The Valley of Fear: Chapter 2
Chapter 2
McMurdo was a man who made his mark quickly. Wherever he was the
folk around soon knew it. Within a week he had become infinitely
the most important person at Shafter's. There were ten or a
dozen boarders there; but they were honest foremen or commonplace
clerks from the stores, of a very different calibre from the
young Irishman. Of an evening when they gathered together his
joke was always the readiest, his conversation the brightest, and
his song the best. He was a born boon companion, with a
magnetism which drew good humour from all around him.
And yet he showed again and again, as he had shown in the railway
carriage, a capacity for sudden, fierce anger, which compelled
the respect and even the fear of those who met him. For the law,
too, and all who were connected with it, he exhibited a bitter
contempt which delighted some and alarmed others of his fellow
boarders.
>From the first he made it evident, by his open admiration, that
the daughter of the house had won his heart from the instant that
he had set eyes upon her beauty and her grace. He was no
backward suitor. On the second day he told her that he loved
her, and from then onward he repeated the same story with an
absolute disregard of what she might say to discourage him.
"Someone else?" he would cry. "Well, the worse luck for someone
else! Let him look out for himself! Am I to lose my life's
chance and all my heart's desire for someone else? You can keep
on saying no, Ettie: the day will come when you will say yes, and
I'm young enough to wait."
He was a dangerous suitor, with his glib Irish tongue, and his
pretty, coaxing ways. There was about him also that glamour of
experience and of mystery which attracts a woman's interest, and
finally her love. He could talk of the sweet valleys of County
Monaghan from which he came, of the lovely, distant island, the
low hills and green meadows of which seemed the more beautiful
when imagination viewed them from this place of grime and snow.
Then he was versed in the life of the cities of the North, of
Detroit, and the lumber camps of Michigan, and finally of
Chicago, where he had worked in a planing mill. And afterwards
came the hint of romance, the feeling that strange things had
happened to him in that great city, so strange and so intimate
that they might not be spoken of. He spoke wistfully of a sudden
leaving, a breaking of old ties, a flight into a strange world,
ending in this dreary valley, and Ettie listened, her dark eyes
gleaming with pity and with sympathy--those two qualities which
may turn so rapidly and so naturally to love.
McMurdo had obtained a temporary job as bookkeeper for he was a
well-educated man. This kept him out most of the day, and he had
not found occasion yet to report himself to the head of the lodge
of the Eminent Order of Freemen. He was reminded of his
omission, however, by a visit one evening from Mike Scanlan, the
fellow member whom he had met in the train. Scanlan, the small,
sharp-faced, nervous, black-eyed man, seemed glad to see him once
more. After a glass or two of whisky he broached the object of
his visit.
"Say, McMurdo," said he, "I remembered your address, so l made
bold to call. I'm surprised that you've not reported to the
Bodymaster. Why haven't you seen Boss McGinty yet?"
"Well, I had to find a job. I have been busy."
"You must find time for him if you have none for anything else.
Good Lord,man! you're a fool not to have been down to the Union
House and registered your name the first morning after you came
here! If you run against him--well, you mustn't, that's all!"
McMurdo showed mild surprise. "I've been a member of the lodge
for over two years, Scanlan, but I never heard that duties were
so pressing as all that."
"Maybe not in Chicago."
"Well, it's the same society here."
"Is it?"
Scanlan looked at him long and fixedly. There was something
sinister in his eyes.
"Isn't it?"
"You'll tell me that in a month's time. I hear you had a talk
with the patrolmen after I left the train."
"How did you know that?"
"Oh, it got about--things do get about for good and for bad in
this district."
"Well, yes. I told the hounds what I thought of them."
"By the Lord, you'll be a man after McGinty's heart!"
"What, does he hate the police too?"
Scanlan burst out laughing. "You go and see him, my lad," said
he as he took his leave. "It's not the police but you that he'll
hate if you don't! Now, take a friend's advice and go at once!"
It chanced that on the same evening McMurdo had another more
pressing interview which urged him in the same direction. It may
have been that his attentions to Ettie had been more evident than
before, or that they had gradually obtruded themselves into the
slow mind of his good German host; but, whatever the cause, the
boarding-house keeper beckoned the young man into hls private
room and started on the subject without any circumlocution.
"It seems to me, mister," said he, "that you are gettin' set on
my Ettie. Ain't that so, or am I wrong?"
"Yes, that is so," the young man answered.
"Vell, I vant to tell you right now that it ain't no manner of
use. There's someone slipped in afore you."
"She told me so."
"Vell, you can lay that she told you truth. But did she tell you
who it vas?"
"No, I asked her; but she wouldn't tell."
"I dare say not, the leetle baggage! Perhaps she did not vish to
frighten you avay."
"Frighten!" McMurdo was on fire in a moment.
"Ah, yes, my friend! You need not be ashamed to be frightened of
him. It is Teddy Baldwin."
"And who the devil is he?"
"He is a boss of Scowrers."
"Scowrers! I've heard of them before. It's Scowrers here and
Scowrers there, and always in a whisper! What are you all afraid
of? Who are the Scowrers?"
The boarding-house keeper instinctively sank his voice, as
everyone did who talked about that terrible society. "The
Scowrers," said he, "are the Eminent Order of Freemen!"
The young man stared. "Why, I am a member of that order myself."
"You! I vould never have had you in my house if I had known
it--not if you vere to pay me a hundred dollar a veek."
"What's wrong with the order? It's for charity and good
fellowship. The rules say so."
"Maybe in some places. Not here!"
"What is it here?"
"It's a murder society, that's vat it is."
McMurdo laughed incredulously. "How can you prove that?" he
asked.
"Prove it! Are there not fifty murders to prove it? Vat about
Milman and Van Shorst, and the Nicholson family, and old Mr.
Hyam, and little Billy James, and the others? Prove it! Is
there a man or a voman in this valley vat does not know it?"
"See here!" said McMurdo earnestly. "I want you to take back
what you've said, or else make it good. One or the other you
must do before I quit this room. Put yourself in my place. Here
am I, a stranger in the town. I belong to a society that I know
only as an innocent one. You'll find it through the length and
breadth of the States, but always as an innocent one. Now, when
I am counting upon joining it here, you tell me that it is the
same as a murder society called the Scowrers. I guess you owe me
either an apology or else an explanation, Mr. Shafter."
"I can but tell you vat the whole vorld knows, mister. The
bosses of the one are the bosses of the other. If you offend the
one, it is the other vat vill strike you. We have proved it too
often."
"That's just gossip--I want proof!" said McMurdo.
"If you live here long you vill get your proof. But I forget
that you are yourself one of them. You vill soon be as bad as
the rest. But you vill find other lodgings, mister. I cannot
have you here. Is it not bad enough that one of these people
come courting my Ettie, and that I dare not turn him down, but
that I should have another for my boarder? Yes, indeed, you
shall not sleep here after to-night!"
McMurdo found himself under sentence of banishment both from his
comfortable quarters and from the girl whom he loved. He found
her alone in the sitting-room that same evening, and he poured
his troubles into her ear.
"Sure, your father is after giving me notice," he said. "It's
little I would care if it was just my room, but indeed, Ettie,
though it's only a week that I've known you, you are the very
breath of life to me, and I can't live without you!"
"Oh, hush, Mr. McMurdo, don't speak so!" said the girl. "I have
told you, have I not, that you are too late? There is another,
and if I have not promised to marry him at once, at least I can
promise no one else."
"Suppose I had been first, Ettie, would I have had a chance?"
The girl sank her face into her hands. "I wish to heaven that
you had been first!" she sobbed.
McMurdo was down on his knees before her in an instant. "For
God's sake, Ettie, let it stand at that!" he cried. "Will you
ruin your life and my own for the sake of this promise? Follow
your heart, acushla! 'Tis a safer guide than any promise before
you knew what it was that you were saying."
He had seized Ettie's white hand between his own strong brown
ones.
"Say that you will be mine, and we will face it out together!"
"Not here?"
"Yes, here."
"No, no, Jack!" His arms were round her now. "It could not be
here. Could you take me away?"
A struggle passed for a moment over McMurdo's face; but it ended
by setting like granite. "No, here," he said. "I'll hold you
against the world, Ettie, right here where we are!"
"Why should we not leave together?"
"No, Ettie, I can't leave here."
"But why?"
"I'd never hold my head up again if I felt that I had been driven
out. Besides, what is there to be afraid of? Are we not free
folks in a free country? If you love me, and I you, who will
dare to come between?"
"You don't know, Jack. You've been here too short a time. You
don't know this Baldwin. You don't know McGinty and his
Scowrers."
"No, I don't know them, and I don't fear them, and I don't
believe in them!" said McMurdo. "I've lived among rough men, my
darling, and instead of fearing them it has always ended that
they have feared me--always, Ettie. It's mad on the face of it!
If these men, as your father says, have done crime after crime in
the valley, and if everyone knows them by name, how comes it that
none are brought to justice? You answer me that, Ettie!"
"Because no witness dares to appear against them. He would not
live a month if he did. Also because they have always their own
men to swear that the accused one was far from the scene of the
crime. But surely, Jack, you must have read all this. I had
understood that every paper in the United States was writing
about it."
"Well, I have read something, it is true; but I had thought it
was a story. Maybe these men have some reason in what they do.
Maybe they are wronged and have no other way to help themselves."
"Oh, Jack, don't let me hear you speak so!That is how he
speaks--the other one!"
"Baldwin--he speaks like that, does he?"
"And that is why I loathe him so. Oh, Jack, now I can tell you
the truth. I loathe him with all my heart; but I fear him also.
I fear him for myself; but above all I fear him for father. I
know that some great sorrow would come upon us if I dared to say
what I really felt. That is why I have put him off with
half-promises. It was in real truth our only hope. But if you
would fly with me, Jack, we could take father with us and live
forever far from the power of these wicked men."
Again there was the struggle upon McMurdo's face, and again it
set like granite. "No harm shall come to you, Ettie--nor to your
father either. As to wicked men, I expect you may find that I am
as bad as the worst of them before we're through."
"No, no, Jack! I would trust you anywhere."
McMurdo laughed bitterly. "Good Lord! how little you know of me!
Your innocent soul, my darling, could not even guess what is
passing in mine. But, hullo, who's the visitor?"
The door had opened suddenly, and a young fellow came swaggering
in with the air of one who is the master. He was a handsome,
dashing young man of about the same age and build as McMurdo
himself. Under his broad-brimmed black felt hat, which he had
not troubled to remove, a handsome face with fierce, domineering
eyes and a curved hawk-bill of a nose looked savagely at the pair
who sat by the stove.
Ettie had jumped to her feet full of confusion and alarm. "I'm
glad to see you, Mr. Baldwin," said she. "You're earlier than I
had thought. Come and sit down."
Baldwin stood with his hands on his hips looking at McMurdo.
"Who is this?" he asked curtly.
"It's a friend of mine, Mr. Baldwin, a new boarder here. Mr.
McMurdo, may I introduce you to Mr. Baldwin?"
The young men nodded in surly fashion to each other.
"Maybe Miss Ettie has told you how it is with us?" said Baldwin.
"I didn't understand that there was any relation between you."
"Didn't you? Well, you can understand it now. You can take it
from me that this young lady is mine, and you'll find it a very
fine evening for a walk."
"Thank you, I am in no humour for a walk."
"Aren't you?" The man's savage eyes were blazing with anger.
"Maybe you are in a humour for a fight, Mr. Boarder!"
"That I am!" cried McMurdo, springing to his feet. "You never
said a more welcome word."
"For God's sake, Jack! Oh, for God's sake!" cried poor,
distracted Ettie. "Oh, Jack, Jack, he will hurt youl"
"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?"
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 himback.
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 agalnst
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."
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