He was a dangerous suitor, with his glib Irish tongue, and hispretty, coaxing ways. There was about him also that glamour ofexperience and of mystery which attracts a woman’s interest,and finally her love. He could talk of the sweet valleys of CountyMonaghan from which he came, of the lovely, distant island, thelow hills and green meadows of which seemed the more beautifulwhen 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 ofChicago, where he had worked in a planing mill. And afterwardscame the hint of romance, the feeling that strange things hadhappened to him in that great city, so strange and so intimatethat they might not be spoken of. He spoke wistfully of a suddenleaving, a breaking of old ties, a flight into a strange world, endingin this dreary valley, and Ettie listened, her dark eyes gleamingwith pity and with sympathy—those two qualities which may turnso rapidly and so naturally to love.
McMurdo had obtained a temporary job as bookkeeper; for hewas a well-educated man. This kept him out most of the day, andhe had not found occasion yet to report himself to the head of thelodge of the Eminent Order of Freemen. He was reminded of hisomission, however, by a visit one evening from Mike Scanlan, thefellow member whom he had met in the train. Scanlan, the small,sharp-faced, nervous, black-eyed man, seemed glad to see himonce more. After a glass or two of whisky he broached the objectof his visit.
“Say, McMurdo,” said he, “I remembered your address, so Imade bold to call. I’m surprised that you’ve not reported to theBodymaster. 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 anythingelse. Good Lord, man! you’re a fool not to have been down to theUnion House and registered your name the first morning after youcame here! If you run against him—well, you mustn’t, that’s all!”
McMurdo showed mild surprise. “I’ve been a member of thelodge for over two years, Scanlan, but I never heard that dutieswere 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 somethingsinister in his eyes.
“Isn’t it?”
“You’ll tell me that in a month’s time. I hear you had a talk withthe patrolmen after I left the train.”
“How did you know that?”
“Oh, it got about—things do get about for good and for bad inthis 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,” saidhe as he took his leave. “It’s not the police but you that he’ll hateif you don’t! Now, take a friend’s advice and go at once!”
It chanced that on the same evening McMurdo had anothermore pressing interview which urged him in the same direction. Itmay have been that his attentions to Ettie had been more evidentthan before, or that they had gradually obtruded themselvesinto the slow mind of his good German host; but, whateverthe cause, the boarding-house keeper beckoned the young maninto his private room and started on the subject without anycircumlocution.
“It seems to me, mister,” said he, “that you are gettin’ set on myEttie. 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 youwho it vas?”
“No, I asked her; but she wouldn’t tell.”
“I dare say not, the leetle baggage! Perhaps she did not vish tofrighten you avay.”
“Frighten!” McMurdo was on fire in a moment.
“Ah, yes, my friend! You need not be ashamed to be frightenedof 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 andScowrers there, and always in a whisper! What are you all afraid of?
Who are the Scowrers?”
The boarding-house keeper instinctively sank his voice, aseveryone 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 ordermyself.”
“You! I vould never have had you in my house if I had knownit—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?” heasked.
“Prove it! Are there not fifty murders to prove it? Vat aboutMilman and Van Shorst, and the Nicholson family, and old Mr.
Hyam, and little Billy James, and the others? Prove it! Is there aman or a voman in this valley vat does not know it?”
“See here!” said McMurdo earnestly. “I want you to take backwhat you’ve said, or else make it good. One or the other you mustdo before I quit this room. Put yourself in my place. Here am I, astranger in the town. I belong to a society that I know only as aninnocent one. You’ll find it through the length and breadth of theStates, but always as an innocent one. Now, when I am countingupon joining it here, you tell me that it is the same as a murdersociety called the Scowrers. I guess you owe me either an apologyor else an explanation, Mr. Shafter.”
“I can but tell you vat the whole vorld knows, mister. The bossesof the one are the bosses of the other. If you offend the one, it isthe 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 thatyou 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.