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<h2> Chapter 4—The Valley of Fear </h2>
<p>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:</p>
<p>OUTRAGE AT THE HERALD OFFICE—EDITOR SERIOUSLY INJURED.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Below it stated that a guard of police, armed with Winchester rifles, had
been requisitioned for the defense of the office.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“Why did you not put your name to the note?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“Surely one may trust brothers of the lodge.”</p>
<p>“No, no, not always,” cried Morris with vehemence. “Whatever we say, even
what we think, seems to go back to that man McGinty.”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>“And to take it back to Boss McGinty!” said Morris bitterly.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“Well, what have you to say?”</p>
<p>“If you give me away, may a curse be on you!”</p>
<p>“Sure, I said I would not.”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“If you call it crime,” McMurdo answered.</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“Well, did you think of such a thing when you joined the Freeman's society
at Chicago?”</p>
<p>“No, I'm bound to say I did not.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. “You were too soft for the job,” said he.
“You are the wrong sort for such work.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“What would you do?” asked McMurdo abruptly. “You would not inform?”</p>
<p>“God forbid!” cried Morris. “Sure, the very thought would cost me my
life.”</p>
<p>“That's well,” said McMurdo. “I'm thinking that you are a weak man and
that you make too much of the matter.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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—”</p>
<p>“No, no!” cried Morris piteously.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“One word before you go,” said Morris. “We may have been seen together.
They may want to know what we have spoken about.”</p>
<p>“Ah! that's well thought of.”</p>
<p>“I offer you a clerkship in my store.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“How's the arm?” asked the Boss.</p>
<p>McMurdo made a wry face. “Well, I'm not forgetting it,” he said; “but it's
worth it.”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>“Oh, that was it?”</p>
<p>“Yes, that was it.”</p>
<p>“And you refused it?”</p>
<p>“Sure. Couldn't I earn ten times as much in my own bedroom with four
hours' work?”</p>
<p>“That's so. But I wouldn't get about too much with Morris.”</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>“Well, I guess because I tell you not. That's enough for most folk in
these parts.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“Nor against me?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“I'd like to know,” said McMurdo, “how you ever came to learn that I had
spoken with Morris at all?”</p>
<p>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—”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“He is a friend of mine, and I'll answer for his conduct,” said the Boss.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“Where's your warrant?” asked McGinty. “By Gar! a man might as well live
in Russia as in Vermissa while folk like you are running the police. It's
a capitalist outrage, and you'll hear more of it, I reckon.”</p>
<p>“You do what you think is your duty the best way you can, Councillor.
We'll look after ours.”</p>
<p>“What am I accused of?” asked McMurdo.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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!”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“What about—” he jerked his thumb upward to signify the coining
plant.</p>
<p>“All right,” whispered McMurdo, who had devised a safe hiding place under
the floor.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“You damned murderers!” he said. “We'll fix you yet!”</p>
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