Part 2 - Chapter 6 - Page 2

government concern.
It's a dead earnest business proposition that's out for results
and keeps out till by hook or crook it gets them. If a Pinkerton
man is deep in this business, we are all destroyed."

"We must kill him."

"Ah, it's the first thought that came to you! So it will be up at
the lodge. Didn't I say to you that it would end in murder?"

"Sure, what is murder? Isn't it common enough in these parts?"

"It is, indeed; but it's not for me to point out the man that is
to be murdered. I'd never rest easy again. And yet it's our own
necks that may be at stake. In God's name what shall I do?" He
rocked to and fro in his agony of indecision.

But his words had moved McMurdo deeply. It was easy to see that
he shared the other's opinion as to the danger, and the need for
meeting it. He gripped Morris's shoulder and shook him in his
earnestness.

"See here, man," he cried, and he almost screeched the words in
his excitement, "you won't gain anything by sitting keening like
an old wife at a wake. Let's have the facts. Who is the fellow?
Where is he? How did you hear of him? Why did you come to me?"

"I came to you; for you are the one man that would advise me. I
told you that I had a store in the East before I came here. I
left good friends behind me, and one of them is in the telegraph
service. Here's a letter that I had from him yesterday. It's
this part from the top of the page. You can read it yourself."

This was what McMurdo read:

How are the Scowrers getting on in your parts? We read plenty of
them in the papers. Between you and me I expect to hear news
from you before long. Five big corporations and the two
railroads have taken the thing up in dead earnest. They mean it,
and you can bet they'll get there! They are right deep down into
it. Pinkerton has taken hold under their orders, and his best
man, Birdy Edwards, is operating. The thing has got to be
stopped right now.

"Now read the postscript."

Of course, what I give you is what I learned in business; so it
goes no further. It's a queer cipher that you handle by the yard
every day and can get no meaning from.

McMurdo sat in silence for some time, with the letter in his
listless hands. The mist had lifted for a moment, and there was
the abyss before him.

"Does anyone else know of this?" he asked.

"I have told no one else."

"But this man--your friend--has he any other person that he would
be likely to write to?"

"Well, I dare say he knows one or two more."

"Of the lodge?"

"It's likely enough."

"I was asking because it is likely that he may have given some
description of this fellow Birdy Edwards--then we could get