The Valley of Fear: Chapter 1
Chapter 1
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 ageneral 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 tbe 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 down town.
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.
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