"He is coming," he said.
"Good!" said McGinty. The giant was in his shirt sleeves, with chainsand seals gleaming athwart his ample waistcoat and a diamond twinklingthrough the fringe of his bristling beard. Drink and politics had madethe Boss a very rich as well as powerful man. The more terrible,therefore, seemed that glimpse of the prison or the gallows which hadrisen before him the night before.
"Do you reckon he knows much?" he asked anxiously.
McMurdo shook his head gloomily. "He's been here some time--six weeksat the least. I guess he didn't come into these parts to look at theprospect. If he has been working among us all that time with therailroad money at his back, I should expect that he has got results,and that he has passed them on."
"There's not a weak man in the lodge," cried McGinty. "True as steel,every man of them. And yet, by the Lord! there is that skunk Morris.What about him? If any man gives us away, it would be he. I've a mindto send a couple of the boys round before evening to give him a beatingup and see what they can get from him."
"Well, there would be no harm in that," McMurdo answered. "I won't denythat I have a liking for Morris and would be sorry to see him come toharm. He has spoken to me once or twice over lodge matters, and thoughhe may not see them the same as you or I, he never seemed the sort thatsqueals. But still it is not for me to stand between him and you."
"I'll fix the old devil!" said McGinty with an oath. "I've had my eyeon him this year past."
"Well, you know best about that," McMurdo answered. "But whatever youdo must be to-morrow; for we must lie low until the Pinkerton affair issettled up. We can't afford to set the police buzzing, to-day of alldays."
"True for you," said McGinty. "And we'll learn from Birdy Edwardshimself where he got his news if we have to cut his heart out first.Did he seem to scent a trap?"
McMurdo laughed. "I guess I took him on his weak point," he said. "Ifhe could get on a good trail of the Scowrers, he's ready to follow itinto hell. I took his money," McMurdo grinned as he produced a wad ofdollar notes, "and as much more when he has seen all my papers."
"What papers?"
"Well, there are no papers. But I filled him up about constitutions andbooks of rules and forms of membership. He expects to get right down tothe end of everything before he leaves."
"Faith, he's right there," said McGinty grimly. "Didn't he ask you whyyou didn't bring him the papers?"
"As if I would carry such things, and me a suspected man, and CaptainMarvin after speaking to me this very day at the depot!"
"Ay, I heard of that," said McGinty. "I guess the heavy end of thisbusiness is coming on to you. We could put him down an old shaft whenwe've done with him; but however we work it we can't get past the manliving at Hobson's Patch and you being there to-day."
McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. "If we handle it right, they can neverprove the killing," said he. "No one can see him come to the houseafter dark, and I'll lay to it that no one will see him go. Now seehere, Councillor, I'll show you my plan and I'll ask you to fit theothers into it. You will all come in good time. Very well. He comes atten. He is to tap three times, and me to open the door for him. ThenI'll get behind him and shut it. He's our man then."
"That's all easy and plain."
"Yes; but the next step wants considering. He's a hard proposition.He's heavily armed. I've fooled him proper, and yet he is likely to beon his guard. Suppose I show him right into a room with seven men in itwhere he expected to find me alone. There is going to be shooting, andsomebody is going to be hurt."
"That's so."
"And the noise is going to bring every damned copper in the township ontop of it."
"I guess you are right."
"This is how I should work it. You will all be in the big room--same asyou saw when you had a chat with me. I'll open the door for him, showhim into the parlour beside the door, and leave him there while I getthe papers. That will give me the chance of telling you how things areshaping. Then I will go back to him with some faked papers. As he isreading them I will jump for him and get my grip on his pistol arm.You'll hear me call and in you will rush. The quicker the better; forhe is as strong a man as I, and I may have more than I can manage. ButI allow that I can hold him till you come."
"It's a good plan," said McGinty. "The lodge will owe you a debt forthis. I guess when I move out of the chair I can put a name to the manthat's coming after me."
"Sure, Councillor, I am little more than a recruit," said McMurdo; buthis face showed what he thought of the great man's compliment.
When he had returned home he made his own preparations for the grimevening in front of him. First he cleaned, oiled, and loaded his Smith& Wesson revolver. Then he surveyed the room in which the detective wasto be trapped. It was a large apartment, with a long deal table in thecentre, and the big stove at one side. At each of the other sides werewindows. There were no shutters on these: only light curtains whichdrew across. McMurdo examined these attentively. No doubt it must havestruck him that the apartment was very exposed for so secret a meeting.Yet its distance from the road made it of less consequence. Finally hediscussed the matter with his fellow lodger. Scanlan, though a Scowrer,was an inoffensive little man who was too weak to stand against theopinion of his comrades, but was secretly horrified by the deeds ofblood at which he had sometimes been forced to assist. McMurdo told himshortly what was intended.
"And if I were you, Mike Scanlan, I would take a night off and keepclear of it. There will be bloody work here before morning."
"Well, indeed then, Mac," Scanlan answered. "It's not the will but thenerve that is wanting in me. When I saw Manager Dunn go down at thecolliery yonder it was just more than I could stand. I'm not made forit, same as you or McGinty. If the lodge will think none the worse ofme, I'll just do as you advise and leave you to yourselves for theevening."
The men came in good time as arranged. They were outwardly respectablecitizens, well clad and cleanly; but a judge of faces would have readlittle hope for Birdy Edwards in those hard mouths and remorselesseyes. There was not a man in the room whose hands had not been reddeneda dozen times before. They were as hardened to human murder as abutcher to sheep.
Foremost, of course, both in appearance and in guilt, was theformidable Boss. Harraway, the secretary, was a lean, bitter man with along, scraggy neck and nervous, jerky limbs, a man of incorruptiblefidelity where the finances of the order were concerned, and with nonotion of justice or honesty to anyone beyond. The treasurer, Carter,was a middle-aged man, with an impassive, rather sulky expression, anda yellow parchment skin. He was a cap
able organizer, and the actualdetails of nearly every outrage had sprung from his plotting brain. Thetwo Willabys were men of action, tall, lithe young fellows withdetermined faces, while their companion, Tiger Cormac, a heavy, darkyouth, was feared even by his own comrades for the ferocity of hisdisposition. These were the men who assembled that night under the roofof McMurdo for the killing of the Pinkerton detective.