The Valley of Fear: Chapter 4
Chapter 4
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 drygoods
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 drygoods 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 Vemmissa 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!"
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