The boarding-house keeper instinctively sank his voice, as everyone didwho talked about that terrible society. "The Scowrers," said he, "arethe Eminent Order of Freemen!"
The young man stared. "Why, I am a member of that order myself."
"You! I vould never have had you in my house if I had known it--not ifyou vere to pay me a hundred dollar a week."
"What's wrong with the order? It's for charity and good fellowship. Therules 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?" he asked.
"Prove it! Are there not fifty murders to prove it? Vat about Milmanand Van Shorst, and the Nicholson family, and old Mr. Hyam, and littleBilly James, and the others? Prove it! Is there a man or a voman inthis valley vat does not know it?"
"See here!" said McMurdo earnestly. "I want you to take back whatyou've said, or else make it good. One or the other you must do beforeI quit this room. Put yourself in my place. Here am I, a stranger inthe town. I belong to a society that I know only as an innocent one.You'll find it through the length and breadth of the States, but alwaysas an innocent one. Now, when I am counting upon joining it here, youtell me that it is the same as a murder society called the Scowrers. Iguess you owe me either an apology or else an explanation, Mr. Shafter."
"I can but tell you vat the whole vorld knows, mister. The bosses ofthe one are the bosses of the other. If you offend the one, it is theother 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 that youare yourself one of them. You vill soon be as bad as the rest. But youvill find other lodgings, mister. I cannot have you here. Is it not badenough that one of these people come courting my Ettie, and that I darenot turn him down, but that I should have another for my boarder? Yes,indeed, you shall not sleep here after to-night!"
McMurdo found himself under sentence of banishment both from hiscomfortable quarters and from the girl whom he loved. He found heralone in the sitting-room that same evening, and he poured his troublesinto her ear.
"Sure, your father is after giving me notice," he said. "It's
little Iwould care if it was just my room, but indeed, Ettie, though it's onlya week that I've known you, you are the very breath of life to me, andI can't live without you!"
"Oh, hush, Mr. McMurdo, don't speak so!" said the girl. "I have toldyou, have I not, that you are too late? There is another, and if I havenot 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 hadbeen first!" she sobbed.
McMurdo was down on his knees before her in an instant. "For God'ssake, Ettie, let it stand at that!" he cried. "Will you ruin your lifeand 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 thatyou 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 bysetting like granite. "No, here," he said. "I'll hold you against theworld, 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 freecountry? If you love me, and I you, who will dare to come between?"