hing of great importance had yet come to the detective's knowledge,
as otherwise, they argued, he would not have troubled to write down and
forward such trivial information as McMurdo claimed to have given him.
However, all this they would learn from his own lips. Once in their
power, they would find a way to make him speak. It was not the first
time that they had handled an unwilling witness.

McMurdo went to Hobson's Patch as agreed. The police seemed to take
particular interest in him that morning, and Captain Marvin--he who had
claimed the old acquaintance with him at Chicago--actually addressed
him as he waited at the station. McMurdo turned away and refused to
speak with him. He was back from his mission in the afternoon, and saw
McGinty at the Union House.

"He is coming," he said.

"Good!" said McGinty. The giant was in his shirt sleeves, with chains
and seals gleaming athwart his ample waistcoat and a diamond twinkling
through the fringe of his bristling beard. Drink and politics had made
the Boss a very rich as well as powerful man. The more terrible,
therefore, seemed that glimpse of the prison or the gallows which had
risen 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 weeks
at the least. I guess he didn't come into these parts to look at the
prospect. If he has been working among us all that time with the
railroad 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 mind
to send a couple of the boys round before evening to give him a beating
up and see what they can get from him."

"Well, there would be no harm in that," McMurdo answered. "I won't deny
that I have a liking for Morris and would be sorry to see him come to
harm. He has spoken to me once or twice over lodge matters, and though
he may not see them the same as you or I, he never seemed the sort that
squeals. 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 eye
on him this year past."

"Well, you know best about that," McMurdo answered. "But whatever you
do must be to-morrow; for we must lie low until the Pinkerton affair i