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."
CHAPTER III
Lodge 341, Vermissa
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
