y end of this
business is coming on to you. We could put him down an old shaft when
we've done with him; but however we work it we can't get past the man
living at Hobson's Patch and you being there to-day."

McMurdo shrugged his shoulders. "If we handle it right, they can never
prove the killing," said he. "No one can see him come to the house after
dark, and I'll lay to it that no one will see him go. Now see here,
Councillor, I'll show you my plan and I'll ask you to fit the others
into it. You will all come in good time. Very well. He comes at ten. He
is to tap three times, and me to open the door for him. Then I'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 be on his
guard. Suppose I show him right into a room with seven men in it
where he expected to find me alone. There is going to be shooting, and
somebody is going to be hurt."

"That's so."

"And the noise is going to bring every damned copper in the township on
top of it."

"I guess you are right."

"This is how I should work it. You will all be in the big room--same as
you saw when you had a chat with me. I'll open the door for him, show
him into the parlour beside the door, and leave him there while I get
the papers. That will give me the chance of telling you how things are
shaping. Then I will go back to him with some faked papers. As he is
reading 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; for
he is as strong a man as I, and I may have more than I can manage. But I
allow that I can hold him till you come."

"It's a good plan," said McGinty. "The lodge will owe you a debt for
this. I guess when I move out of the chair I can put a name to the man
that's coming after me."

"Sure, Councillor, I am little more than a recruit," said McMurdo; but
his face showed what he thought of the great man's compliment.

When he had returned home he made his own preparations for the grim
evening in front of him. First he cleaned, oiled, and loaded his Smith &
Wesson revolver. Then he surveyed the room in which the detective was
to be trapped. It was a large apartment, with a long deal table in the
centre, and the big stove at one side. At each of the other sides were
windows. There were no shutters on these: on