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?"
