinned at the patrolmen like a
snarling dog.

The two policemen, heavy, good-natured men, were taken aback by the
extraordinary vehemence with which their friendly advances had been
rejected.

“No offense, stranger,” said one. “It was a warning for your own
good, seeing that you are, by your own showing, new to the place.”

“I’m new to the place; but I’m not new to you and your kind!” cried
McMurdo in cold fury. “I guess you’re the same in all places, shoving
your advice in when nobody asks for it.”

“Maybe we’ll see more of you before very long,” said one of the
patrolmen with a grin. “You’re a real hand-picked one, if I am a
judge.”

“I was thinking the same,” remarked the other. “I guess we may meet
again.”

“I’m not afraid of you, and don’t you think it!” cried McMurdo. “My
name’s Jack McMurdo–see? If you want me, you’ll find me at Jacob
Shafter’s on Sheridan Street, Vermissa; so I’m not hiding from you,
am I? Day or night I dare to look the like of you in the face–don’t
make any mistake about that!”

There was a murmur of sympathy and admiration from the miners at the
dauntless demeanour of the newcomer, while the two policemen shrugged
their shoulders and renewed a conversation between themselves.

A few minutes later the train ran into the ill-lit station, and there
was a general clearing; for Vermissa was by far the largest town on
the line. McMurdo picked up his leather gripsack and was about to
start off into the darkness, when one of the miners accosted him.

“By Gar, mate! you know how to speak to the cops,” he said in a voice
of awe. “It was grand to hear you. Let me carry your grip and show
you the road. I’m passing Shafter’s on the way to my own shack.”

There was a chorus of friendly “Good-nights” from the other miners as
they passed from the platform. Before ever he had set foot in it,
McMurdo the turbulent had become a character in Vermissa.

The country had been a place of terror; but the town was in its way
even more depressing. Down that long valley there was at least a
certain gloomy grandeur in the huge fires and the clouds of drifting
smoke, while the strength and industry of man found fitting monuments
in the hills which he had spilled by the side of his monstrous
excavations. But the town showed a dead level of mean ugliness and
squalor. The broad street was churned up by the traffic into a
horrible rutted paste of muddy snow. The sidewalks were narrow and
uneven. The numerous gas-lamps served only to show more clearly a
long line of wooden houses, each with its veranda facing the street,
unkempt and dirty.

As they approached the centre of the town the scene was brightened by
a row of well-lit stores, and even more by a cluster of saloons and
gaming houses, in which the miners spent their hard-earned but
generous wages.

“That’s the Union House,” said the guide, pointing to one saloon
which rose almost to the dignity of being a hotel. “Jack McGinty is
the boss there.”

“What sort of a man is he?” McMurdo asked.

“What! have you never heard of the boss?”

“How could I have heard of him when you know that I am a stranger in
these parts?”

“Well, I thought his name was known clear across the country. It’s
been in the papers often enough.”

“What for?”

“Well,” the miner lowered his voice–“over the affairs.”

“What affairs?”

“Good Lord, mister! you are queer, if I must say it without offense.
There’s only one set of affairs that you’ll hear of in these parts,
and that’s the affairs of the Scowrers.”

“Why, I seem to have read of the Scowrers in Chicago. A gang of
murderers, are they not?”

“Hush, on your life!” cried the miner, standing still in alarm, and
gazing in amazement at his companion. “Man, you won’t live long in
these parts if you speak in the open street like that. Many a man has
had the life beaten out of him for less.”

“Well, I know nothing about them. It’s only what I have read.”

“And I’m not saying that you have not read the truth.” The man looked
nervously round him as he spoke, peering into the shadows as if he
feared to see some lurking danger. “If killing is murder, then God
knows there is murder and to spare. But don’t you dare to breathe the
name of Jack McGinty in connection with it, stranger; for every
whisper goes back to him, and he is not one that is likely to let it
pass. Now, that’s the house you’re after, that one standing back from
the street. You’ll find old Jacob Shafter that runs it as honest a
man as lives in this township.”

“I thank you,” said McMurdo, and shaking hands with his new
acquaintance he plodded, gripsack in hand, up the path which led to
the dwelling house, at the door of which he gave a resounding knock.

It was opened at once by someone very different from what he had
expected. It was a woman, young and singularly beautiful. She was of
the German type, blonde and fair-haired, with the piquant contrast of
a pair of beautiful dark eyes with which she surveyed the stranger
with surprise and a pleasing embarrassment which brought a wave of
colour over her pale face. Framed in the bright light of the open
doorway, it seemed to McMurdo that he had never seen a more beautiful
picture; the more attractive for its contrast with the sordid and
gloomy surroundings. A lovely violet growing upon one of those black
slag-heaps of the mines would not have seemed more surprising. So
entranced was he that he stood staring without a word, and it was she
who broke the silence.

“I thought it was father,” said she with a pleasing little touch of a
German accent. “Did you come to see him? He is downtown. I expect him
back every minute.”

McMurdo continued to gaze at her in open admiration until her eyes
dropped in confusion before this masterful visitor.

“No, miss,” he said at last, “I’m in no hurry to see him. But your
house was recommended to me for board. I thought it might suit
me–and now I know it will.”

“You are quick to make up your mind,” said she with a smile.

“Anyone but a blind man could do as much,” the other answered.

She laughed at the compliment. “Come right in, sir,” she said. “I’m
Miss Ettie Shafter, Mr. Shafter’s daughter. My mother’s dead, and I
run the house. You can sit down by the stove in the front room until
father comes along–Ah, here he is! So you can fix things with him
right away.”

A heavy, elderly man came plodding up the path. In a few words
McMurdo explained his business. A man of the name of Murphy had given
him the address in Chicago. He in turn had had it from someone else.
Old Shafter was quite ready. The stranger made no bones about terms,
agreed at once to every condition, and was apparently fairly flush of
money. For seven dollars a week paid in advance he was to have board
and lodging.

So it was that McMurdo, the self-confessed fugitive from justice,
took up his abode under the roof of the Shafters, the first step
which was to lead to so long and dark a train of events, ending in a
far distant land.

McMurdo was a man who made his mark quickly. Wherever he was the folk
around soon knew it. Within a week he had become infinitely the most
important person at Shafter’s. There were ten or a dozen boarders
there; but they were honest foremen or commonplace clerks from the
stores, of a very different calibre from the young Irishman. Of an
evening when they gathered together his joke was always the readiest,
his conversation the brightest, and his song the best. He was a born
boon companion, with a magnetism which drew good humour from all
around him.

And yet he showed again and again, as he had shown in the railway
carriage, a capacity for sudden, fierce anger, which compelled the
respect and even the fear of those who met him. For the law, too, and
all who were connected with it, he exhibited a bitter contempt which
delighted some and alarmed others of his fellow boarders.

From the first he made it evident, by his open admiration, that the
daughter of the house had won his heart from the instant that he had
set eyes upon her beauty and her grace. He was no backward suitor. On
the second day he told her that he loved her, and from then onward he
repeated the same story with an absolute disregard of what she might
say to discourage him.

“Someone else?” he would cry. “Well, the worse luck for someone else!
Let him look out for himself! Am I to lose my life’s chance and all
my heart’s desire for someone else? You can keep on saying no, Ettie:
the day will come when you will say yes, and I’m young enough to
wait.”

He was a dangerous suitor, with his glib Irish tongue, and his
pretty, coaxing ways. There was about him also that glamour of
experience and of mystery which attracts a woman’s interest, and
finally her love. He could talk of the sweet valleys of County
Monaghan from which he came, of the lovely, distant island, the low
hills and green meadows of which seemed the more beautiful when
imagination viewed them from this place of grime and snow.

Then he was versed in the life of the cities of the North, of
Detroit, and the lumber camps of Michigan, and finally of Chicago,
where he had worked in a planing mill. And afterwards came the hint
of romance, the feeling that strange things had happened to him in
that great city, so strange and so intimate that they might not be
spoken of. He spoke wistfully of a sudden leaving, a breaking of old
ties, a flight into a strange world, ending in this dreary valley,
and Ettie listened, her dark eyes gleaming with pity and with
sympathy–those two qualities which may turn so rapidly and so
naturally to love.

McMurdo had obtained a temporary job as bookkeeper; for he was a
well-educated man. This kept him out most of the day, and he had not
found occasion yet to report himself to the head of the lodge of the
Eminent Order of Freemen. He was reminded of his omission, however,
by a visit one evening from Mike Scanlan, the fellow member whom he
had met in the train. Scanlan, the small, sharp-faced, nervous,
black-eyed man, seemed glad to see him once more. After a glass or
two of whisky he broached the object of his visit.

“Say, McMurdo,” said he, “I remembered your address, so l made bold
to call. I’m surprised that you’ve not reported to the Bodymaster.
Why haven’t you seen Boss McGinty yet?”

“Well, I had to find a job. I have been busy.”

“You must find time for him if you have none for anything else. Good
Lord, man! you’re a fool not to have been down to the Union House and
registered your name the first morning after you came here! If you
run against him–well, you mustn’t, that’s all!”

McMurdo showed mild surprise. “I’ve been a member of the lodge for
over two years, Scanlan, but I never heard that duties were so
pressing as all that.”

“Maybe not in Chicago.”

“Well, it’s the same society here.”

“Is it?”

Scanlan looked at him long and fixedly. There was something sinister
in his eyes.

“Isn’t it?”

“You’ll tell me that in a month’s time. I hear you had a talk with
the patrolmen after I left the train.”

“How did you know that?”

“Oh, it got about–things do get about for good and for bad in this
district.”

“Well, yes. I told the hounds what I thought of them.”

“By the Lord, you’ll be a man after McGinty’s heart!”

“What, does he hate the police too?”

Scanlan burst out laughing. “You go and see him, my lad,” said he as
he took his leave. “It’s not the police but you that he’ll hate if
you don’t! Now, take a friend’s advice and go at once!”

It chanced that on the same evening McMurdo had another more pressing
interview which urged him in the same direction. It may have been
that his attentions to Ettie had been more evident than before, or
that they had gradually obtruded themselves into the slow mind of his
good German host; but, whatever the cause, the boarding-house keeper
beckoned the young man into his private room and started on the
subject without any circumlocution.

“It seems to me, mister,” said he, “that you are gettin’ set on my
Ettie. Ain’t that so, or am I wrong?”

“Yes, that is so,” the young man answered.

“Vell, I vant to tell you right now that it ain’t no manner of use.
There’s someone slipped in afore you.”

“She told me so.”

“Vell, you can lay that she told you truth. But did she tell you who
it vas?”

“No, I asked her; but she wouldn’t tell.”

“I dare say not, the leetle baggage! Perhaps she did not vish to
frighten you avay.”

“Frighten!” McMurdo was on fire in a moment.

“Ah, yes, my friend! You need not be ashamed to be frightened of him.
It is Teddy Baldwin.”

“And who the devil is he?”

“He is a boss of Scowrers.”

“Scowrers! I’ve heard of them before. It’s Scowrers here and Scowrers
there, and always in a whisper! What are you all afraid of? Who are
the Scowrers?”

The boarding-house keeper instinctively sank his voice, as everyone
did who talked about that terrible society. “The Scowrers,” said he,
“are the Eminent Order of Freemen!”

The young man stared. “Why, I am a member of that order myself.”

“You! I vould never have had you in my house if I had known it–not
if you vere to pay me a hundred dollar a week.”

“What’s wrong with the order? It’s for charity and good fellowship.
The rules say so.”

“Maybe in some places. Not here!”

“What is it here?”

“It’s a murder society, that’s vat it is.”

McMurdo laughed incredulously. “How can you prove that?” he asked.

“Prove it! Are there not fifty murders to prove it? Vat about Milman
and Van Shorst, and the Nicholson family, and old Mr. Hyam, and
little Billy James, and the others? Prove it! Is there a man or a
voman in this valley vat does not know it?”

“See here!” said McMurdo earnestly. “I want you to take back what
you’ve said, or else make it good. One or the other you must do
before I quit this room. Put yourself in my place. Here am I, a
stranger in the town. I belong to a society that I know only as an
innocent one. You’ll find it through the length and breadth of the
States, but always as an innocent one. Now, when I am counting upon
joining it here, you tell me that it is the same as a murder society
called the Scowrers. I guess you owe me either an apology or else an
explanation, Mr. Shafter.”

“I can but tell you vat the whole vorld knows, mister. The bosses of
the one are the bosses of the other. If you offend the one, it is the
other vat vill strike you. We have proved it too often.”

“That’s just gossip–I want proof!” said McMurdo.

“If you live here long you vill get your proof. But I forget that you
are yourself one of them. You vill soon be as bad as the rest. But
you vill find other lodgings, mister. I cannot have you here. Is it
not bad enough that one of these people come courting my Ettie, and
that I dare not turn him down, but that I should have another for my
boarder? Yes, indeed, you shall not sleep here after to-night!”

McMurdo found himself under sentence of banishment both from his
comfortable quarters and from the girl whom he loved. He found her
alone in the sitting-room that same evening, and he poured his
troubles into her ear.

“Sure, your father is after giving me notice,” he said. “It’s little
I would care if it was just my room, but indeed, Ettie, though it’s
only a week that I’ve known you, you are the very breath of life to
me, and I can’t live without you!”

“Oh, hush, Mr. McMurdo, don’t speak so!” said the girl. “I have told
you, have I not, that you are too late? There is another, and if I
have not promised to marry him at once, at least I can promise no one
else.”

“Suppose I had been first, Ettie, would I have had a chance?”

The girl sank her face into her hands. “I wish to heaven that you had
been first!” she sobbed.

McMurdo was down on his knees before her in an instant. “For God’s
sake, Ettie, let it stand at that!” he cried. “Will you ruin your
life and my own for the sake of this promise? Follow your heart,
acushla! ‘Tis a safer guide than any promise before you knew what it
was that you were saying.”

He had seized Ettie’s white hand between his own strong brown ones.

“Say that you will be mine, and we will face it out together!”

“Not here?”

“Yes, here.”

“No, no, Jack!” His arms were round her now. “It could not be here.
Could you take me away?”

A struggle passed for a moment over McMurdo’s face; but it ended by
setting like granite. “No, here,” he said. “I’ll hold you against the
world, Ettie, right here where we are!”

“Why should we not leave together?”

“No, Ettie, I can’t leave here.”

“But why?”

“I’d never hold my head up again if I felt that I had been driven
out. Besides, what is there to be afraid of? Are we not free folks in
a free country? If you love me, and I you, who will dare to come
between?”

“You don’t know, Jack. You’ve been here too short a time. You don’t
know this Baldwin. You don’t know McGinty and his Scowrers.”

“No, I don’t know them, and I don’t fear them, and I don’t believe in
them!” said McMurdo. “I’ve lived among rough men, my darling, and
instead of fearing them it has always ended that they have feared
me–always, Ettie. It’s mad on the face of it! If these men, as your
father says, have done crime after crime in the valley, and if
everyone knows them by name, how comes it that none are brought to
justice? You answer me that, Ettie!”

“Because no witness dares to appear against them. He would not live a
month if he did. Also because they have always their own men to swear
that the accused one was far from the scene of the crime. But surely,
Jack, you must have read all this. I had understood that every paper
in the United States was writing about it.”

“Well, I have read something, it is true; but I had thought it was a
story. Maybe these men have some reason in what they do. Maybe they
are wronged and have no other way to help themselves.”

“Oh, Jack, don’t let me hear you speak so! That is how he speaks–the
other one!”

“Baldwin–he speaks like that, does he?”

“And that is why I loathe him so. Oh, Jack, now I can tell you the
truth. I loathe him with all my heart; but I fear him also. I fear
him for myself; but above all I fear him for father. I know that some
great sorrow would come upon us if I dared to say what I really felt.
That is why I have put him off with half-promises. It was in real
truth our only hope. But if you would fly with me, Jack, we could
take father with us and live forever far from the power of these
wicked men.”

Again there was the struggle upon McMurdo’s face, and again it set
like granite. “No harm shall come to you, Ettie–nor to your father
either. As to wicked men, I expect you may find that I am as bad as
the worst of them before we’re through.”

“No, no, Jack! I would trust you anywhere.”

McMurdo laughed bitterly. “Good Lord! how little you know of me! Your
innocent soul, my darling, could not even guess what is passing in
mine. But, hullo, who’s the visitor?”

The door had opened suddenly, and a young fellow came swaggering in
with the air of one who is the master. He was a handsome, dashing
young man of about the same age and build as McMurdo himself. Under
his broad-brimmed black felt hat, which he had not troubled to
remove, a handsome face with fierce, domineering eyes and a curved
hawk-bill of a nose looked savagely at the pair who sat by the stove.

Ettie had jumped to her feet full of confusion and alarm. “I’m glad
to see you, Mr. Baldwin,” said she. “You’re earlier than I had
thought. Come and sit down.”

Baldwin stood with his hands on his hips looking at McMurdo. “Who is
this?” he asked curtly.

“It’s a friend of mine, Mr. Baldwin, a new boarder here. Mr. McMurdo,
may I introduce you to Mr. Baldwin?”

The young men nodded in surly fashion to each other.

“Maybe Miss Ettie has told you how it is with us?” said Baldwin.

“I didn’t understand that there was any relation between you.”

“Didn’t you? Well, you can understand it now. You can take it from me
that this young lady is mine, and you’ll find it a very fine evening
for a walk.”

“Thank you, I am in no humour for a walk.”

“Aren’t you?” The man’s savage eyes were blazing with anger. “Maybe
you are in a humour for a fight, Mr. Boarder!”

“That I am!” cried McMurdo, springing to his feet. “You never said a
more welcome word.”

“For God’s sake, Jack! Oh, for God’s sake!” cried poor, distracted
Ettie. “Oh, Jack, Jack, he will hurt you!”

“Oh, it’s Jack, is it?” said Baldwin with an oath. “You’ve come to
that already, have you?”

“Oh, Ted, be reasonable–be kind! For my sake, Ted, if ever you loved
me, be big-hearted and forgiving!”

“I think, Ettie, that if you were to leave us alone we could get this
thing settled,” said McMurdo quietly. “Or maybe, Mr. Baldwin, you
will take a turn down the street with me. It’s a fine evening, and
there’s some open ground beyond the next block.”

“I’ll get even with you without needing to dirty my hands,” said his
enemy. “You’ll wish you had never set foot in this house before I am
through with you!”

“No time like the present,” cried McMurdo.

“I’ll choose my own time, mister. You can leave the time to me. See
here!” He suddenly rolled up his sleeve and showed upon his forearm a
peculiar sign which appeared to have been branded there. It was a
circle with a triangle within it. “D’you know what that means?”

“I neither know nor care!”

“Well, you will know, I’ll promise you that. You won’t be much older,
either. Perhaps Miss Ettie can tell you something about it. As to
you, Ettie, you’ll come back to me on your knees–d’ye hear,
girl?–on your knees–and then I’ll tell you what your punishment may
be. You’ve sowed–and by the Lord, I’ll see that you reap!” He
glanced at them both in fury. Then he turned upon his heel, and an
instant later the outer door had banged behind him.

For a few moments McMurdo and the girl stood in silence. Then she
threw her arms around him.

“Oh, Jack, how brave you were! But it is no use, you must fly!
To-night–Jack–to-night! It’s your only hope. He will have your
life. I read it in his horrible eyes. What chance have you against a
dozen of them, with Boss McGinty and all the power of the lodge
behind them?”

McMurdo disengaged her hands, kissed her, and gently pushed her back
into a chair. “There, acushla, there! Don’t be disturbed or fear for
me. I’m a Freeman myself. I’m after telling your father about it.
Maybe I am no better than the others; so don’t make a saint of me.
Perhaps you hate me too, now that I’ve told you as much?”

“Hate you, Jack? While life lasts I could never do that! I’ve heard
that there is no harm in being a Freeman anywhere but here; so why
should I think the worse of you for that? But if you are a Freeman,
Jack, why should you not go down and make a friend of Boss McGinty?
Oh, hurry, Jack, hurry! Get your word in first, or the hounds will be
on your trail.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” said McMurdo. “I’ll go right now and
fix it. You can tell your father that I’ll sleep here to-night and
find some other quarters in the morning.”

The bar of McGinty’s saloon was crowded as usual, for it was the
favourite loafing place of all the rougher elements of the town. The
man was popular; for he had a rough, jovial disposition which formed
a mask, covering a great deal which lay behind it. But apart from
this popularity, the fear in which he was held throughout the
township, and indeed down the whole thirty miles of the valley and
past the mountains on each side of it, was enough in itself to fill
his bar; for none could afford to neglect his good will.

Besides those secret powers which it was universally believed that he
exercised in so pitiless a fashion, he was a high public official, a
municipal councillor, and a commissioner of roads, elected to the
office through the votes of the ruffians who in turn expected to
receive favours at his hands. Assessments and taxes were enormous;
the public works were notoriously neglected, the accounts were
slurred over by bribed auditors, and the decent citizen was
terrorized into paying public blackmail, and holding his tongue lest
some worse thing befall him.

Thus it was that, year by year, Boss McGinty’s diamond pins became
more obtrusive, his gold chains more weighty across a more gorgeous
vest, and his saloon stretched farther and farther, until it
threatened to absorb one whole side of the Market Square.

McMurdo pushed open the swinging door of the saloon and made his way
amid the crowd of men within, through an atmosphere blurred with
tobacco smoke and heavy with the smell of spirits. The place was
brilliantly lighted, and the huge, heavily gilt mirrors upon every
wall reflected and multiplied the garish illumination. There were
several bartenders in their shirt sleeves, hard at work mixing drinks
for the loungers who fringed the broad, brass-trimmed counter.

At the far end, with his body resting upon the bar and a cigar stuck
at an acute angle from the corner of his mouth, stood a tall, strong,
heavily built man who could be none other than the famous McGinty
himself. He was a black-maned giant, bearded to the cheek-bones, and
with a shock of raven hair which fell to his collar. His complexion
was as swarthy as that of an Italian, and his eyes were of a strange
dead black, which, combined with a slight squint, gave them a
particularly sinister appearance.

All else in the man–his noble proportions, his fine features, and
his frank bearing–fitted in with that jovial, man-to-man manner
which he affected. Here, one would say, is a bluff, honest fellow,
whose heart would be sound however rude his outspoken words might
seem. It was only when those dead, dark eyes, deep and remorseless,
were turned upon a man that he shrank within himself, feeling that he
was face to face with an infinite possibility of latent evil, with a
strength and courage and cunning behind it which made it a thousand
times more deadly.

Having had a good look at his man, McMurdo elbowed his way forward
with his usual careless audacity, and pushed himself through the
little group of courtiers who were fawning upon the powerful boss,
laughing uproariously at the smallest of his jokes. The young
stranger’s bold gray eyes looked back fearlessly through their
glasses at the deadly black ones which turned sharply upon him.

“Well, young man, I can’t call your face to mind.”

“I’m new here, Mr. McGinty.”

“You are not so new that you can’t give a gentleman his proper
title.”

“He’s Councillor McGinty, young man,” said a voice from the group.

“I’m sorry, Councillor. I’m strange to the ways of the place. But I
was advised to see you.”

“Well, you see me. This is all there is. What d’you think of me?”

“Well, it’s early days. If your heart is as big as your body, and
your soul as fine as your face, then I’d ask for nothing better,”
said McMurdo.

“By Gar! you’ve got an Irish tongue in your head anyhow,” cried the
saloon-keeper, not quite certain whether to humour this audacious
visitor or to stand upon his dignity.

“So you are good enough to pass my appearance?”

“Sure,” said McMurdo.

“And you were told to see me?”

“I was.”

“And who told you?”

“Brother Scanlan of Lodge 341, Vermissa. I drink your health
Councillor, and to our better acquaintance.” He raised a glass with
which he had been served to his lips and elevated his little finger
as he drank it.

McGinty, who had been watching him narrowly, raised his thick black
eyebrows. “Oh, it’s like that, is it?” said he. “I’ll have to look a
bit closer into this, Mister–“

“McMurdo.”

“A bit closer, Mr. McMurdo; for we don’t take folk on trust in these
parts, nor believe all we’re told neither. Come in here for a moment,
behind the bar.”

There was a small room there, lined with barrels. McGinty carefully
closed the door, and then seated himself on one of them, biting
thoughtfully on his cigar and surveying his companion with those
disquieting eyes. For a couple of minutes he sat in complete silence.
McMurdo bore the inspection cheerfully, one hand in his coat pocket,
the other twisting his brown moustache. Suddenly McGinty stooped and
produced a wicked-looking revolver.

“See here, my joker,” said he, “if I thought you were playing any
game on us, it would be short work for you.”

“This is a strange welcome,” McMurdo answered with some dignity, “for
the Bodymaster of a lodge of Freemen to give to a stranger brother.”

“Ay, but it’s just that same that you have to prove,” said McGinty,
“and God help you if you fail! Where were you made?”

“Lodge 29, Chicago.”

“When?”

“June 24, 1872.”

“What Bodymaster?”

“James H. Scott.”

“Who is your district ruler?”

“Bartholomew Wilson.”

“Hum! You seem glib enough in your tests. What are you doing here?”

“Working, the same as you–but a poorer job.”

“You have your back answer quick enough.”

“Yes, I was always quick of speech.”

“Are you quick of action?”

“I have had that name among those that knew me best.”

“Well, we may try you sooner than you think. Have you heard anything
of the lodge in these parts?”

“I’ve heard that it takes a man to be a brother.”

“True for you, Mr. McMurdo. Why did you leave Chicago?”

“I’m damned if I tell you that!”

McGinty opened his eyes. He was not used to being answered in such
fashion, and it amused him. “Why won’t you tell me?”

“Because no brother may tell another a lie.”

“Then the truth is too bad to tell?”

“You can put it that way if you like.”

“See here, mister, you can’t expect me, as Bodymaster, to pass into
the lodge a man for whose past he can’t answer.”

McMurdo looked puzzled. Then he took a worn newspaper cutting from an
inner pocket.

“You wouldn’t squeal on a fellow?” said he.

“I’ll wipe my hand across your face if you say such words to me!”
cried McGinty hotly.

“You are right, Councillor,” said McMurdo meekly. “I should
apologize. I spoke without thought. Well, I know that I am safe in
your hands. Look at that clipping.”

McGinty glanced his eyes over the account of the shooting of one
Jonas Pinto, in the Lake Saloon, Market Street, Chicago, in the New
Year week of 1874.

“Your work?” he asked, as he handed back the paper.

McMurdo nodded.

“Why did you shoot him?”

“I was helping Uncle Sam to make dollars. Maybe mine were not as good
gold as his, but they looked as well and were cheaper to make. This
man Pinto helped me to shove the queer–“

“To do what?”

“Well, it means to pass the dollars out into circulation. Then he
said he would split. Maybe he did split. I didn’t wait to see. I just
killed him and lighted out for the coal country.”

“Why the coal country?”

“‘Cause I’d read in the papers that they weren’t too particular in
those parts.”

McGinty laughed. “You were first a coiner and then a murderer, and
you came to these parts because you thought you’d be welcome.”

“That’s about the size of it,” McMurdo answered.

“Well, I guess you’ll go far. Say, can you make those dollars yet?”

McMurdo took half a dozen from his pocket. “Those never passed the
Philadelphia mint,” said he.

“You don’t say!” McGinty held them to the light in his enormous hand,
which was hairy as a gorilla’s. “I can see no difference. Gar! you’ll
be a mighty useful brother, I’m thinking! We can do with a bad man or
two among us, Friend McMurdo: for there are times when we have to
take our own part. We’d soon be against the wall if we didn’t shove
back at those that were pushing us.”

“Well, I guess I’ll do my share of shoving with the rest of the
boys.”

“You seem to have a good nerve. You didn’t squirm when I shoved this
gun at you.”

“It was not me that was in danger.”

“Who then?”

“It was you, Councillor.” McMurdo drew a cocked pistol from the side
pocket of his peajacket. “I was covering you all the time. I guess my
shot would have been as quick as yours.”

“By Gar!” McGinty flushed an angry red and then burst into a roar of
laughter. “Say, we’ve had no such holy terror come to hand this many
a year. I reckon the lodge will learn to be proud of you … Well,
what the hell do you want? And can’t I speak alone with a gentleman
for five minutes but you must butt in on us?”

The bartender stood abashed. “I’m sorry, Councillor, but it’s Ted
Baldwin. He says he must see you this very minute.”

The message was unnecessary; for the set, cruel face of the man
himself was looking over the servant’s shoulder. He pushed the
bartender out and closed the door on him.

“So,” said he with a furious glance at McMurdo, “you got here first,
did you? I’ve a word to say to you, Councillor, about this man.”

“Then say it here and now before my face,” cried McMurdo.

“I’ll say it at my own time, in my own way.”

“Tut! Tut!” said McGinty, getting off his barrel. “This will never
do. We have a new brother here, Baldwin, and it’s not for us to greet
him in such fashion. Hold out your hand, man, and make it up!”

“Never!” cried Baldwin in a fury.

“I’ve offered to fight him if he thinks I have wronged him,” said
McMurdo. “I’ll fight him with fists, or, if that won’t satisfy him,
I’ll fight him any other way he chooses. Now, I’ll leave it to you,
Councillor, to judge between us as a Bodymaster should.”

“What is it, then?”

“A young lady. She’s free to choose for herself.”

“Is she?” cried Baldwin.

“As between two brothers of the lodge I should say that she was,”
said the Boss.

“Oh, that’s your ruling, is it?”

“Yes, it is, Ted Baldwin,” said McGinty, with a wicked stare. “Is it
you that would dispute it?”

“You would throw over one that has stood by you this five years in
favour of a man that you never saw before in your life? You’re not
Bodymaster for life, Jack McGinty, and by God! when next it comes to
a vote–“

The Councillor sprang at him like a tiger. His hand closed round the
other’s neck, and he hurled him back across one of the barrels. In
his mad fury he would have squeezed the life out of him if McMurdo
had not interfered.

“Easy, Councillor! For heaven’s sake, go easy!” he cried, as he
dragged him back.

McGinty released his hold, and Baldwin, cowed and shaken gasping for
breath, and shivering in every limb, as one who has looked over the
very edge of death, sat up on the barrel over which he had been
hurled.

“You’ve been asking for it this many a day, Ted Baldwin–now you’ve
got it!” cried McGinty, his huge chest rising and falling. “Maybe you
think if I was voted down from Bodymaster you would find yourself in
my shoes. It’s for the lodge to say that. But so long as I am the
chief I’ll have no man lift his voice against me or my rulings.”

“I have nothing against you,” mumbled Baldwin, feeling his throat.

“Well, then,” cried the other, relapsing in a moment into a bluff
joviality, “we are all good friends again and there’s an end of the
matter.”

He took a bottle of champagne down from the shelf and twisted out the
cork.

“See now,” he continued, as he filled three high glasses. “Let us
drink the quarrelling toast of the lodge. After that, as you know,
there can be no bad blood between us. Now, then the left hand on the
apple of my throat. I say to you, Ted Baldwin, what is the offense,
sir?”

“The clouds are heavy,” answered Baldwin.

“But they will forever brighten.”

“And this I swear!”

The men drank their glasses, and the same ceremony was performed
between Baldwin and McMurdo

“There!” cried McGinty, rubbing his hands. “That’s the end of the
black blood. You come under lodge discipline if it goes further, and
that’s a heavy hand in these parts, as Brother Baldwin knows–and as
you will damn soon find out, Brother McMurdo, if you ask for
trouble!”

“Faith, I’d be slow to do that,” said McMurdo. He held out his hand
to Baldwin. “I’m quick to quarrel and quick to forgive. It’s my hot
Irish blood, they tell me. But it’s over for me, and I bear no
grudge.”

Baldwin had to take the proffered hand, for the baleful eye of the
terrible Boss was upon him. But his sullen face showed how little the
words of the other had moved him.

McGinty clapped them both on the shoulders. “Tut! These girls! These
girls!” he cried. “To think that the same petticoats should come
between two of my boys! It’s the devil’s own luck! Well, it’s the
colleen inside of them that must settle the question for it’s outside
the jurisdiction of a Bodymaster–and the Lord be praised for that!
We have enough on us, without the women as well. You’ll have to be
affiliated to Lodge 341, Brother McMurdo. We have our own ways and
methods, different from Chicago. Saturday night is our meeting, and
if you come then, we’ll make you free forever of the Vermissa
Valley.”

On the day following the evening which had contained so many exciting
events, McMurdo moved his lodgings from old Jacob Shafter’s and took
up his quarters at the Widow MacNamara’s on the extreme outskirts of
the town. Scanlan, his original acquaintance aboard the train, had
occasion shortly afterwards to move into Vermissa, and the two lodged
together. There was no other boarder, and the hostess was an
easy-going old Irishwoman who left them to themselves; so that they
had a freedom for speech and action welcome to men who had secrets in
common.

Shafter had relented to the extent of letting McMurdo come to his
meals there when he liked; so that his intercourse with Ettie was by
no means broken. On the contrary, it drew closer and more intimate as
the weeks went by.

In his bedroom at his new abode McMurdo felt it safe to take out the
coining moulds, and under many a pledge of secrecy a number of
brothers from the lodge were allowed to come in and see them, each
carrying away in his pocket some examples of the false money, so
cunningly struck that there was never the slightest difficulty or
danger in passing it. Why, with such a wonderful art at his command,
McMurdo should condescend to work at all was a perpetual mystery to
his companions; though he made it clear to anyone who asked him that
if he lived without any visible means it would very quickly bring the
police upon his track.

One policeman was indeed after him already; but the incident, as luck
would have it, did the adventurer a great deal more good than harm.
After the first introduction there were few evenings when he did not
find his way to McGinty’s saloon, there to make closer acquaintance
with “the boys,” which was the jovial title by which the dangerous
gang who infested the place were known to one another. His dashing
manner and fearlessness of speech made him a favourite with them all;
while the rapid and scientific way in which he polished off his
antagonist in an “all in” bar-room scrap earned the respect of that
rough community. Another incident, however, raised him even higher in
their estimation.

Just at the crowded hour one night, the door opened and a man entered
with the quiet blue uniform and peaked cap of the mine police. This
was a special body raised by the railways and colliery owners to
supplement the efforts of the ordinary civil police, who were
perfectly helpless in the face of the organized ruffianism which
terrorized the district. There was a hush as he entered, and many a
curious glance was cast at him; but the relations between policemen
and criminals are peculiar in some parts of the States, and McGinty
himself standing behind his counter, showed no surprise when the
policeman enrolled himself among his customers.

“A straight whisky, for the night is bitter,” said the police
officer. “I don’t think we have met before, Councillor?”

“You’ll be the new captain?” said McGinty.

“That’s so. We’re looking to you, Councillor, and to the other
leading citizens, to help us in upholding law and order in this
township. Captain Marvin is my name.”

“We’d do better without you, Captain Marvin,” said McGinty coldly;
“for we have our own police of the township, and no need for any
imported goods. What are you but the paid tool of the capitalists,
hired by them to club or shoot your poorer fellow citizen?”

“Well, well, we won’t argue about that,” said the police officer
good-humouredly. “I expect we all do our duty same as we see it; but
we can’t all see it the same.” He had drunk off his glass and had
turned to go, when his eyes fell upon the face of Jack McMurdo, who
was scowling at his elbow. “Hullo! Hullo!” he cried, looking him up
and down. “Here’s an old acquaintance!”

McMurdo shrank away from him. “I was never a friend to you nor any
other cursed copper in my life,” said he.

“An acquaintance isn’t always a friend,” said the police captain,
grinning. “You’re Jack McMurdo of Chicago, right enough, and don’t
you deny it!”

McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not denying it,” said he. “D’ye
think I’m ashamed of my own name?”

“You’ve got good cause to be, anyhow.”

“What the devil d’you mean by that?” he roared with his fists
clenched.

“No, no, Jack, bluster won’t do with me. I was an officer in Chicago
before ever I came to this darned coal bunker, and I know a Chicago
crook when I see one.”

McMurdo’s face fell. “Don’t tell me that you’re Marvin of the Chicago
Central!” he cried.

“Just the same old Teddy Marvin, at your service. We haven’t
forgotten the shooting of Jonas Pinto up there.”

“I never shot him.”

“Did you not? That’s good impartial evidence, ain’t it? Well, his
death came in uncommon handy for you, or they would have had you for
shoving the queer. Well, we can let that be bygones; for, between you
and me–and perhaps I’m going further than my duty in saying it–they
could get no clear case against you, and Chicago’s open to you
to-morrow.”

“I’m very well where I am.”

“Well, I’ve given you the pointer, and you’re a sulky dog not to
thank me for it.”

“Well, I suppose you mean well, and I do thank you,” said McMurdo in
no very gracious manner.

“It’s mum with me so long as I see you living on the straight,” said
the captain. “But, by the Lord! if you get off after this, it’s
another story! So good-night to you–and goodnight, Councillor.”

He left the bar-room; but not before he had created a local hero.
McMurdo’s deeds in far Chicago had been whispered before. He had put
off all questions with a smile, as one who did not wish to have
greatness thrust upon him. But now the thing was officially
confirmed. The bar loafers crowded round him and shook him heartily
by the hand. He was free of the community from that time on. He could
drink hard and show little trace of it; but that evening, had his
mate Scanlan not been at hand to lead him home, the feted hero would
surely have spent his night under the bar.

On a Saturday night McMurdo was introduced to the lodge. He had
thought to pass in without ceremony as being an initiate of Chicago;
but there were particular rites in Vermissa of which they were proud,
and these had to be undergone by every postulant. The assembly met in
a large room reserved for such purposes at the Union House. Some
sixty members assembled at Vermissa; but that by no means represented
the full strength of the organization, for there were several other
lodges in the valley, and others across the mountains on each side,
who exchanged members when any serious business was afoot, so that a
crime might be done by men who were strangers to the locality.
Altogether there were not less than five hundred scattered over the
coal district.

In the bare assembly room the men were gathered round a long table.
At the side was a second one laden with bottles and glasses, on which
some members of the company were already turning their eyes. McGinty
sat at the head with a flat black velvet cap upon his shock of
tangled black hair, and a coloured purple stole round his neck, so
that he seemed to be a priest presiding over some diabolical ritual.
To right and left of him were the higher lodge officials, the cruel,
handsome face of Ted Baldwin among them. Each of these wore some
scarf or medallion as emblem of his office.

They were, for the most part, men of mature age; but the rest of the
company consisted of young fellows from eighteen to twenty-five, the
ready and capable agents who carried out the commands of their
seniors. Among the older men were many whose features showed the
tigerish, lawless souls within; but looking at the rank and file it
was difficult to believe that these eager and open-faced young
fellows were in very truth a dangerous gang of murderers, whose minds
had suffered such complete moral perversion that they took a horrible
pride in their proficiency at the business, and looked with deepest
respect at the man who had the reputation of making what they called
“a clean job.”

To their contorted natures it had become a spirited and chivalrous
thing to volunteer for service against some man who had never injured
them, and whom in many cases they had never seen in their lives. The
crime committed, they quarrelled as to who had actually struck the
fatal blow, and amused one another and the company by describing the
cries and contortions of the murdered man.

At first they had shown some secrecy in their arrangements; but at
the time which this narrative describes their proceedings were
extraordinarily open, for the repeated failures of the law had proved
to them that, on the one hand, no one would dare to witness against
them, and on the other they had an unlimited number of stanch
witnesses upon whom they could call, and a well-filled treasure chest
from which they could draw the funds to engage the best legal talent
in the state. In ten long years of outrage there had been no single
conviction, and the only danger that ever threatened the Scowrers lay
in the victim himself–who, however outnumbered and taken by
surprise, might and occasionally did leave his mark upon his
assailants.

McMurdo had been warned that some ordeal lay before him; but no one
would tell him in what it consisted. He was led now into an outer
room by two solemn brothers. Through the plank partition he could
hear the murmur of many voices from the assembly within. Once or
twice he caught the sound of his own name, and he knew that they were
discussing his candidacy. Then there entered an inner guard with a
green and gold sash across his chest.

“The Bodymaster orders that he shall be trussed, blinded, and
entered,” said he.

The three of them removed his coat, turned up the sleeve of his right
arm, and finally passed a rope round above the elbows and made it
fast. They next placed a thick black cap right over his head and the
upper part of his face, so that he could see nothing. He was then led
into the assembly hall.

It was pitch dark and very oppressive under his hood. He heard the
rustle and murmur of the people round him, and then the voice of
McGinty sounded dull and distant through the covering of his ears.

“John McMurdo,” said the voice, “are you already a member of the
Ancient Order of Freemen?”

He bowed in assent.

“Is your lodge No. 29, Chicago?”

He bowed again.

“Dark nights are unpleasant,” said the voice.

“Yes, for strangers to travel,” he answered.

“The clouds are heavy.”

“Yes, a storm is approaching.”

“Are the brethren satisfied?” asked the Bodymaster.

There was a general murmur of assent.

“We know, Brother, by your sign and by your countersign that you are
indeed one of us,” said McGinty. “We would have you know, however,
that in this county and in other counties of these parts we have
certain rites, and also certain duties of our own which call for good
men. Are you ready to be tested?”

“I am.”

“Are you of stout heart?”

“I am.”

“Take a stride forward to prove it.”

As the words were said he felt two hard points in front of his eyes,
pressing upon them so that it appeared as if he could not move
forward without a danger of losing them. None the less, he nerved
himself to step resolutely out, and as he did so the pressure melted
away. There was a low murmur of applause.

“He is of stout heart,” said the voice. “Can you bear pain?”

“As well as another,” he answered.

“Test him!”

It was all he could do to keep himself from screaming out, for an
agonizing pain shot through his forearm. He nearly fainted at the
sudden shock of it; but he bit his lip and clenched his hands to hide
his agony.

“I can take more than that,” said he.

This time there was loud applause. A finer first appearance had never
been made in the lodge. Hands clapped him on the back, and the hood
was plucked from his head. He stood blinking and smiling amid the
congratulations of the brothers.

“One last word, Brother McMurdo,” said McGinty. “You have already
sworn the oath of secrecy and fidelity, and you are aware that the
punishment for any breach of it is instant and inevitable death?”

“I am,” said McMurdo.

“And you accept the rule of the Bodymaster for the time being under
all circumstances?”

“I do.”

“Then in the name of Lodge 341, Vermissa, I welcome you to its
privileges and debates. You will put the liquor on the table, Brother
Scanlan, and we will drink to our worthy brother.”

McMurdo’s coat had been brought to him; but before putting it on he
examined his right arm, which still smarted heavily. There on the
flesh of the forearm was a circle with a triangle within it, deep and
red, as the branding iron had left it. One or two of his neighbours
pulled up their sleeves and showed their own lodge marks.

“We’ve all had it,” said one; “but not all as brave as you over it.”

“Tut! It was nothing,” said he; but it burned and ached all the same.

When the drinks which followed the ceremony of initiation had all
been disposed of, the business of the lodge proceeded. McMurdo,
accustomed only to the prosaic performances of Chicago, listened with
open ears and more surprise than he ventured to show to what
followed.

“The first business on the agenda paper,” said McGinty, “is to read
the following letter from Division Master Windle of Merton County
Lodge 249. He says:

“Dear Sir:
“There is a job to be done on Andrew Rae of Rae & Sturmash, coal
owners near this place. You will remember that your lodge owes us a
return, having had the service of two brethren in the matter of the
patrolman last fall. You will send two good men, they will be taken
charge of by Treasurer Higgins of this lodge, whose address you know.
He will show them when to act and where. Yours in freedom,
“J. W. Windle D. M. A. O. F.

“Windle has never refused us when we have had occasion to ask for the
loan of a man or two, and it is not for us to refuse him.” McGinty
paused and looked round the room with his dull, malevolent eyes. “Who
will volunteer for the job?”

Several young fellows held up their hands. The Bodymaster looked at
them with an approving smile.

“You’ll do, Tiger Cormac. If you handle it as well as you did the
last, you won’t be wrong. And you, Wilson.”

“I’ve no pistol,” said the volunteer, a mere boy in his teens.

“It’s your first, is it not? Well, you have to be blooded some time.
It will be a great start for you. As to the pistol, you’ll find it
waiting for you, or I’m mistaken. If you report yourselves on Monday,
it will be time enough. You’ll get a great welcome when you return.”

“Any reward this time?” asked Cormac, a thick-set, dark-faced,
brutal-looking young man, whose ferocity had earned him the nickname
of “Tiger.”

“Never mind the reward. You just do it for the honour of the thing.
Maybe when it is done there will be a few odd dollars at the bottom
of the box.”

“What has the man done?” asked young Wilson.

“Sure, it’s not for the likes of you to ask what the man has done. He
has been judged over there. That’s no business of ours. All we have
to do is to carry it out for them, same as they would for us.
Speaking of that, two brothers from the Merton lodge are coming over
to us next week to do some business in this quarter.”

“Who are they?” asked someone.

“Faith, it is wiser not to ask. If you know nothing, you can testify
nothing, and no trouble can come of it. But they are men who will
make a clean job when they are about it.”

“And time, too!” cried Ted Baldwin. “Folk are gettin’ out of hand in
these parts. It was only last week that three of our men were turned
off by Foreman Blaker. It’s been owing him a long time, and he’ll get
it full and proper.”

“Get what?” McMurdo whispered to his neighbour.

“The business end of a buckshot cartridge!” cried the man with a loud
laugh. “What think you of our ways, Brother?”

McMurdo’s criminal soul seemed to have already absorbed the spirit of
the vile association of which he was now a member. “I like it well,”
said he. “‘Tis a proper place for a lad of mettle.”

Several of those who sat around heard his words and applauded them.

“What’s that?” cried the black-maned Bodymaster from the end of the
table.

“‘Tis our new brother, sir, who finds our ways to his taste.”

McMurdo rose to his feet for an instant. “I would say, Eminent
Bodymaster, that if a man should be wanted I should take it as an
honour to be chosen to help the lodge.”

There was great applause at this. It was felt that a new sun was
pushing its rim above the horizon. To some of the elders it seemed
that the progress was a little too rapid.

“I would move,” said the secretary, Harraway, a vulture-faced old
graybeard who sat near the chairman, “that Brother McMurdo should
wait until it is the good pleasure of the lodge to employ him.”

“Sure, that was what I meant; I’m in your hands,” said McMurdo.

“Your time will come, Brother,” said the chairman. “We have marked
you down as a willing man, and we believe that you will do good work
in these parts. There is a small matter to-night in which you may
take a hand if it so please you.”

“I will wait for something that is worth while.”

“You can come to-night, anyhow, and it will help you to know what we
stand for in this community. I will make the announcement later.
Meanwhile,” he glanced at his agenda paper, “I have one or two more
points to bring before the meeting. First of all, I will ask the
treasurer as to our bank balance. There is the pension to Jim
Carnaway’s widow. He was struck down doing the work of the lodge, and
it is for us to see that she is not the loser.”

“Jim was shot last month when they tried to kill Chester Wilcox of
Marley Creek,” McMurdo’s neighbour informed him.

“The funds are good at the moment,” said the treasurer, with the
bankbook in front of him. “The firms have been generous of late. Max
Linder & Co. paid five hundred to be left alone. Walker Brothers sent
in a hundred; but I took it on myself to return it and ask for five.
If I do not hear by Wednesday, their winding gear may get out of
order. We had to burn their breaker last year before they became
reasonable. Then the West Section Coaling Company has paid its annual
contribution. We have enough on hand to meet any obligations.”

“What about Archie Swindon?” asked a brother.

“He has sold out and left the district. The old devil left a note for
us to say that he had rather be a free crossing sweeper in New York
than a large mine owner under the power of a ring of blackmailers. By
Gar! it was as well that he made a break for it before the note
reached us! I guess he won’t show his face in this valley again.”

An elderly, clean-shaved man with a kindly face and a good brow rose
from the end of the table which faced the chairman. “Mr. Treasurer,”
he asked, “may I ask who has bought the property of this man that we
have driven out of the district?”

“Yes, Brother Morris. It has been bought by the State & Merton County
Railroad Company.”

“And who bought the mines of Todman and of Lee that came into the
market in the same way last year?”

“The same company, Brother Morris.”

“And who bought the ironworks of Manson and of Shuman and of Van
Deher and of Atwood, which have all been given up of late?”

“They were all bought by the West Gilmerton General Mining Company.”

“I don’t see, Brother Morris,” said the chairman, “that it matters to
us who buys them, since they can’t carry them out of the district.”

“With all respect to you, Eminent Bodymaster, I think it may matter
very much to us. This process has been going on now for ten long
years. We are gradually driving all the small men out of trade. What
is the result? We find in their places great companies like the
Railroad or the General Iron, who have their directors in New York or
Philadelphia, and care nothing for our threats. We can take it out of
their local bosses, but it only means that others will be sent in
their stead. And we are making it dangerous for ourselves. The small
men could not harm us. They had not the money nor the power. So long
as we did not squeeze them too dry, they would stay on under our
power. But if these big companies find that we stand between them and
their profits, they will spare no pains and no expense to hunt us
down and bring us to court.”

There was a hush at these ominous words, and every face darkened as
gloomy looks were exchanged. So omnipotent and unchallenged had they
been that the very thought that there was possible retribution in the
background had been banished from their minds. And yet the idea
struck a chill to the most reckless of them.

“It is my advice,” the speaker continued, “that we go easier upon the
small men. On the day that they have all been driven out the power of
this society will have been broken.”

Unwelcome truths are not popular. There were angry cries as the
speaker resumed his seat. McGinty rose with gloom upon his brow.

“Brother Morris,” said he, “you were always a croaker. So long as the
members of this lodge stand together there is no power in the United
States that can touch them. Sure, have we not tried it often enough
in the law courts? I expect the big companies will find it easier to
pay than to fight, same as the little companies do. And now,
Brethren,” McGinty took off his black velvet cap and his stole as he
spoke, “this lodge has finished its business for the evening, save
for one small matter which may be mentioned when we are parting. The
time has now come for fraternal refreshment and for harmony.”

Strange indeed is human nature. Here were these men, to whom murder
was familiar, who again and again had struck down the father of the
family, some man against whom they had no personal feeling, without
one thought of compunction or of compassion for his weeping wife or
helpless children, and yet the tender or pathetic in music could move
them to tears. McMurdo had a fine tenor voice, and if he had failed
to gain the good will of the lodge before, it could no longer have
been withheld after he had thrilled them with “I’m Sitting on the
Stile, Mary,” and “On the Banks of Allan Water.”

In his very first night the new recruit had made himself one of the
most popular of the brethren, marked already for advancement and high
office. There were other qualities needed, however, besides those of
good fellowship, to make a worthy Freeman, and of these he was given
an example before the evening was over. The whisky bottle had passed
round many times, and the men were flushed and ripe for mischief when
their Bodymaster rose once more to address them.

“Boys,” said he, “there’s one man in this town that wants trimming
up, and it’s for you to see that he gets it. I’m speaking of James
Stanger of the Herald. You’ve seen how he’s been opening his mouth
against us again?”

There was a murmur of assent, with many a muttered oath. McGinty took
a slip of paper from his waistcoat pocket.

Law and Order!

That’s how he heads it.

“Reign of terror in the coal and iron district
“Twelve years have now elapsed since the first assassinations which
proved the existence of a criminal organization in our midst. From
that day these outrages have never ceased, until now they have
reached a pitch which makes us the opprobrium of the civilized world.
Is it for such results as this that our great country welcomes to its
bosom the alien who flies from the despotisms of Europe? Is it that
they shall themselves become tyrants over the very men who have given
them shelter, and that a state of terrorism and lawlessness should be
established under the very shadow of the sacred folds of the starry
Flag of Freedom which would raise horror in our minds if we read of
it as existing under the most effete monarchy of the East? The men
are known. The organization is patent and public. How long are we to
endure it? Can we forever live–

Sure, I’ve read enough of the slush!” cried the chairman, tossing the
paper down upon the table. “That’s what he says of us. The question
I’m asking you is what shall we say to him?”

“Kill him!” cried a dozen fierce voices.

“I protest against that,” said Brother Morris, the man of the good
brow and shaved face. “I tell you, Brethren, that our hand is too
heavy in this valley, and that there will come a point where in
self-defense every man will unite to crush us out. James Stanger is
an old man. He is respected in the township and the district. His
paper stands for all that is solid in the valley. If that man is
struck down, there will be a stir through this state that will only
end with our destruction.”

“And how would they bring about our destruction, Mr. Standback?”
cried McGinty. “Is it by the police? Sure, half of them are in our
pay and half of them afraid of us. Or is it by the law courts and the
judge? Haven’t we tried that before now, and what ever came of it?”

“There is a Judge Lynch that might try the case,” said Brother
Morris.

A general shout of anger greeted the suggestion.

“I have but to raise my finger,” cried McGinty, “and I could put two
hundred men into this town that would clear it out from end to end.”
Then suddenly raising his voice and bending his huge black brows into
a terrible frown, “See here, Brother Morris, I have my eye on you,
and have had for some time! You’ve no heart yourself, and you try to
take the heart out of others. It will be an ill day for you, Brother
Morris, when your own name comes on our agenda paper, and I’m
thinking that it’s just there that I ought to place it.”

Morris had turned deadly pale, and his knees seemed to give way under
him as he fell back into his chair. He raised his glass in his
trembling hand and drank before he could answer. “I apologize,
Eminent Bodymaster, to you and to every brother in this lodge if I
have said more than I should. I am a faithful member–you all know
that–and it is my fear lest evil come to the lodge which makes me
speak in anxious words. But I have greater trust in your judgment
than in my own, Eminent Bodymaster, and I promise you that I will not
offend again.”

The Bodymaster’s scowl relaxed as he listened to the humble words.
“Very good, Brother Morris. It’s myself that would be sorry if it
were needful to give you a lesson. But so long as I am in this chair
we shall be a united lodge in word and in deed. And now, boys,” he
continued, looking round at the company, “I’ll say this much, that if
Stanger got his full deserts there would be more trouble than we need
ask for. These editors hang together, and every journal in the state
would be crying out for police and troops. But I guess you can give
him a pretty severe warning. Will you fix it, Brother Baldwin?”

“Sure!” said the young man eagerly.

“How many will you take?”

“Half a dozen, and two to guard the door. You’ll come, Gower, and
you, Mansel, and you, Scanlan, and the two Willabys.”

“I promised the new brother he should go,” said the chairman.

Ted Baldwin looked at McMurdo with eyes which showed that he had not
forgotten nor forgiven. “Well, he can come if he wants,” he said in a
surly voice. “That’s enough. The sooner we get to work the better.”

The company broke up with shouts and yells and snatches of drunken
song. The bar was still crowded with revellers, and many of the
brethren remained there. The little band who had been told off for
duty passed out into the street, proceeding in twos and threes along
the sidewalk so as not to provoke attention. It was a bitterly cold
night, with a half-moon shining brilliantly in a frosty,
star-spangled sky. The men stopped and gathered in a yard which faced
a high building. The words “Vermissa Herald” were printed in gold
lettering between the brightly lit windows. From within came the
clanking of the printing press.

“Here, you,” said Baldwin to McMurdo, “you can stand below at the
door and see that the road is kept open for us. Arthur Willaby can
stay with you. You others come with me. Have no fears, boys; for we
have a dozen witnesses that we are in the Union Bar at this very
moment.”

It was nearly midnight, and the street was deserted save for one or
two revellers upon their way home. The party crossed the road, and,
pushing open the door of the newspaper office, Baldwin and his men
rushed in and up the stair which faced them. McMurdo and another
remained below. From the room above came a shout, a cry for help, and
then the sound of trampling feet and of falling chairs. An instant
later a gray-haired man rushed out on the landing.

He was seized before he could get farther, and his spectacles came
tinkling down to McMurdo’s feet. There was a thud and a groan. He was
on his face, and half a dozen sticks were clattering together as they
fell upon him. He writhed, and his long, thin limbs quivered under
the blows. The others ceased at last; but Baldwin, his cruel face set
in an infernal smile, was hacking at the man’s head, which he vainly
endeavoured to defend with his arms. His white hair was dabbled with
patches of blood. Baldwin was still stooping over his victim, putting
in a short, vicious blow whenever he could see a part exposed, when
McMurdo dashed up the stair and pushed him back.

“You’ll kill the man,” said he. “Drop it!”

Baldwin looked at him in amazement. “Curse you!” he cried. “Who are
you to interfere–you that are new to the lodge? Stand back!” He
raised his stick; but McMurdo had whipped his pistol out of his hip
pocket.

“Stand back yourself!” he cried. “I’ll blow your face in if you lay a
hand on me. As to the lodge, wasn’t it the order of the Bodymaster
that the man was not to be killed–and what are you doing but killing
him?”

“It’s truth he says,” remarked one of the men.

“By Gar! you’d best hurry yourselves!” cried the man below. “The
windows are all lighting up, and you’ll have the whole town here
inside of five minutes.”

There was indeed the sound of shouting in the street, and a little
group of compositors and pressmen was forming in the hall below and
nerving itself to action. Leaving the limp and motionless body of the
editor at the head of the stair, the criminals rushed down and made
their way swiftly along the street. Having reached the Union House,
some of them mixed with the crowd in McGinty’s saloon, whispering
across the bar to the Boss that the job had been well carried
through. Others, and among them McMurdo, broke away into side
streets, and so by devious paths to their own homes.

When McMurdo awoke next morning he had good reason to remember his
initiation into the lodge. His head ached with the effect of the
drink, and his arm, where he had been branded, was hot and swollen.
Having his own peculiar source of income, he was irregular in his
attendance at his work; so he had a late breakfast, and remained at
home for the morning writing a long letter to a friend. Afterwards he
read the Daily Herald. In a special column put in at the last moment
he read:

Outrage at the herald office — Editor seriously injured

It was a short account of the facts with which he was himself more
familiar than the writer could have been. It ended with the
statement:

The matter is now in the hands of the police; but it can hardly be
hoped that their exertions will be attended by any better results
than in the past. Some of the men were recognized, and there is hope
that a conviction may be obtained. The source of the outrage was, it
need hardly be said, that infamous society which has held this
community in bondage for so long a period, and against which the
Herald has taken so uncompromising a stand. Mr. Stanger’s many
friends will rejoice to hear that, though he has been cruelly and
brutally beaten, and though he has sustained severe injuries about
the head, there is no immediate danger to his life.

Below it stated that a guard of police, armed with Winchester rifles,
had been requisitioned for the defense of the office.

McMurdo had laid down the paper, and was lighting his pipe with a
hand which was shaky from the excesses of the previous evening, when
there was a knock outside, and his landlady brought to him a note
which had just been handed in by a lad. It was unsigned, and ran
thus:

I should wish to speak to you, but would rather not do so in your
house. You will find me beside the flagstaff upon Miller Hill. If you
will come there now, I have something which it is important for you
to hear and for me to say.

McMurdo read the note twice with the utmost surprise; for he could
not imagine what it meant or who was the author of it. Had it been in
a feminine hand, he might have imagined that it was the beginning of
one of those adventures which had been familiar enough in his past
life. But it was the writing of a man, and of a well educated one,
too. Finally, after some hesitation, he determined to see the matter
through.

Miller Hill is an ill-kept public park in the very centre of the
town. In summer it is a favourite resort of the people; but in winter
it is desolate enough. From the top of it one has a view not only of
the whole straggling, grimy town, but of the winding valley beneath,
with its scattered mines and factories blackening the snow on each
side of it, and of the wooded and white-capped ranges flanking it.

McMurdo strolled up the winding path hedged in with evergreens until
he reached the deserted restaurant which forms the centre of summer
gaiety. Beside it was a bare flagstaff, and underneath it a man, his
hat drawn down and the collar of his overcoat turned up. When he
turned his face McMurdo saw that it was Brother Morris, he who had
incurred the anger of the Bodymaster the night before. The lodge sign
was given and exchanged as they met.

“I wanted to have a word with you, Mr. McMurdo,” said the older man,
speaking with a hesitation which showed that he was on delicate
ground. “It was kind of you to come.”

“Why did you not put your name to the note?”

“One has to be cautious, mister. One never knows in times like these
how a thing may come back to one. One never knows either who to trust
or who not to trust.”

“Surely one may trust brothers of the lodge.”

“No, no, not always,” cried Morris with vehemence. “Whatever we say,
even what we think, seems to go back to that man McGinty.”

“Look here!” said McMurdo sternly. “It was only last night, as you
know well, that I swore good faith to our Bodymaster. Would you be
asking me to break my oath?”

“If that is the view you take,” said Morris sadly, “I can only say
that I am sorry I gave you the trouble to come and meet me. Things
have come to a bad pass when two free citizens cannot speak their
thoughts to each other.”

McMurdo, who had been watching his companion very narrowly, relaxed
somewhat in his bearing. “Sure I spoke for myself only,” said he. “I
am a newcomer, as you know, and I am strange to it all. It is not for
me to open my mouth, Mr. Morris, and if you think well to say
anything to me I am here to hear it.”

“And to take it back to Boss McGinty!” said Morris bitterly.

“Indeed, then, you do me injustice there,” cried McMurdo. “For myself
I am loyal to the lodge, and so I tell you straight; but I would be a
poor creature if I were to repeat to any other what you might say to
me in confidence. It will go no further than me; though I warn you
that you may get neither help nor sympathy.”

“I have given up looking for either the one or the other,” said
Morris. “I may be putting my very life in your hands by what I say;
but, bad as you are–and it seemed to me last night that you were
shaping to be as bad as the worst–still you are new to it, and your
conscience cannot yet be as hardened as theirs. That was why I
thought to speak with you.”

“Well, what have you to say?”

“If you give me away, may a curse be on you!”

“Sure, I said I would not.”

“I would ask you, then, when you joined the Freeman’s society in
Chicago and swore vows of charity and fidelity, did ever it cross
your mind that you might find it would lead you to crime?”

“If you call it crime,” McMurdo answered.

“Call it crime!” cried Morris, his voice vibrating with passion. “You
have seen little of it if you can call it anything else. Was it crime
last night when a man old enough to be your father was beaten till
the blood dripped from his white hairs? Was that crime–or what else
would you call it?”

“There are some would say it was war,” said McMurdo, “a war of two
classes with all in, so that each struck as best it could.”

“Well, did you think of such a thing when you joined the Freeman’s
society at Chicago?”

“No, I’m bound to say I did not.”

“Nor did I when I joined it at Philadelphia. It was just a benefit
club and a meeting place for one’s fellows. Then I heard of this
place–curse the hour that the name first fell upon my ears!–and I
came to better myself! My God! to better myself! My wife and three
children came with me. I started a dry goods store on Market Square,
and I prospered well. The word had gone round that I was a Freeman,
and I was forced to join the local lodge, same as you did last night.
I’ve the badge of shame on my forearm and something worse branded on
my heart. I found that I was under the orders of a black villain and
caught in a meshwork of crime. What could I do? Every word I said to
make things better was taken as treason, same as it was last night. I
can’t get away; for all I have in the world is in my store. If I
leave the society, I know well that it means murder to me, and God
knows what to my wife and children. Oh, man, it is awful–awful!” He
put his hands to his face, and his body shook with convulsive sobs.

McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. “You were too soft for the job,” said
he. “You are the wrong sort for such work.”

“I had a conscience and a religion; but they made me a criminal among
them. I was chosen for a job. If I backed down I knew well what would
come to me. Maybe I’m a coward. Maybe it’s the thought of my poor
little woman and the children that makes me one. Anyhow I went. I
guess it will haunt me forever.

“It was a lonely house, twenty miles from here, over the range
yonder. I was told off for the door, same as you were last night.
They could not trust me with the job. The others went in. When they
came out their hands were crimson to the wrists. As we turned away a
child was screaming out of the house behind us. It was a boy of five
who had seen his father murdered. I nearly fainted with the horror of
it, and yet I had to keep a bold and smiling face; for well I knew
that if I did not it would be out of my house that they would come
next with their bloody hands and it would be my little Fred that
would be screaming for his father.

“But I was a criminal then, part sharer in a murder, lost forever in
this world, and lost also in the next. I am a good Catholic; but the
priest would have no word with me when he heard I was a Scowrer, and
I am excommunicated from my faith. That’s how it stands with me. And
I see you going down the same road, and I ask you what the end is to
be. Are you ready to be a cold-blooded murderer also, or can we do
anything to stop it?”

“What would you do?” asked McMurdo abruptly. “You would not inform?”

“God forbid!” cried Morris. “Sure, the very thought would cost me my
life.”

“That’s well,” said McMurdo. “I’m thinking that you are a weak man
and that you make too much of the matter.”

“Too much! Wait till you have lived here longer. Look down the
valley! See the cloud of a hundred chimneys that overshadows it! I
tell you that the cloud of murder hangs thicker and lower than that
over the heads of the people. It is the Valley of Fear, the Valley of
Death. The terror is in the hearts of the people from the dusk to the
dawn. Wait, young man, and you will learn for yourself.”

“Well, I’ll let you know what I think when I have seen more,” said
McMurdo carelessly. “What is very clear is that you are not the man
for the place, and that the sooner you sell out–if you only get a
dime a dollar for what the business is worth–the better it will be
for you. What you have said is safe with me; but, by Gar! if I
thought you were an informer–“

“No, no!” cried Morris piteously.

“Well, let it rest at that. I’ll bear what you have said in mind, and
maybe some day I’ll come back to it. I expect you meant kindly by
speaking to me like this. Now I’ll be getting home.”

“One word before you go,” said Morris. “We may have been seen
together. They may want to know what we have spoken about.”

“Ah! that’s well thought of.”

“I offer you a clerkship in my store.”

“And I refuse it. That’s our business. Well, so long, Brother Morris,
and may you find things go better with you in the future.”

That same afternoon, as McMurdo sat smoking, lost in thought beside
the stove of his sitting-room, the door swung open and its framework
was filled with the huge figure of Boss McGinty. He passed the sign,
and then seating himself opposite to the young man he looked at him
steadily for some time, a look which was as steadily returned.

“I’m not much of a visitor, Brother McMurdo,” he said at last. “I
guess I am too busy over the folk that visit me. But I thought I’d
stretch a point and drop down to see you in your own house.”

“I’m proud to see you here, Councillor,” McMurdo answered heartily,
bringing his whisky bottle out of the cupboard. “It’s an honour that
I had not expected.”

“How’s the arm?” asked the Boss.

McMurdo made a wry face. “Well, I’m not forgetting it,” he said; “but
it’s worth it.”

“Yes, it’s worth it,” the other answered, “to those that are loyal
and go through with it and are a help to the lodge. What were you
speaking to Brother Morris about on Miller Hill this morning?”

The question came so suddenly that it was well that he had his answer
prepared. He burst into a hearty laugh. “Morris didn’t know I could
earn a living here at home. He shan’t know either; for he has got too
much conscience for the likes of me. But he’s a good-hearted old
chap. It was his idea that I was at a loose end, and that he would do
me a good turn by offering me a clerkship in a dry goods store.”

“Oh, that was it?”

“Yes, that was it.”

“And you refused it?”

“Sure. Couldn’t I earn ten times as much in my own bedroom with four
hours’ work?”

“That’s so. But I wouldn’t get about too much with Morris.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I guess because I tell you not. That’s enough for most folk in
these parts.”

“It may be enough for most folk; but it ain’t enough for me,
Councillor,” said McMurdo boldly. “If you are a judge of men, you’ll
know that.”

The swarthy giant glared at him, and his hairy paw closed for an
instant round the glass as though he would hurl it at the head of his
companion. Then he laughed in his loud, boisterous, insincere
fashion.

“You’re a queer card, for sure,” said he. “Well, if you want reasons,
I’ll give them. Did Morris say nothing to you against the lodge?”

“No.”

“Nor against me?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s because he daren’t trust you. But in his heart he is
not a loyal brother. We know that well. So we watch him and we wait
for the time to admonish him. I’m thinking that the time is drawing
near. There’s no room for scabby sheep in our pen. But if you keep
company with a disloyal man, we might think that you were disloyal,
too. See?”

“There’s no chance of my keeping company with him; for I dislike the
man,” McMurdo answered. “As to being disloyal, if it was any man but
you he would not use the word to me twice.”

“Well, that’s enough,” said McGinty, draining off his glass. “I came
down to give you a word in season, and you’ve had it.”

“I’d like to know,” said McMurdo, “how you ever came to learn that I
had spoken with Morris at all?”

McGinty laughed. “It’s my business to know what goes on in this
township,” said he. “I guess you’d best reckon on my hearing all that
passes. Well, time’s up, and I’ll just say–“

But his leavetaking was cut short in a very unexpected fashion. With
a sudden crash the door flew open, and three frowning, intent faces
glared in at them from under the peaks of police caps. McMurdo sprang
to his feet and half drew his revolver; but his arm stopped midway as
he became conscious that two Winchester rifles were levelled at his
head. A man in uniform advanced into the room, a six-shooter in his
hand. It was Captain Marvin, once of Chicago, and now of the Mine
Constabulary. He shook his head with a half-smile at McMurdo.

“I thought you’d be getting into trouble, Mr. Crooked McMurdo of
Chicago,” said he. “Can’t keep out of it, can you? Take your hat and
come along with us.”

“I guess you’ll pay for this, Captain Marvin,” said McGinty. “Who are
you, I’d like to know, to break into a house in this fashion and
molest honest, law-abiding men?”

“You’re standing out in this deal, Councillor McGinty,” said the
police captain. “We are not out after you, but after this man
McMurdo. It is for you to help, not to hinder us in our duty,”

“He is a friend of mine, and I’ll answer for his conduct,” said the
Boss.

“By all accounts, Mr. McGinty, you may have to answer for your own
conduct some of these days,” the captain answered. “This man McMurdo
was a crook before ever he came here, and he’s a crook still. Cover
him, Patrolman, while I disarm him.”

“There’s my pistol,” said McMurdo coolly. “Maybe, Captain Marvin, if
you and I were alone and face to face you would not take me so
easily.”

“Where’s your warrant?” asked McGinty. “By Gar! a man might as well
live in Russia as in Vermissa while folk like you are running the
police. It’s a capitalist outrage, and you’ll hear more of it, I
reckon.”

“You do what you think is your duty the best way you can, Councillor.
We’ll look after ours.”

“What am I accused of?” asked McMurdo.

“Of being concerned in the beating of old Editor Stanger at the
Herald office. It wasn’t your fault that it isn’t a murder charge.”

“Well, if that’s all you have against him,” cried McGinty with a
laugh, “you can save yourself a deal of trouble by dropping it right
now. This man was with me in my saloon playing poker up to midnight,
and I can bring a dozen to prove it.”

“That’s your affair, and I guess you can settle it in court
to-morrow. Meanwhile, come on, McMurdo, and come quietly if you don’t
want a gun across your head. You stand wide, Mr. McGinty; for I warn
you I will stand no resistance when I am on duty!”

So determined was the appearance of the captain that both McMurdo and
his boss were forced to accept the situation. The latter managed to
have a few whispered words with the prisoner before they parted.

“What about–” he jerked his thumb upward to signify the coining
plant.

“All right,” whispered McMurdo, who had devised a safe hiding place
under the floor.

“I’ll bid you good-bye,” said the Boss, shaking hands. “I’ll see
Reilly the lawyer and take the defense upon myself. Take my word for
it that they won’t be able to hold you.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that. Guard the prisoner, you two, and shoot him
if he tries any games. I’ll search the house before I leave.”

He did so; but apparently found no trace of the concealed plant. When
he had descended he and his men escorted McMurdo to headquarters.
Darkness had fallen, and a keen blizzard was blowing so that the
streets were nearly deserted; but a few loiterers followed the group,
and emboldened by invisibility shouted imprecations at the prisoner.

“Lynch the cursed Scowrer!” they cried. “Lynch him!” They laughed and
jeered as he was pushed into the police station. After a short,
formal examination from the inspector in charge he was put into the
common cell. Here he found Baldwin and three other criminals of the
night before, all arrested that afternoon and waiting their trial
next morning.

But even within this inner fortress of the law the long arm of the
Freemen was able to extend. Late at night there came a jailer with a
straw bundle for their bedding, out of which he extracted two bottles
of whisky, some glasses, and a pack of cards. They spent a hilarious
night, without an anxious thought as to the ordeal of the morning.

Nor had they cause, as the result was to show. The magistrate could
not possibly, on the evidence, have held them for a higher court. On
the one hand the compositors and pressmen were forced to admit that
the light was uncertain, that they were themselves much perturbed,
and that it was difficult for them to swear to the identity of the
assailants; although they believed that the accused were among them.
Cross examined by the clever attorney who had been engaged by
McGinty, they were even more nebulous in their evidence.

The injured man had already deposed that he was so taken by surprise
by the suddenness of the attack that he could state nothing beyond
the fact that the first man who struck him wore a moustache. He added
that he knew them to be Scowrers, since no one else in the community
could possibly have any enmity to him, and he had long been
threatened on account of his outspoken editorials. On the other hand,
it was clearly shown by the united and unfaltering evidence of six
citizens, including that high municipal official, Councillor McGinty,
that the men had been at a card party at the Union House until an
hour very much later than the commission of the outrage.

Needless to say that they were discharged with something very near to
an apology from the bench for the inconvenience to which they had
been put, together with an implied censure of Captain Marvin and the
police for their officious zeal.

The verdict was greeted with loud applause by a court in which
McMurdo saw many familiar faces. Brothers of the lodge smiled and
waved. But there were others who sat with compressed lips and
brooding eyes as the men filed out of the dock. One of them, a
little, dark-bearded, resolute fellow, put the thoughts of himself
and comrades into words as the ex-prisoners passed him.

“You damned murderers!” he said. “We’ll fix you yet!”

If anything had been needed to give an impetus to Jack McMurdo’s
popularity among his fellows it would have been his arrest and
acquittal. That a man on the very night of joining the lodge should
have done something which brought him before the magistrate was a new
record in the annals of the society. Already he had earned the
reputation of a good boon companion, a cheery reveller, and withal a
man of high temper, who would not take an insult even from the
all-powerful Boss himself. But in addition to this he impressed his
comrades with the idea that among them all there was not one whose
brain was so ready to devise a bloodthirsty scheme, or whose hand
would be more capable of carrying it out. “He’ll be the boy for the
clean job,” said the oldsters to one another, and waited their time
until they could set him to his work.

McGinty had instruments enough already; but he recognized that this
was a supremely able one. He felt like a man holding a fierce
bloodhound in leash. There were curs to do the smaller work; but some
day he would slip this creature upon its prey. A few members of the
lodge, Ted Baldwin among them, resented the rapid rise of the
stranger and hated him for it; but they kept clear of him, for he was
as ready to fight as to laugh.

But if he gained favour with his fellows, there was another quarter,
one which had become even more vital to him, in which he lost it.
Ettie Shafter’s father would have nothing more to do with him, nor
would he allow him to enter the house. Ettie herself was too deeply
in love to give him up altogether, and yet her own good sense warned
her of what would come from a marriage with a man who was regarded as
a criminal.

One morning after a sleepless night she determined to see him,
possibly for the last time, and make one strong endeavour to draw him
from those evil influences which were sucking him down. She went to
his house, as he had often begged her to do, and made her way into
the room which he used as his sitting-room. He was seated at a table,
with his back turned and a letter in front of him. A sudden spirit of
girlish mischief came over her–she was still only nineteen. He had
not heard her when she pushed open the door. Now she tiptoed forward
and laid her hand lightly upon his bended shoulders.

If she had expected to startle him, she certainly succeeded; but only
in turn to be startled herself. With a tiger spring he turned on her,
and his right hand was feeling for her throat. At the same instant
with the other hand he crumpled up the paper that lay before him. For
an instant he stood glaring. Then astonishment and joy took the place
of the ferocity which had convulsed his features–a ferocity which
had sent her shrinking back in horror as from something which had
never before intruded into her gentle life.

“It’s you!” said he, mopping his brow. “And to think that you should
come to me, heart of my heart, and I should find nothing better to do
than to want to strangle you! Come then, darling,” and he held out
his arms, “let me make it up to you.”

But she had not recovered from that sudden glimpse of guilty fear
which she had read in the man’s face. All her woman’s instinct told
her that it was not the mere fright of a man who is startled.
Guilt–that was it–guilt and fear!

“What’s come over you, Jack?” she cried. “Why were you so scared of
me? Oh, Jack, if your conscience was at ease, you would not have
looked at me like that!”

“Sure, I was thinking of other things, and when you came tripping so
lightly on those fairy feet of yours–“

“No, no, it was more than that, Jack.” Then a sudden suspicion seized
her. “Let me see that letter you were writing.”

“Ah, Ettie, I couldn’t do that.”

Her suspicions became certainties. “It’s to another woman,” she
cried. “I know it! Why else should you hold it from me? Was it to
your wife that you were writing? How am I to know that you are not a
married man–you, a stranger, that nobody knows?”

“I am not married, Ettie. See now, I swear it! You’re the only one
woman on earth to me. By the cross of Christ I swear it!”

He was so white with passionate earnestness that she could not but
believe him.

“Well, then,” she cried, “why will you not show me the letter?”

“I’ll tell you, acushla,” said he. “I’m under oath not to show it,
and just as I wouldn’t break my word to you so I would keep it to
those who hold my promise. It’s the business of the lodge, and even
to you it’s secret. And if I was scared when a hand fell on me, can’t
you understand it when it might have been the hand of a detective?”

She felt that he was telling the truth. He gathered her into his arms
and kissed away her fears and doubts.

“Sit here by me, then. It’s a queer throne for such a queen; but it’s
the best your poor lover can find. He’ll do better for you some of
these days, I’m thinking. Now your mind is easy once again, is it
not?”

“How can it ever be at ease, Jack, when I know that you are a
criminal among criminals, when I never know the day that I may hear
you are in court for murder? ‘McMurdo the Scowrer,’ that’s what one
of our boarders called you yesterday. It went through my heart like a
knife.”

“Sure, hard words break no bones.”

“But they were true.”

“Well, dear, it’s not so bad as you think. We are but poor men that
are trying in our own way to get our rights.”

Ettie threw her arms round her lover’s neck. “Give it up, Jack! For
my sake, for God’s sake, give it up! It was to ask you that I came
here to-day. Oh, Jack, see–I beg it of you on my bended knees!
Kneeling here before you I implore you to give it up!”

He raised her and soothed her with her head against his breast.

“Sure, my darlin’, you don’t know what it is you are asking. How
could I give it up when it would be to break my oath and to desert my
comrades? If you could see how things stand with me you could never
ask it of me. Besides, if I wanted to, how could I do it? You don’t
suppose that the lodge would let a man go free with all its secrets?”

“I’ve thought of that, Jack. I’ve planned it all. Father has saved
some money. He is weary of this place where the fear of these people
darkens our lives. He is ready to go. We would fly together to
Philadelphia or New York, where we would be safe from them.”

McMurdo laughed. “The lodge has a long arm. Do you think it could not
stretch from here to Philadelphia or New York?”

“Well, then, to the West, or to England, or to Germany, where father
came from–anywhere to get away from this Valley of Fear!”

McMurdo thought of old Brother Morris. “Sure, it is the second time I
have heard the valley so named,” said he. “The shadow does indeed
seem to lie heavy on some of you.”

“It darkens every moment of our lives. Do you suppose that Ted
Baldwin has ever forgiven us? If it were not that he fears you, what
do you suppose our chances would be? If you saw the look in those
dark, hungry eyes of his when they fall on me!”

“By Gar! I’d teach him better manners if I caught him at it! But see
here, little girl. I can’t leave here. I can’t–take that from me
once and for all. But if you will leave me to find my own way, I will
try to prepare a way of getting honourably out of it.”

“There is no honour in such a matter.”

“Well, well, it’s just how you look at it. But if you’ll give me six
months, I’ll work it so that I can leave without being ashamed to
look others in the face.”

The girl laughed with joy. “Six months!” she cried. “Is it a
promise?”

“Well, it may be seven or eight. But within a year at the furthest we
will leave the valley behind us.”

It was the most that Ettie could obtain, and yet it was something.
There was this distant light to illuminate the gloom of the immediate
future. She returned to her father’s house more light-hearted than
she had ever been since Jack McMurdo had come into her life.

It might be thought that as a member, all the doings of the society
would be told to him; but he was soon to discover that the
organization was wider and more complex than the simple lodge. Even
Boss McGinty was ignorant as to many things; for there was an
official named the County Delegate, living at Hobson’s Patch farther
down the line, who had power over several different lodges which he
wielded in a sudden and arbitrary way. Only once did McMurdo see him,
a sly, little gray-haired rat of a man, with a slinking gait and a
sidelong glance which was charged with malice. Evans Pott was his
name, and even the great Boss of Vermissa felt towards him something
of the repulsion and fear which the huge Danton may have felt for the
puny but dangerous Robespierre.

One day Scanlan, who was McMurdo’s fellow boarder, received a note
from McGinty inclosing one from Evans Pott, which informed him that
he was sending over two good men, Lawler and Andrews, who had
instructions to act in the neighbourhood; though it was best for the
cause that no particulars as to their objects should be given. Would
the Bodymaster see to it that suitable arrangements be made for their
lodgings and comfort until the time for action should arrive? McGinty
added that it was impossible for anyone to remain secret at the Union
House, and that, therefore, he would be obliged if McMurdo and
Scanlan would put the strangers up for a few days in their boarding
house.

The same evening the two men arrived, each carrying his gripsack.
Lawler was an elderly man, shrewd, silent, and self-contained, clad
in an old black frock coat, which with his soft felt hat and ragged,
grizzled beard gave him a general resemblance to an itinerant
preacher. His companion Andrews was little more than a boy,
frank-faced and cheerful, with the breezy manner of one who is out
for a holiday and means to enjoy every minute of it. Both men were
total abstainers, and behaved in all ways as exemplary members of the
society, with the one simple exception that they were assassins who
had often proved themselves to be most capable instruments for this
association of murder. Lawler had already carried out fourteen
commissions of the kind, and Andrews three.

They were, as McMurdo found, quite ready to converse about their
deeds in the past, which they recounted with the half-bashful pride
of men who had done good and unselfish service for the community.
They were reticent, however, as to the immediate job in hand.

“They chose us because neither I nor the boy here drink,” Lawler
explained. “They can count on us saying no more than we should. You
must not take it amiss, but it is the orders of the County Delegate
that we obey.”

“Sure, we are all in it together,” said Scanlan, McMurdo’s mate, as
the four sat together at supper.

“That’s true enough, and we’ll talk till the cows come home of the
killing of Charlie Williams or of Simon Bird, or any other job in the
past. But till the work is done we say nothing.”

“There are half a dozen about here that I have a word to say to,”
said McMurdo, with an oath. “I suppose it isn’t Jack Knox of Ironhill
that you are after. I’d go some way to see him get his deserts.”

“No, it’s not him yet.”

“Or Herman Strauss?”

“No, nor him either.”

“Well, if you won’t tell us we can’t make you; but I’d be glad to
know.”

Lawler smiled and shook his head. He was not to be drawn.

In spite of the reticence of their guests, Scanlan and McMurdo were
quite determined to be present at what they called “the fun.” When,
therefore, at an early hour one morning McMurdo heard them creeping
down the stairs he awakened Scanlan, and the two hurried on their
clothes. When they were dressed they found that the others had stolen
out, leaving the door open behind them. It was not yet dawn, and by
the light of the lamps they could see the two men some distance down
the street. They followed them warily, treading noiselessly in the
deep snow.

The boarding house was near the edge of the town, and soon they were
at the crossroads which is beyond its boundary. Here three men were
waiting, with whom Lawler and Andrews held a short, eager
conversation. Then they all moved on together. It was clearly some
notable job which needed numbers. At this point there are several
trails which lead to various mines. The strangers took that which led
to the Crow Hill, a huge business which was in strong hands which had
been able, thanks to their energetic and fearless New England
manager, Josiah H. Dunn, to keep some order and discipline during the
long reign of terror.

Day was breaking now, and a line of workmen were slowly making their
way, singly and in groups, along the blackened path.

McMurdo and Scanlan strolled on with the others, keeping in sight of
the men whom they followed. A thick mist lay over them, and from the
heart of it there came the sudden scream of a steam whistle. It was
the ten-minute signal before the cages descended and the day’s labour
began.

When they reached the open space round the mine shaft there were a
hundred miners waiting, stamping their feet and blowing on their
fingers; for it was bitterly cold. The strangers stood in a little
group under the shadow of the engine house. Scanlan and McMurdo
climbed a heap of slag from which the whole scene lay before them.
They saw the mine engineer, a great bearded Scotchman named Menzies,
come out of the engine house and blow his whistle for the cages to be
lowered.

At the same instant a tall, loose-framed young man with a
clean-shaved, earnest face advanced eagerly towards the pit head. As
he came forward his eyes fell upon the group, silent and motionless,
under the engine house. The men had drawn down their hats and turned
up their collars to screen their faces. For a moment the presentiment
of Death laid its cold hand upon the manager’s heart. At the next he
had shaken it off and saw only his duty towards intrusive strangers.

“Who are you?” he asked as he advanced. “What are you loitering there
for?”

There was no answer; but the lad Andrews stepped forward and shot him
in the stomach. The hundred waiting miners stood as motionless and
helpless as if they were paralyzed. The manager clapped his two hands
to the wound and doubled himself up. Then he staggered away; but
another of the assassins fired, and he went down sidewise, kicking
and clawing among a heap of clinkers. Menzies, the Scotchman, gave a
roar of rage at the sight and rushed with an iron spanner at the
murderers; but was met by two balls in the face which dropped him
dead at their very feet.

There was a surge forward of some of the miners, and an inarticulate
cry of pity and of anger; but a couple of the strangers emptied their
six-shooters over the heads of the crowd, and they broke and
scattered, some of them rushing wildly back to their homes in
Vermissa.

When a few of the bravest had rallied, and there was a return to the
mine, the murderous gang had vanished in the mists of morning,
without a single witness being able to swear to the identity of these
men who in front of a hundred spectators had wrought this double
crime.

Scanlan and McMurdo made their way back; Scanlan somewhat subdued,
for it was the first murder job that he had seen with his own eyes,
and it appeared less funny than he had been led to believe. The
horrible screams of the dead manager’s wife pursued them as they
hurried to the town. McMurdo was absorbed and silent; but he showed
no sympathy for the weakening of his companion.

“Sure, it is like a war,” he repeated. “What is it but a war between
us and them, and we hit back where we best can.”

There was high revel in the lodge room at the Union House that night,
not only over the killing of the manager and engineer of the Crow
Hill mine, which would bring this organization into line with the
other blackmailed and terror-stricken companies of the district, but
also over a distant triumph which had been wrought by the hands of
the lodge itself.

It would appear that when the County Delegate had sent over five good
men to strike a blow in Vermissa, he had demanded that in return
three Vermissa men should be secretly selected and sent across to
kill William Hales of Stake Royal, one of the best known and most
popular mine owners in the Gilmerton district, a man who was believed
not to have an enemy in the world; for he was in all ways a model
employer. He had insisted, however, upon efficiency in the work, and
had, therefore, paid off certain drunken and idle employees who were
members of the all-powerful society. Coffin notices hung outside his
door had not weakened his resolution, and so in a free, civilized
country he found himself condemned to death.

The execution had now been duly carried out. Ted Baldwin, who
sprawled now in the seat of honour beside the Bodymaster, had been
chief of the party. His flushed face and glazed, blood-shot eyes told
of sleeplessness and drink. He and his two comrades had spent the
night before among the mountains. They were unkempt and
weather-stained. But no heroes, returning from a forlorn hope, could
have had a warmer welcome from their comrades.

The story was told and retold amid cries of delight and shouts of
laughter. They had waited for their man as he drove home at
nightfall, taking their station at the top of a steep hill, where his
horse must be at a walk. He was so furred to keep out the cold that
he could not lay his hand on his pistol. They had pulled him out and
shot him again and again. He had screamed for mercy. The screams were
repeated for the amusement of the lodge.

“Let’s hear again how he squealed,” they cried.

None of them knew the man; but there is eternal drama in a killing,
and they had shown the Scowrers of Gilmerton that the Vermissa men
were to be relied upon.

There had been one contretemps; for a man and his wife had driven up
while they were still emptying their revolvers into the silent body.
It had been suggested that they should shoot them both; but they were
harmless folk who were not connected with the mines, so they were
sternly bidden to drive on and keep silent, lest a worse thing befall
them. And so the blood-mottled figure had been left as a warning to
all such hard-hearted employers, and the three noble avengers had
hurried off into the mountains where unbroken nature comes down to
the very edge of the furnaces and the slag heaps. Here they were,
safe and sound, their work well done, and the plaudits of their
companions in their ears.

It had been a great day for the Scowrers. The shadow had fallen even
darker over the valley. But as the wise general chooses the moment of
victory in which to redouble his efforts, so that his foes may have
no time to steady themselves after disaster, so Boss McGinty, looking
out upon the scene of his operations with his brooding and malicious
eyes, had devised a new attack upon those who opposed him. That very
night, as the half-drunken company broke up, he touched McMurdo on
the arm and led him aside into that inner room where they had their
first interview.

“See here, my lad,” said he, “I’ve got a job that’s worthy of you at
last. You’ll have the doing of it in your own hands.”

“Proud I am to hear it,” McMurdo answered.

“You can take two men with you–Manders and Reilly. They have been
warned for service. We’ll never be right in this district until
Chester Wilcox has been settled, and you’ll have the thanks of every
lodge in the coal fields if you can down him.”

“I’ll do my best, anyhow. Who is he, and where shall I find him?”

McGinty took his eternal half-chewed, half-smoked cigar from the
corner of his mouth, and proceeded to draw a rough diagram on a page
torn from his notebook.

“He’s the chief foreman of the Iron Dike Company. He’s a hard
citizen, an old colour sergeant of the war, all scars and grizzle.
We’ve had two tries at him; but had no luck, and Jim Carnaway lost
his life over it. Now it’s for you to take it over. That’s the
house–all alone at the Iron Dike crossroad, same as you see here on
the map–without another within earshot. It’s no good by day. He’s
armed and shoots quick and straight, with no questions asked. But at
night–well, there he is with his wife, three children, and a hired
help. You can’t pick or choose. It’s all or none. If you could get a
bag of blasting powder at the front door with a slow match to it–“

“What’s the man done?”

“Didn’t I tell you he shot Jim Carnaway?”

“Why did he shoot him?”

“What in thunder has that to do with you? Carnaway was about his
house at night, and he shot him. That’s enough for me and you. You’ve
got to settle the thing right.”

“There’s these two women and the children. Do they go up too?”

“They have to–else how can we get him?”

“It seems hard on them; for they’ve done nothing.”

“What sort of fool’s talk is this? Do you back out?”

“Easy, Councillor, easy! What have I ever said or done that you
should think I would be after standing back from an order of the
Bodymaster of my own lodge? If it’s right or if it’s wrong, it’s for
you to decide.”

“You’ll do it, then?”

“Of course I will do it.”

“When?”

“Well, you had best give me a night or two that I may see the house
and make my plans. Then–“

“Very good,” said McGinty, shaking him by the hand. “I leave it with
you. It will be a great day when you bring us the news. It’s just the
last stroke that will bring them all to their knees.”

McMurdo thought long and deeply over the commission which had been so
suddenly placed in his hands. The isolated house in which Chester
Wilcox lived was about five miles off in an adjacent valley. That
very night he started off all alone to prepare for the attempt. It
was daylight before he returned from his reconnaissance. Next day he
interviewed his two subordinates, Manders and Reilly, reckless
youngsters who were as elated as if it were a deer-hunt.

Two nights later they met outside the town, all three armed, and one
of them carrying a sack stuffed with the powder which was used in the
quarries. It was two in the morning before they came to the lonely
house. The night was a windy one, with broken clouds drifting swiftly
across the face of a three-quarter moon. They had been warned to be
on their guard against bloodhounds; so they moved forward cautiously,
with their pistols cocked in their hands. But there was no sound save
the howling of the wind, and no movement but the swaying branches
above them.

McMurdo listened at the door of the lonely house; but all was still
within. Then he leaned the powder bag against it, ripped a hole in it
with his knife, and attached the fuse. When it was well alight he and
his two companions took to their heels, and were some distance off,
safe and snug in a sheltering ditch, before the shattering roar of
the explosion, with the low, deep rumble of the collapsing building,
told them that their work was done. No cleaner job had ever been
carried out in the bloodstained annals of the society.

But alas that work so well organized and boldly carried out should
all have gone for nothing! Warned by the fate of the various victims,
and knowing that he was marked down for destruction, Chester Wilcox
had moved himself and his family only the day before to some safer
and less known quarters, where a guard of police should watch over
them. It was an empty house which had been torn down by the
gunpowder, and the grim old colour sergeant of the war was still
teaching discipline to the miners of Iron Dike.

“Leave him to me,” said McMurdo. “He’s my man, and I’ll get him sure
if I have to wait a year for him.”

A vote of thanks and confidence was passed in full lodge, and so for
the time the matter ended. When a few weeks later it was reported in
the papers that Wilcox had been shot at from an ambuscade, it was an
open secret that McMurdo was still at work upon his unfinished job.

Such were the methods of the Society of Freemen, and such were the
deeds of the Scowrers by which they spread their rule of fear over
the great and rich district which was for so long a period haunted by
their terrible presence. Why should these pages be stained by further
crimes? Have I not said enough to show the men and their methods?

These deeds are written in history, and there are records wherein one
may read the details of them. There one may learn of the shooting of
Policemen Hunt and Evans because they had ventured to arrest two
members of the society–a double outrage planned at the Vermissa
lodge and carried out in cold blood upon two helpless and disarmed
men. There also one may read of the shooting of Mrs. Larbey when she
was nursing her husband, who had been beaten almost to death by
orders of Boss McGinty. The killing of the elder Jenkins, shortly
followed by that of his brother, the mutilation of James Murdoch, the
blowing up of the Staphouse family, and the murder of the Stendals
all followed hard upon one another in the same terrible winter.

Darkly the shadow lay upon the Valley of Fear. The spring had come
with running brooks and blossoming trees. There was hope for all
Nature bound so long in an iron grip; but nowhere was there any hope
for the men and women who lived under the yoke of the terror. Never
had the cloud above them been so dark and hopeless as in the early
summer of the year 1875.

It was the height of the reign of terror. McMurdo, who had already
been appointed Inner Deacon, with every prospect of some day
succeeding McGinty as Bodymaster, was now so necessary to the
councils of his comrades that nothing was done without his help and
advice. The more popular he became, however, with the Freemen, the
blacker were the scowls which greeted him as he passed along the
streets of Vermissa. In spite of their terror the citizens were
taking heart to band themselves together against their oppressors.
Rumours had reached the lodge of secret gatherings in the Herald
office and of distribution of firearms among the law-abiding people.
But McGinty and his men were undisturbed by such reports. They were
numerous, resolute, and well armed. Their opponents were scattered
and powerless. It would all end, as it had done in the past, in
aimless talk and possibly in impotent arrests. So said McGinty,
McMurdo, and all the bolder spirits.

It was a Saturday evening in May. Saturday was always the lodge
night, and McMurdo was leaving his house to attend it when Morris,
the weaker brother of the order, came to see him. His brow was
creased with care, and his kindly face was drawn and haggard.

“Can I speak with you freely, Mr. McMurdo?”

“Sure.”

“I can’t forget that I spoke my heart to you once, and that you kept
it to yourself, even though the Boss himself came to ask you about
it.”

“What else could I do if you trusted me? It wasn’t that I agreed with
what you said.”

“I know that well. But you are the one that I can speak to and be
safe. I’ve a secret here,” he put his hand to his breast, “and it is
just burning the life out of me. I wish it had come to any one of you
but me. If I tell it, it will mean murder, for sure. If I don’t, it
may bring the end of us all. God help me, but I am near out of my
wits over it!”

McMurdo looked at the man earnestly. He was trembling in every limb.
He poured some whisky into a glass and handed it to him. “That’s the
physic for the likes of you,” said he. “Now let me hear of it.”

Morris drank, and his white face took a tinge of colour. “I can tell
it to you all in one sentence,” said he. “There’s a detective on our
trail.”

McMurdo stared at him in astonishment. “Why, man, you’re crazy,” he
said. “Isn’t the place full of police and detectives and what harm
did they ever do us?”

“No, no, it’s no man of the district. As you say, we know them, and
it is little that they can do. But you’ve heard of Pinkerton’s?”

“I’ve read of some folk of that name.”

“Well, you can take it from me you’ve no show when they are on your
trail. It’s not a take-it-or-miss-it government concern. It’s a dead
earnest business proposition that’s out for results and keeps out
till by hook or crook it gets them. If a Pinkerton man is deep in
this business, we are all destroyed.”

“We must kill him.”

“Ah, it’s the first thought that came to you! So it will be up at the
lodge. Didn’t I say to you that it would end in murder?”

“Sure, what is murder? Isn’t it common enough in these parts?”

“It is, indeed; but it’s not for me to point out the man that is to
be murdered. I’d never rest easy again. And yet it’s our own necks
that may be at stake. In God’s name what shall I do?” He rocked to
and fro in his agony of indecision.

But his words had moved McMurdo deeply. It was easy to see that he
shared the other’s opinion as to the danger, and the need for meeting
it. He gripped Morris’s shoulder and shook him in his earnestness.

“See here, man,” he cried, and he almost screeched the words in his
excitement, “you won’t gain anything by sitting keening like an old
wife at a wake. Let’s have the facts. Who is the fellow? Where is he?
How did you hear of him? Why did you come to me?”

“I came to you; for you are the one man that would advise me. I told
you that I had a store in the East before I came here. I left good
friends behind me, and one of them is in the telegraph service.
Here’s a letter that I had from him yesterday. It’s this part from
the top of the page. You can read it yourself.”

This was what McMurdo read:

How are the Scowrers getting on in your parts? We read plenty of them
in the papers. Between you and me I expect to hear news from you
before long. Five big corporations and the two railroads have taken
the thing up in dead earnest. They mean it, and you can bet they’ll
get there! They are right deep down into it. Pinkerton has taken hold
under their orders, and his best man, Birdy Edwards, is operating.
The thing has got to be stopped right now.

“Now read the postscript.”

Of course, what I give you is what I learned in business; so it goes
no further. It’s a queer cipher that you handle by the yard every day
and can get no meaning from.

McMurdo sat in silence for some time, with the letter in his listless
hands. The mist had lifted for a moment, and there was the abyss
before him.

“Does anyone else know of this?” he asked.

“I have told no one else.”

“But this man–your friend–has he any other person that he would be
likely to write to?”

“Well, I dare say he knows one or two more.”

“Of the lodge?”

“It’s likely enough.”

“I was asking because it is likely that he may have given some
description of this fellow Birdy Edwards–then we could get on his
trail.”

“Well, it’s possible. But I should not think he knew him. He is just
telling me the news that came to him by way of business. How would he
know this Pinkerton man?”

McMurdo gave a violent start.

“By Gar!” he cried, “I’ve got him. What a fool I was not to know it.
Lord! but we’re in luck! We will fix him before he can do any harm.
See here, Morris, will you leave this thing in my hands?”

“Sure, if you will only take it off mine.”

“I’ll do that. You can stand right back and let me run it. Even your
name need not be mentioned. I’ll take it all on myself, as if it were
to me that this letter has come. Will that content you?”

“It’s just what I would ask.”

“Then leave it at that and keep your head shut. Now I’ll get down to
the lodge, and we’ll soon make old man Pinkerton sorry for himself.”

“You wouldn’t kill this man?”

“The less you know, Friend Morris, the easier your conscience will
be, and the better you will sleep. Ask no questions, and let these
things settle themselves. I have hold of it now.”

Morris shook his head sadly as he left. “I feel that his blood is on
my hands,” he groaned.

“Self-protection is no murder, anyhow,” said McMurdo, smiling grimly.
“It’s him or us. I guess this man would destroy us all if we left him
long in the valley. Why, Brother Morris, we’ll have to elect you
Bodymaster yet; for you’ve surely saved the lodge.”

And yet it was clear from his actions that he thought more seriously
of this new intrusion than his words would show. It may have been his
guilty conscience, it may have been the reputation of the Pinkerton
organization, it may have been the knowledge that great, rich
corporations had set themselves the task of clearing out the
Scowrers; but, whatever his reason, his actions were those of a man
who is preparing for the worst. Every paper which would incriminate
him was destroyed before he left the house. After that he gave a long
sigh of satisfaction; for it seemed to him that he was safe. And yet
the danger must still have pressed somewhat upon him; for on his way
to the lodge he stopped at old man Shafter’s. The house was forbidden
him; but when he tapped at the window Ettie came out to him. The
dancing Irish deviltry had gone from her lover’s eyes. She read his
danger in his earnest face.

“Something has happened!” she cried. “Oh, Jack, you are in danger!”

“Sure, it is not very bad, my sweetheart. And yet it may be wise that
we make a move before it is worse.”

“Make a move?”

“I promised you once that I would go some day. I think the time is
coming. I had news to-night, bad news, and I see trouble coming.”

“The police?”

“Well, a Pinkerton. But, sure, you wouldn’t know what that is,
acushla, nor what it may mean to the likes of me. I’m too deep in
this thing, and I may have to get out of it quick. You said you would
come with me if I went.”

“Oh, Jack, it would be the saving of you!”

“I’m an honest man in some things, Ettie. I wouldn’t hurt a hair of
your bonny head for all that the world can give, nor ever pull you
down one inch from the golden throne above the clouds where I always
see you. Would you trust me?”

She put her hand in his without a word. “Well, then, listen to what I
say, and do as I order you, for indeed it’s the only way for us.
Things are going to happen in this valley. I feel it in my bones.
There may be many of us that will have to look out for ourselves. I’m
one, anyhow. If I go, by day or night, it’s you that must come with
me!”

“I’d come after you, Jack.”

“No, no, you shall come with me. If this valley is closed to me and I
can never come back, how can I leave you behind, and me perhaps in
hiding from the police with never a chance of a message? It’s with me
you must come. I know a good woman in the place I come from, and it’s
there I’d leave you till we can get married. Will you come?”

“Yes, Jack, I will come.”

“God bless you for your trust in me! It’s a fiend out of hell that I
should be if I abused it. Now, mark you, Ettie, it will be just a
word to you, and when it reaches you, you will drop everything and
come right down to the waiting room at the depot and stay there till
I come for you.”

“Day or night, I’ll come at the word, Jack.”

Somewhat eased in mind, now that his own preparations for escape had
been begun, McMurdo went on to the lodge. It had already assembled,
and only by complicated signs and counter-signs could he pass through
the outer guard and inner guard who close-tiled it. A buzz of
pleasure and welcome greeted him as he entered. The long room was
crowded, and through the haze of tobacco smoke he saw the tangled
black mane of the Bodymaster, the cruel, unfriendly features of
Baldwin, the vulture face of Harraway, the secretary, and a dozen
more who were among the leaders of the lodge. He rejoiced that they
should all be there to take counsel over his news.

“Indeed, it’s glad we are to see you, Brother!” cried the chairman.
“There’s business here that wants a Solomon in judgment to set it
right.”

“It’s Lander and Egan,” explained his neighbour as he took his seat.
“They both claim the head money given by the lodge for the shooting
of old man Crabbe over at Stylestown, and who’s to say which fired
the bullet?”

McMurdo rose in his place and raised his hand. The expression of his
face froze the attention of the audience. There was a dead hush of
expectation.

“Eminent Bodymaster,” he said, in a solemn voice, “I claim urgency!”

“Brother McMurdo claims urgency,” said McGinty. “It’s a claim that by
the rules of this lodge takes precedence. Now Brother, we attend
you.”

McMurdo took the letter from his pocket.

“Eminent Bodymaster and Brethren,” he said, “I am the bearer of ill
news this day; but it is better that it should be known and
discussed, than that a blow should fall upon us without warning which
would destroy us all. I have information that the most powerful and
richest organizations in this state have bound themselves together
for our destruction, and that at this very moment there is a
Pinkerton detective, one Birdy Edwards, at work in the valley
collecting the evidence which may put a rope round the necks of many
of us, and send every man in this room into a felon’s cell. That is
the situation for the discussion of which I have made a claim of
urgency.”

There was a dead silence in the room. It was broken by the chairman.

“What is your evidence for this, Brother McMurdo?” he asked.

“It is in this letter which has come into my hands,” said McMurdo. He
read the passage aloud. “It is a matter of honour with me that I can
give no further particulars about the letter, nor put it into your
hands; but I assure you that there is nothing else in it which can
affect the interests of the lodge. I put the case before you as it
has reached me.”

“Let me say, Mr. Chairman,” said one of the older brethren, “that I
have heard of Birdy Edwards, and that he has the name of being the
best man in the Pinkerton service.”

“Does anyone know him by sight?” asked McGinty.

“Yes,” said McMurdo, “I do.”

There was a murmur of astonishment through the hall.

“I believe we hold him in the hollow of our hands,” he continued with
an exulting smile upon his face. “If we act quickly and wisely, we
can cut this thing short. If I have your confidence and your help, it
is little that we have to fear.”

“What have we to fear, anyhow? What can he know of our affairs?”

“You might say so if all were as stanch as you, Councillor. But this
man has all the millions of the capitalists at his back. Do you think
there is no weaker brother among all our lodges that could not be
bought? He will get at our secrets–maybe has got them already.
There’s only one sure cure.”

“That he never leaves the valley,” said Baldwin.

McMurdo nodded. “Good for you, Brother Baldwin,” he said. “You and I
have had our differences, but you have said the true word to-night.”

“Where is he, then? Where shall we know him?”

“Eminent Bodymaster,” said McMurdo, earnestly, “I would put it to you
that this is too vital a thing for us to discuss in open lodge. God
forbid that I should throw a doubt on anyone here; but if so much as
a word of gossip got to the ears of this man, there would be an end
of any chance of our getting him. I would ask the lodge to choose a
trusty committee, Mr. Chairman–yourself, if I might suggest it, and
Brother Baldwin here, and five more. Then I can talk freely of what I
know and of what I advise should be done.”

The proposition was at once adopted, and the committee chosen.
Besides the chairman and Baldwin there were the vulture-faced
secretary, Harraway, Tiger Cormac, the brutal young assassin, Carter,
the treasurer, and the brothers Willaby, fearless and desperate men
who would stick at nothing.

The usual revelry of the lodge was short and subdued: for there was a
cloud upon the men’s spirits, and many there for the first time began
to see the cloud of avenging Law drifting up in that serene sky under
which they had dwelt so long. The horrors they had dealt out to
others had been so much a part of their settled lives that the
thought of retribution had become a remote one, and so seemed the
more startling now that it came so closely upon them. They broke up
early and left their leaders to their council.

“Now, McMurdo!” said McGinty when they were alone. The seven men sat
frozen in their seats.

“I said just now that I knew Birdy Edwards,” McMurdo explained. “I
need not tell you that he is not here under that name. He’s a brave
man, but not a crazy one. He passes under the name of Steve Wilson,
and he is lodging at Hobson’s Patch.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because I fell into talk with him. I thought little of it at the
time, nor would have given it a second thought but for this letter;
but now I’m sure it’s the man. I met him on the cars when I went down
the line on Wednesday–a hard case if ever there was one. He said he
was a reporter. I believed it for the moment. Wanted to know all he
could about the Scowrers and what he called ‘the outrages’ for a New
York paper. Asked me every kind of question so as to get something.
You bet I was giving nothing away. ‘I’d pay for it and pay well,’
said he, ‘if I could get some stuff that would suit my editor.’ I
said what I thought would please him best, and he handed me a
twenty-dollar bill for my information. ‘There’s ten times that for
you,’ said he, ‘if you can find me all that I want.'”

“What did you tell him, then?”

“Any stuff I could make up.”

“How do you know he wasn’t a newspaper man?”

“I’ll tell you. He got out at Hobson’s Patch, and so did I. I chanced
into the telegraph bureau, and he was leaving it.

“‘See here,’ said the operator after he’d gone out, ‘I guess we
should charge double rates for this.’–‘I guess you should,’ said I.
He had filled the form with stuff that might have been Chinese, for
all we could make of it. ‘He fires a sheet of this off every day,’
said the clerk. ‘Yes,’ said I; ‘it’s special news for his paper, and
he’s scared that the others should tap it.’ That was what the
operator thought and what I thought at the time; but I think
differently now.”

“By Gar! I believe you are right,” said McGinty. “But what do you
allow that we should do about it?”

“Why not go right down now and fix him?” someone suggested.

“Ay, the sooner the better.”

“I’d start this next minute if I knew where we could find him,” said
McMurdo. “He’s in Hobson’s Patch; but I don’t know the house. I’ve
got a plan, though, if you’ll only take my advice.”

“Well, what is it?”

“I’ll go to the Patch to-morrow morning. I’ll find him through the
operator. He can locate him, I guess. Well, then I’ll tell him that
I’m a Freeman myself. I’ll offer him all the secrets of the lodge for
a price. You bet he’ll tumble to it. I’ll tell him the papers are at
my house, and that it’s as much as my life would be worth to let him
come while folk were about. He’ll see that that’s horse sense. Let
him come at ten o’clock at night, and he shall see everything. That
will fetch him sure.”

“Well?”

“You can plan the rest for yourselves. Widow MacNamara’s is a lonely
house. She’s as true as steel and as deaf as a post. There’s only
Scanlan and me in the house. If I get his promise–and I’ll let you
know if I do–I’d have the whole seven of you come to me by nine
o’clock. We’ll get him in. If ever he gets out alive–well, he can
talk of Birdy Edwards’s luck for the rest of his days!”

“There’s going to be a vacancy at Pinkerton’s or I’m mistaken. Leave
it at that, McMurdo. At nine to-morrow we’ll be with you. You once
get the door shut behind him, and you can leave the rest with us.”

As McMurdo had said, the house in which he lived was a lonely one and
very well suited for such a crime as they had planned. It was on the
extreme fringe of the town and stood well back from the road. In any
other case the conspirators would have simply called out their man,
as they had many a time before, and emptied their pistols into his
body; but in this instance it was very necessary to find out how much
he knew, how he knew it, and what had been passed on to his
employers.

It was possible that they were already too late and that the work had
been done. If that was indeed so, they could at least have their
revenge upon the man who had done it. But they were hopeful that
nothing of great importance had yet come to the detective’s
knowledge, as otherwise, they argued, he would not have troubled to
write down and forward such trivial information as McMurdo claimed to
have given him. However, all this they would learn from his own lips.
Once in their power, they would find a way to make him speak. It was
not the first time that they had handled an unwilling witness.

McMurdo went to Hobson’s Patch as agreed. The police seemed to take
particular interest in him that morning, and Captain Marvin–he who
had claimed the old acquaintance with him at Chicago–actually
addressed him as he waited at the station. McMurdo turned away and
refused to speak with him. He was back from his mission in the
afternoon, and saw McGinty at the Union House.

“He is coming,” he said.

“Good!” said McGinty. The giant was in his shirt sleeves, with chains
and seals gleaming athwart his ample waistcoat and a diamond
twinkling through the fringe of his bristling beard. Drink and
politics had made the Boss a very rich as well as powerful man. The
more terrible, therefore, seemed that glimpse of the prison or the
gallows which had risen before him the night before.

“Do you reckon he knows much?” he asked anxiously.

McMurdo shook his head gloomily. “He’s been here some time–six weeks
at the least. I guess he didn’t come into these parts to look at the
prospect. If he has been working among us all that time with the
railroad money at his back, I should expect that he has got results,
and that he has passed them on.”

“There’s not a weak man in the lodge,” cried McGinty. “True as steel,
every man of them. And yet, by the Lord! there is that skunk Morris.
What about him? If any man gives us away, it would be he. I’ve a mind
to send a couple of the boys round before evening to give him a
beating up and see what they can get from him.”

“Well, there would be no harm in that,” McMurdo answered. “I won’t
deny that I have a liking for Morris and would be sorry to see him
come to harm. He has spoken to me once or twice over lodge matters,
and though he may not see them the same as you or I, he never seemed
the sort that squeals. But still it is not for me to stand between
him and you.”

“I’ll fix the old devil!” said McGinty with an oath. “I’ve had my eye
on him this year past.”

“Well, you know best about that,” McMurdo answered. “But whatever you
do must be to-morrow; for we must lie low until the Pinkerton affair
is settled up. We can’t afford to set the police buzzing, to-day of
all days.”

“True for you,” said McGinty. “And we’ll learn from Birdy Edwards
himself where he got his news if we have to cut his heart out first.
Did he seem to scent a trap?”

McMurdo laughed. “I guess I took him on his weak point,” he said. “If
he could get on a good trail of the Scowrers, he’s ready to follow it
into hell. I took his money,” McMurdo grinned as he produced a wad of
dollar notes, “and as much more when he has seen all my papers.”

“What papers?”

“Well, there are no papers. But I filled him up about constitutions
and books of rules and forms of membership. He expects to get right
down to the end of everything before he leaves.”

“Faith, he’s right there,” said McGinty grimly. “Didn’t he ask you
why you didn’t bring him the papers?”

“As if I would carry such things, and me a suspected man, and Captain
Marvin after speaking to me this very day at the depot!”

“Ay, I heard of that,” said McGinty. “I guess the heavy end of this
business is coming on to you. We could put him down an old shaft when
we’ve done with him; but however we work it we can’t get past the man
living at Hobson’s Patch and you being there to-day.”

McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. “If we handle it right, they can
never prove the killing,” said he. “No one can see him come to the
house after dark, and I’ll lay to it that no one will see him go. Now
see here, Councillor, I’ll show you my plan and I’ll ask you to fit
the others into it. You will all come in good time. Very well. He
comes at ten. He is to tap three times, and me to open the door for
him. Then I’ll get behind him and shut it. He’s our man then.”

“That’s all easy and plain.”

“Yes; but the next step wants considering. He’s a hard proposition.
He’s heavily armed. I’ve fooled him proper, and yet he is likely to
be on his guard. Suppose I show him right into a room with seven men
in it where he expected to find me alone. There is going to be
shooting, and somebody is going to be hurt.”

“That’s so.”

“And the noise is going to bring every damned copper in the township
on top of it.”

“I guess you are right.”

“This is how I should work it. You will all be in the big room–same
as you saw when you had a chat with me. I’ll open the door for him,
show him into the parlour beside the door, and leave him there while
I get the papers. That will give me the chance of telling you how
things are shaping. Then I will go back to him with some faked
papers. As he is reading them I will jump for him and get my grip on
his pistol arm. You’ll hear me call and in you will rush. The quicker
the better; for he is as strong a man as I, and I may have more than
I can manage. But I allow that I can hold him till you come.”

“It’s a good plan,” said McGinty. “The lodge will owe you a debt for
this. I guess when I move out of the chair I can put a name to the
man that’s coming after me.”

“Sure, Councillor, I am little more than a recruit,” said McMurdo;
but his face showed what he thought of the great man’s compliment.

When he had returned home he made his own preparations for the grim
evening in front of him. First he cleaned, oiled, and loaded his
Smith & Wesson revolver. Then he surveyed the room in which the
detective was to be trapped. It was a large apartment, with a long
deal table in the centre, and the big stove at one side. At each of
the other sides were windows. There were no shutters on these: only
light curtains which drew across. McMurdo examined these attentively.
No doubt it must have struck him that the apartment was very exposed
for so secret a meeting. Yet its distance from the road made it of
less consequence. Finally he discussed the matter with his fellow
lodger. Scanlan, though a Scowrer, was an inoffensive little man who
was too weak to stand against the opinion of his comrades, but was
secretly horrified by the deeds of blood at which he had sometimes
been forced to assist. McMurdo told him shortly what was intended.

“And if I were you, Mike Scanlan, I would take a night off and keep
clear of it. There will be bloody work here before morning.”

“Well, indeed then, Mac,” Scanlan answered. “It’s not the will but
the nerve that is wanting in me. When I saw Manager Dunn go down at
the colliery yonder it was just more than I could stand. I’m not made
for it, same as you or McGinty. If the lodge will think none the
worse of me, I’ll just do as you advise and leave you to yourselves
for the evening.”

The men came in good time as arranged. They were outwardly
respectable citizens, well clad and cleanly; but a judge of faces
would have read little hope for Birdy Edwards in those hard mouths
and remorseless eyes. There was not a man in the room whose hands had
not been reddened a dozen times before. They were as hardened to
human murder as a butcher to sheep.

Foremost, of course, both in appearance and in guilt, was the
formidable Boss. Harraway, the secretary, was a lean, bitter man with
a long, scraggy neck and nervous, jerky limbs, a man of incorruptible
fidelity where the finances of the order were concerned, and with no
notion of justice or honesty to anyone beyond. The treasurer, Carter,
was a middle-aged man, with an impassive, rather sulky expression,
and a yellow parchment skin. He was a capable organizer, and the
actual details of nearly every outrage had sprung from his plotting
brain. The two Willabys were men of action, tall, lithe young fellows
with determined faces, while their companion, Tiger Cormac, a heavy,
dark youth, was feared even by his own comrades for the ferocity of
his disposition. These were the men who assembled that night under
the roof of McMurdo for the killing of the Pinkerton detective.

Their host had placed whisky upon the table, and they had hastened to
prime themselves for the work before them. Baldwin and Cormac were
already half-drunk, and the liquor had brought out all their
ferocity. Cormac placed his hands on the stove for an instant–it had
been lighted, for the nights were still cold.

“That will do,” said he, with an oath.

“Ay,” said Baldwin, catching his meaning. “If he is strapped to that,
we will have the truth out of him.”

“We’ll have the truth out of him, never fear,” said McMurdo. He had
nerves of steel, this man; for though the whole weight of the affair
was on him his manner was as cool and unconcerned as ever. The others
marked it and applauded.

“You are the one to handle him,” said the Boss approvingly. “Not a
warning will he get till your hand is on his throat. It’s a pity
there are no shutters to your windows.”

McMurdo went from one to the other and drew the curtains tighter.
“Sure no one can spy upon us now. It’s close upon the hour.”

“Maybe he won’t come. Maybe he’ll get a sniff of danger,” said the
secretary.

“He’ll come, never fear,” McMurdo answered. “He is as eager to come
as you can be to see him. Hark to that!”

They all sat like wax figures, some with their glasses arrested
halfway to their lips. Three loud knocks had sounded at the door.

“Hush!” McMurdo raised his hand in caution. An exulting glance went
round the circle, and hands were laid upon hidden weapons.

“Not a sound, for your lives!” McMurdo whispered, as he went from the
room, closing the door carefully behind him.

With strained ears the murderers waited. They counted the steps of
their comrade down the passage. Then they heard him open the outer
door. There were a few words as of greeting. Then they were aware of
a strange step inside and of an unfamiliar voice. An instant later
came the slam of the door and the turning of the key in the lock.
Their prey was safe within the trap. Tiger Cormac laughed horribly,
and Boss McGinty clapped his great hand across his mouth.

“Be quiet, you fool!” he whispered. “You’ll be the undoing of us
yet!”

There was a mutter of conversation from the next room. It seemed
interminable. Then the door opened, and McMurdo appeared, his finger
upon his lip.

He came to the end of the table and looked round at them. A subtle
change had come over him. His manner was as of one who has great work
to do. His face had set into granite firmness. His eyes shone with a
fierce excitement behind his spectacles. He had become a visible
leader of men. They stared at him with eager interest; but he said
nothing. Still with the same singular gaze he looked from man to man.

“Well!” cried Boss McGinty at last. “Is he here? Is Birdy Edwards
here?”

“Yes,” McMurdo answered slowly. “Birdy Edwards is here. I am Birdy
Edwards!”

There were ten seconds after that brief speech during which the room
might have been empty, so profound was the silence. The hissing of a
kettle upon the stove rose sharp and strident to the ear. Seven white
faces, all turned upward to this man who dominated them, were set
motionless with utter terror. Then, with a sudden shivering of glass,
a bristle of glistening rifle barrels broke through each window,
while the curtains were torn from their hangings.

At the sight Boss McGinty gave the roar of a wounded bear and plunged
for the half-opened door. A levelled revolver met him there with the
stern blue eyes of Captain Marvin of the Mine Police gleaming behind
the sights. The Boss recoiled and fell back into his chair.

“You’re safer there, Councillor,” said the man whom they had known as
McMurdo. “And you, Baldwin, if you don’t take your hand off your
pistol, you’ll cheat the hangman yet. Pull it out, or by the Lord
that made me–There, that will do. There are forty armed men round
this house, and you can figure it out for yourself what chance you
have. Take their pistols, Marvin!”

There was no possible resistance under the menace of those rifles.
The men were disarmed. Sulky, sheepish, and amazed, they still sat
round the table.

“I’d like to say a word to you before we separate,” said the man who
had trapped them. “I guess we may not meet again until you see me on
the stand in the courthouse. I’ll give you something to think over
between now and then. You know me now for what I am. At last I can
put my cards on the table. I am Birdy Edwards of Pinkerton’s. I was
chosen to break up your gang. I had a hard and dangerous game to
play. Not a soul, not one soul, not my nearest and dearest, knew that
I was playing it. Only Captain Marvin here and my employers knew
that. But it’s over to-night, thank God, and I am the winner!”

The seven pale, rigid faces looked up at him. There was unappeasable
hatred in their eyes. He read the relentless threat.

“Maybe you think that the game is not over yet. Well, I take my
chance of that. Anyhow, some of you will take no further hand, and
there are sixty more besides yourselves that will see a jail this
night. I’ll tell you this, that when I was put upon this job I never
believed there was such a society as yours. I thought it was paper
talk, and that I would prove it so. They told me it was to do with
the Freemen; so I went to Chicago and was made one. Then I was surer
than ever that it was just paper talk; for I found no harm in the
society, but a deal of good.

“Still, I had to carry out my job, and I came to the coal valleys.
When I reached this place I learned that I was wrong and that it
wasn’t a dime novel after all. So I stayed to look after it. I never
killed a man in Chicago. I never minted a dollar in my life. Those I
gave you were as good as any others; but I never spent money better.
But I knew the way into your good wishes and so I pretended to you
that the law was after me. It all worked just as I thought.

“So I joined your infernal lodge, and I took my share in your
councils. Maybe they will say that I was as bad as you. They can say
what they like, so long as I get you. But what is the truth? The
night I joined you beat up old man Stanger. I could not warn him, for
there was no time; but I held your hand, Baldwin, when you would have
killed him. If ever I have suggested things, so as to keep my place
among you, they were things which I knew I could prevent. I could not
save Dunn and Menzies, for I did not know enough; but I will see that
their murderers are hanged. I gave Chester Wilcox warning, so that
when I blew his house in he and his folk were in hiding. There was
many a crime that I could not stop; but if you look back and think
how often your man came home the other road, or was down in town when
you went for him, or stayed indoors when you thought he would come
out, you’ll see my work.”

“You blasted traitor!” hissed McGinty through his closed teeth.

“Ay, John McGinty, you may call me that if it eases your smart. You
and your like have been the enemy of God and man in these parts. It
took a man to get between you and the poor devils of men and women
that you held under your grip. There was just one way of doing it,
and I did it. You call me a traitor; but I guess there’s many a
thousand will call me a deliverer that went down into hell to save
them. I’ve had three months of it. I wouldn’t have three such months
again if they let me loose in the treasury at Washington for it. I
had to stay till I had it all, every man and every secret right here
in this hand. I’d have waited a little longer if it hadn’t come to my
knowledge that my secret was coming out. A letter had come into the
town that would have set you wise to it all. Then I had to act and
act quickly.

“I’ve nothing more to say to you, except that when my time comes I’ll
die the easier when I think of the work I have done in this valley.
Now, Marvin, I’ll keep you no more. Take them in and get it over.”

There is little more to tell. Scanlan had been given a sealed note to
be left at the address of Miss Ettie Shafter, a mission which he had
accepted with a wink and a knowing smile. In the early hours of the
morning a beautiful woman and a much muffled man boarded a special
train which had been sent by the railroad company, and made a swift,
unbroken journey out of the land of danger. It was the last time that
ever either Ettie or her lover set foot in the Valley of Fear. Ten
days later they were married in Chicago, with old Jacob Shafter as
witness of the wedding.

The trial of the Scowrers was held far from the place where their
adherents might have terrified the guardians of the law. In vain they
struggled. In vain the money of the lodge–money squeezed by
blackmail out of the whole countryside–was spent like water in the
attempt to save them. That cold, clear, unimpassioned statement from
one who knew every detail of their lives, their organization, and
their crimes was unshaken by all the wiles of their defenders. At
last after so many years they were broken and scattered. The cloud
was lifted forever from the valley.

McGinty met his fate upon the scaffold, cringing and whining when the
last hour came. Eight of his chief followers shared his fate.
Fifty-odd had various degrees of imprisonment. The work of Birdy
Edwards was complete.

And yet, as he had guessed, the game was not over yet. There was
another hand to be played, and yet another and another. Ted Baldwin,
for one, had escaped the scaffold; so had the Willabys; so had
several others of the fiercest spirits of the gang. For ten years
they were out of the world, and then came a day when they were free
once more–a day which Edwards, who knew his men, was very sure would
be an end of his life of peace. They had sworn an oath on all that
they thought holy to have his blood as a vengeance for their
comrades. And well they strove to keep their vow!

From Chicago he was chased, after two attempts so near success that
it was sure that the third would get him. From Chicago he went under
a changed name to California, and it was there that the light went
for a time out of his life when Ettie Edwards died. Once again he was
nearly killed, and once again under the name of Douglas he worked in
a lonely canyon, where with an English partner named Barker he
amassed a fortune. At last there came a warning to him that the
bloodhounds were on his track once more, and he cleared–only just in
time–for England. And thence came the John Douglas who for a second
time married a worthy mate, and lived for five years as a Sussex
county gentleman, a life which ended with the strange happenings of
which we have heard.

The police trial had passed, in which the case of John Douglas was
referred to a higher court. So had the Quarter Sessions, at which he
was acquitted as having acted in self-defense.

“Get him out of England at any cost,” wrote Holmes to the wife.
“There are forces here which may be more dangerous than those he has
escaped. There is no safety for your husband in England.”

Two months had gone by, and the case had to some extent passed from
our minds. Then one morning there came an enigmatic note slipped into
our letter box. “Dear me, Mr. Holmes. Dear me!” said this singular
epistle. There was neither superscription nor signature. I laughed at
the quaint message; but Holmes showed unwonted seriousness.

“Deviltry, Watson!” he remarked, and sat long with a clouded brow.

Late last night Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, brought up a message that
a gentleman wished to see Holmes, and that the matter was of the
utmost importance. Close at the heels of his messenger came Cecil
Barker, our friend of the moated Manor House. His face was drawn and
haggard.

“I’ve had bad news–terrible news, Mr. Holmes,” said he.

“I feared as much,” said Holmes.

“You have not had a cable, have you?”

“I have had a note from someone who has.”

“It’s poor Douglas. They tell me his name is Edwards; but he will
always be Jack Douglas of Benito Canyon to me. I told you that they
started together for South Africa in the Palmyra three weeks ago.”

“Exactly.”

“The ship reached Cape Town last night. I received this cable from
Mrs. Douglas this morning:–

“Jack has been lost overboard in gale off St. Helena. No one knows
how accident occurred.
“Ivy Douglas.”

“Ha! It came like that, did it?” said Holmes, thoughtfully. “Well,
I’ve no doubt it was well stage-managed.”

“You mean that you think there was no accident?”

“None in the world.”

“He was murdered?”

“Surely!”

“So I think also. These infernal Scowrers, this cursed vindictive
nest of criminals–“

“No, no, my good sir,” said Holmes. “There is a master hand here. It
is no case of sawed-off shot-guns and clumsy six-shooters. You can
tell an old master by the sweep of his brush. I can tell a Moriarty
when I see one. This crime is from London, not from America.”

“But for what motive?”

“Because it is done by a man who cannot afford to fail–one whose
whole unique position depends upon the fact that all he does must
succeed. A great brain and a huge organization have been turned to
the extinction of one man. It is crushing the nut with the hammer–an
absurd extravagance of energy–but the nut is very effectually
crushed all the same.”

“How came this man to have anything to do with it?”

“I can only say that the first word that ever came to us of the
business was from one of his lieutenants. These Americans were well
advised. Having an English job to do, they took into partnership, as
any foreign criminal could do, this great consultant in crime. From
that moment their man was doomed. At first he would content himself
by using his machinery in order to find their victim. Then he would
indicate how the matter might be treated. Finally, when he read in
the reports of the failure of this agent, he would step in himself
with a master touch. You heard me warn this man at Birlstone Manor
House that the coming danger was greater than the past. Was I right?”

Barker beat his head with his clenched fist in his impotent anger.

“Do you tell me that we have to sit down under this? Do you say that
no one can ever get level with this king-devil?”

“No, I don’t say that,” said Holmes, and his eyes seemed to be
looking far into the future. “I don’t say that he can’t be beat. But
you must give me time–you must give me time!”

We all sat in silence for some minutes, while those fateful eyes
still strained to pierce the veil.