Chapter I
The Man
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 a general 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 the 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.