ly light curtains which drew
across. McMurdo examined these attentively. No doubt it must have struck
him that the apartment was very exposed for so secret a meeting. Yet its
distance from the road made it of less consequence. Finally he discussed
the matter with his fellow lodger. Scanlan, though a Scowrer, was an
inoffensive little man who was too weak to stand against the opinion of
his comrades, but was secretly horrified by the deeds of blood at which
he had sometimes been forced to assist. McMurdo told him shortly what
was intended.

"And if I were you, Mike Scanlan, I would take a night off and keep
clear of it. There will be bloody work here before morning."

"Well, indeed then, Mac," Scanlan answered. "It's not the will but the
nerve that is wanting in me. When I saw Manager Dunn go down at the
colliery yonder it was just more than I could stand. I'm not made for
it, same as you or McGinty. If the lodge will think none the worse
of me, I'll just do as you advise and leave you to yourselves for the
evening."

The men came in good time as arranged. They were outwardly respectable
citizens, well clad and cleanly; but a judge of faces would have read
little hope for Birdy Edwards in those hard mouths and remorseless eyes.
There was not a man in the room whose hands had not been reddened a
dozen times before. They were as hardened to human murder as a butcher
to sheep.

Foremost, of course, both in appearance and in guilt, was the formidable
Boss. Harraway, the secretary, was a lean, bitter man with a long,
scraggy neck and nervous, jerky limbs, a man of incorruptible fidelity
where the finances of the order were concerned, and with no notion
of justice or honesty to anyone beyond. The treasurer, Carter, was
a middle-aged man, with an impassive, rather sulky expression, and
a yellow parchment skin. He was a capable organizer, and the actual
details of nearly every outrage had sprung from his plotting brain.
The two Willabys were men of action, tall, lithe young fellows with
determined faces, while their companion, Tiger Cormac, a heavy, dark
youth, was feared even by his own comrades for the ferocity of his
disposition. These were the men who assembled that night under the roof
of McMurdo for the killing of the Pinkerton detective.

Their host had placed whisky upon the table, and they had hastened
to prime themselves for the work before them. Baldwin and Cormac were
already half-drunk, and the liquor had brou