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 stran