The Valley of Fear
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 you!”
“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.”