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.
CHAPTER VI
Danger
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
