Part 2 - Chapter 4

The Valley of Fear

When McMurdo awoke next morning he had good reason to remember
his initiation into the lodge. His head ached with the effect of
the drink, and his arm, where he had been branded, was hot and
swollen. Having his own peculiar source of income, he was
irregular in his attendance at his work; so he had a late
breakfast, and remained at home for the morning writing a long
letter to a friend. Afterwards he read the Daily Herald. In a
special column put in at the last moment he read:

OUTRAGE AT THE HERALD OFFICE--EDITOR SERIOUSLY INJURED.

It was a short account of the facts with which he was himself
more familiar than the writer could have been. It ended with the
statement:

The matter is now in the hands of the police; but it can hardly
be hoped that their exertions will be attended by any better
results than in the past. Some of the men were recognized, and
there is hope that a conviction may be obtained. The source of
the outrage was, it need hardly be said, that infamous society
which has held this community in bondage for so long a period,
and against which the Herald has taken so uncompromising a stand.
Mr. Stanger's many friends will rejoice to hear that, though he
has been cruelly and brutally beaten, and though he has sustained
severe injuries about the head, there is no immediate danger to
his life.

Below it stated that a guard of police, armed with Winchester
rifles, had been requisitioned for the defense of the office.

McMurdo had laid down the paper, and was lighting his pipe with a
hand which was shaky from the excesses of the previous evening,
when there was a knock outside, and his landlady brought to him a
note which had just been handed in by a lad. It was unsigned,
and ran thus:

I should wish to speak to you, but would rather not do so in your
house. You will find me beside the flagstaff upon Miller Hill.
If you will come there now, I have something which it is
important for you to hear and for me to say.

McMurdo read the note twice with the utmost surprise; for he
could not imagine what it meant or who was the author of it. Had
it been in a feminine hand, he might have imagined that it was
the beginning of one of those adventures which had been familiar
enough in his past life. But it was the writing of a man, and of
a well educated one, too. Finally, after some hesitation, he
determined to see the matter through.

Miller Hill is an ill-kept public park in the very centre of the
town. In summer it is a favourite resort of the people, but in
winter it is desolate enough. From the top of it one has a view
not only of the whole straggling, grimy town, but of the winding
valley beneath, with its scattered