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He raised her and soothed her with her head against his
breast.
“Sure, my darlin’, you don’t know what it is
you are asking. How could I give it up when it would be to break my oath and to desert my
comrades? If you could see how things stand with me you could never ask it of me. Besides,
if I wanted to, how could I do it? You don’t suppose that the lodge would let a man
go free with all its secrets?”
“I’ve thought of that, Jack. I’ve planned it
all. Father has saved some money. [848] He
is weary of this place where the fear of these people darkens our lives. He is ready to
go. We would fly together to Philadelphia or New York, where we would be safe from
them.”
McMurdo laughed. “The lodge has a long arm. Do you think
it could not stretch from here to Philadelphia or New York?”
“Well, then, to the West, or to England, or to Germany,
where father came from–anywhere to get away from this Valley of Fear!”
McMurdo thought of old Brother Morris. “Sure it is the
second time I have heard the valley so named,” said he. “The shadow does indeed
seem to lie heavy on some of you.”
“It darkens every moment of our lives. Do you suppose
that Ted Baldwin has ever forgiven us? If it were not that he fears you, what do you
suppose our chances would be? If you saw the look in those dark, hungry eyes of his when
they fall on me!”
“By Gar! I’d teach him better manners if I caught
him at it! But see here, little girl. I can’t leave here. I can’t–take that
from me once and for all. But if you will leave me to find my own way, I will try to
prepare a way of getting honourably out of it.”
“There is no honour in such a matter.”
“Well, well, it’s just how you look at it. But if
you’ll give me six months, I’ll work it so that I can leave without being
ashamed to look others in the face.”
The girl laughed with joy. “Six months!” she cried.
“Is it a promise?”
“Well, it may be seven or eight. But within a year at the
furthest we will leave the valley behind us.”
It was the most that Ettie could obtain, and yet it was
something. There was this distant light to illuminate the gloom of the immediate future.
She returned to her father’s house more light-hearted than she had ever been since
Jack McMurdo had come into her life.
It might be thought that as a member, all the doings of the
society would be told to him; but he was soon to discover that the organization was wider
and more complex than the simple lodge. Even Boss McGinty was ignorant as to many things;
for there was an official named the County Delegate, living at Hobson’s Patch farther
down the line, who had power over several different lodges which he wielded in a sudden
and arbitrary way. Only once did McMurdo see him, a sly, little gray-haired rat of a man,
with a slinking gait and a sidelong glance which was charged with malice. Evans Pott was
his name, and even the great Boss of Vermissa felt towards him something of the repulsion
and fear which the huge Danton may have felt for the puny but dangerous Robespierre.
One day Scanlan, who was McMurdo’s fellow boarder,
received a note from McGinty inclosing one from Evans Pott, which informed him that he was
sending over two good men, Lawler and Andrews, who had instructions to act in the
neighbourhood; though it was best for the cause that no particulars as to their objects
should be given. Would the Bodymaster see to it that suitable arrangements be made for
their lodgings and comfort until the time for action should arrive? McGinty added that it
was impossible for anyone to remain secret at the Union House, and that, therefore, he
would be obliged if McMurdo and Scanlan would put the strangers up for a few days in their
boarding house.
The same evening the two men arrived, each carrying his
gripsack. Lawler was an elderly man, shrewd, silent, and self-contained, clad in an old
black frock coat, [849] which
with his soft felt hat and ragged, grizzled beard gave him a general resemblance to an
itinerant preacher. His companion Andrews was little more than a boy, frank-faced and
cheerful, with the breezy manner of one who is out for a holiday and means to enjoy every
minute of it. Both men were total abstainers, and behaved in all ways as exemplary members
of the society, with the one simple exception that they were assassins who had often
proved themselves to be most capable instruments for this association of murder. Lawler
had already carried out fourteen commissions of the kind, and Andrews three.
They were, as McMurdo found, quite ready to converse about
their deeds in the past, which they recounted with the half-bashful pride of men who had
done good and unselfish service for the community. They were reticent, however, as to the
immediate job in hand.
“They chose us because neither I nor the boy here
drink,” Lawler explained. “They can count on us saying no more than we should.
You must not take it amiss, but it is the orders of the County Delegate that we
obey.”
“Sure, we are all in it together,” said Scanlan,
McMurdo’s mate, as the four sat together at supper.
“That’s true enough, and we’ll talk till the
cows come home of the killing of Charlie Williams or of Simon Bird, or any other job in
the past. But till the work is done we say nothing.”
“There are half a dozen about here that I have a word to
say to,” said McMurdo, with an oath. “I suppose it isn’t Jack Knox of
Ironhill that you are after. I’d go some way to see him get his deserts.”
“No, it’s not him yet.”
“Or Herman Strauss?”
“No, nor him either.”
“Well, if you won’t tell us we can’t make you;
but I’d be glad to know.”
Lawler smiled and shook his head. He was not to be drawn.
In spite of the reticence of their guests, Scanlan and McMurdo
were quite determined to be present at what they called “the fun.” When,
therefore, at an early hour one morning McMurdo heard them creeping down the stairs he
awakened Scanlan, and the two hurried on their clothes. When they were dressed they found
that the others had stolen out, leaving the door open behind them. It was not yet dawn,
and by the light of the lamps they could see the two men some distance down the street.
They followed them warily, treading noiselessly in the deep snow.
The boarding house was near the edge of the town, and soon
they were at the crossroads which is beyond its boundary. Here three men were waiting,
with whom Lawler and Andrews held a short, eager conversation. Then they all moved on
together. It was clearly some notable job which needed numbers. At this point there are
several trails which lead to various mines. The strangers took that which led to the Crow
Hill, a huge business which was in strong hands which had been able, thanks to their
energetic and fearless New England manager, Josiah H. Dunn, to keep some order and
discipline during the long reign of terror.
Day was breaking now, and a line of workmen were slowly making
their way, singly and in groups, along the blackened path.
McMurdo and Scanlan strolled on with the others, keeping in
sight of the men whom they followed. A thick mist lay over them, and from the heart of it
there [850] came the sudden
scream of a steam whistle. It was the ten-minute signal before the cages descended and the
day’s labour began.
When they reached the open space round the mine shaft there
were a hundred miners waiting, stamping their feet and blowing on their fingers; for it
was bitterly cold. The strangers stood in a little group under the shadow of the engine
house. Scanlan and McMurdo climbed a heap of slag from which the whole scene lay before
them. They saw the mine engineer, a great bearded Scotchman named Menzies, come out of the
engine house and blow his whistle for the cages to be lowered.
At the same instant a tall, loose-framed young man with a
clean-shaved, earnest face advanced eagerly towards the pit head. As he came forward his
eyes fell upon the group, silent and motionless, under the engine house. The men had drawn
down their hats and turned up their collars to screen their faces. For a moment the
presentiment of Death laid its cold hand upon the manager’s heart. At the next he had
shaken it off and saw only his duty towards intrusive strangers.
“Who are you?” he asked as he advanced. “What
are you loitering there for?”
There was no answer; but the lad Andrews stepped forward and
shot him in the stomach. The hundred waiting miners stood as motionless and helpless as if
they were paralyzed. The manager clapped his two hands to the wound and doubled himself
up. Then he staggered away; but another of the assassins fired, and he went down sidewise,
kicking and clawing among a heap of clinkers. Menzies, the Scotchman, gave a roar of rage
at the sight and rushed with an iron spanner at the murderers; but was met by two balls in
the face which dropped him dead at their very feet.
There was a surge forward of some of the miners, and an
inarticulate cry of pity and of anger; but a couple of the strangers emptied their
six-shooters over the heads of the crowd, and they broke and scattered, some of them
rushing wildly back to their homes in Vermissa.
When a few of the bravest had rallied, and there was a return
to the mine, the murderous gang had vanished in the mists of morning, without a single
witness being able to swear to the identity of these men who in front of a hundred
spectators had wrought this double crime.
Scanlan and McMurdo made their way back; Scanlan somewhat
subdued, for it was the first murder job that he had seen with his own eyes, and it
appeared less funny than he had been led to believe. The horrible screams of the dead
manager’s wife pursued them as they hurried to the town. McMurdo was absorbed and
silent; but he showed no sympathy for the weakening of his companion.
“Sure, it is like a war,” he repeated. “What is
it but a war between us and them, and we hit back where we best can.”
There was high revel in the lodge room at the Union House that
night, not only over the killing of the manager and engineer of the Crow Hill mine, which
would bring this organization into line with the other blackmailed and terror-stricken
companies of the district, but also over a distant triumph which had been wrought by the
hands of the lodge itself.
It would appear that when the County Delegate had sent over
five good men to strike a blow in Vermissa, he had demanded that in return three Vermissa
men should be secretly selected and sent across to kill William Hales of Stake Royal, one
of the best known and most popular mine owners in the Gilmerton district, a man who was
believed not to have an enemy in the world; for he was in all ways a [851] model employer. He had insisted,
however, upon efficiency in the work, and had, therefore, paid off certain drunken and
idle employees who were members of the all-powerful society. Coffin notices hung outside
his door had not weakened his resolution, and so in a free, civilized country he found
himself condemned to death.
The execution had now been duly carried out. Ted Baldwin, who
sprawled now in the seat of honour beside the Bodymaster, had been chief of the party. His
flushed face and glazed, bloodshot eyes told of sleeplessness and drink. He and his two
comrades had spent the night before among the mountains. They were unkempt and
weather-stained. But no heroes, returning from a forlorn hope, could have had a warmer
welcome from their comrades.
The story was told and retold amid cries of delight and shouts
of laughter. They had waited for their man as he drove home at nightfall, taking their
station at the top of a steep hill, where his horse must be at a walk. He was so furred to
keep out the cold that he could not lay his hand on his pistol. They had pulled him out
and shot him again and again. He had screamed for mercy. The screams were repeated for the
amusement of the lodge.
“Let’s hear again how he squealed,” they cried.
None of them knew the man; but there is eternal drama in a
killing, and they had shown the Scowrers of Gilmerton that the Vermissa men were to be
relied upon.
There had been one contretemps; for a man and his wife had
driven up while they were still emptying their revolvers into the silent body. It had been
suggested that they should shoot them both; but they were harmless folk who were not
connected with the mines, so they were sternly bidden to drive on and keep silent, lest a
worse thing befall them. And so the blood-mottled figure had been left as a warning to all
such hard-hearted employers, and the three noble avengers had hurried off into the
mountains where unbroken nature comes down to the very edge of the furnaces and the slag
heaps. Here they were, safe and sound, their work well done, and the plaudits of their
companions in their ears.
It had been a great day for the Scowrers. The shadow had
fallen even darker over the valley. But as the wise general chooses the moment of victory
in which to redouble his efforts, so that his foes may have no time to steady themselves
after disaster, so Boss McGinty, looking out upon the scene of his operations with his
brooding and malicious eyes, had devised a new attack upon those who opposed him. That
very night, as the half-drunken company broke up, he touched McMurdo on the arm and led
him aside into that inner room where they had their first interview.
“See here, my lad,” said he, “I’ve got a
job that’s worthy of you at last. You’ll have the doing of it in your own
hands.”
“Proud I am to hear it,” McMurdo answered.
“You can take two men with you–Manders and Reilly.
They have been warned for service. We’ll never be right in this district until
Chester Wilcox has been settled, and you’ll have the thanks of every lodge in the
coal fields if you can down him.”
“I’ll do my best, anyhow. Who is he, and where shall
I find him?”
McGinty took his eternal half-chewed, half-smoked cigar from
the corner of his mouth, and proceeded to draw a rough diagram on a page torn from his
notebook.
“He’s the chief foreman of the Iron Dike Company.
He’s a hard citizen, an old colour sergeant of the war, all scars and grizzle.
We’ve had two tries at him; but had [852]
no luck, and Jim Carnaway lost his life over it. Now it’s for you to
take it over. That’s the house–all alone at the Iron Dike crossroad, same as you
see here on 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 [853] 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.
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