welcome from their comrades.

The story was told and retold amid cries of delight and shouts of
laughter. They had waited for their man as he drove home at nightfall,
taking their station at the top of a steep hill, where his horse must
be at a walk. He was so furred to keep out the cold that he could not
lay his hand on his pistol. They had pulled him out and shot him again
and again. He had screamed for mercy. The screams were repeated for the
amusement of the lodge.

"Let's hear again how he squealed," they cried.

None of them knew the man; but there is eternal drama in a killing, and
they had shown the Scowrers of Gilmerton that the Vermissa men were to
be relied upon.

There had been one contretemps; for a man and his wife had driven up
while they were still emptying their revolvers into the silent body. It
had been suggested that they should shoot them both; but they were
harmless folk who were not connected with the mines, so they were
sternly bidden to drive on and keep silent, lest a worse thing befall
them. And so the blood-mottled figure had been left as a warning to all
such hard-hearted employers, and the three noble avengers had hurried
off into the mountains where unbroken nature comes down to the very
edge of the furnaces and the slag heaps. Here they were, safe and
sound, their work well done, and the plaudits of their companions in
their ears.

It had been a great day for the Scowrers. The shadow had fallen even
darker over the valley. But as the wise general chooses the moment of
victory in which to redouble his efforts, so that his foes may have no
time to steady themselves after disaster, so Boss McGinty, looking out
upon the scene of his operations with his brooding and malicious eyes,
had devised a new attack upon those who opposed him. That very night,
as the half-drunken company broke up, he touched McMurdo on the arm and
led him aside into that inner room where they had their first interview.

"See here, my lad," said he, "I've got a job that's worthy of you at
last. You'll have the doing of it in your own hands."

"Proud I am to hear it," McMurdo answered.

"You can take two men with you--Manders and Reilly. They have been
warned for service. We'll never be right in this district until Chester
Wilcox has been settled, and you'll have the thanks of every lodge in
the coal fields if you can down him."

"I'll do my best, anyhow. Who is he, and where shall I find him?"

McGinty took