The Valley of Fear Part 8 (2/2)
Scanlan burst out laughing ”You go and see him, my lad,” said he as he took his leave ”It's not the police but you that he'll hate if you don't! Now, take a friend's advice and go at once!”
It chanced that on the sa interviehich urged him in the same direction It may have been that his attentions to Ettie had been radually obtruded theood Ger-house keeper beckoned the young man into his private room and started on the subject without any circumlocution
”It seeettin' set on ?”
”Yes, that is so,” the young ht now that it ain't no manner of use There's someone slipped in afore you”
”She told me so”
”Vell, you can lay that she told you truth But did she tell you who it vas?”
”No, I asked her; but she wouldn't tell”
”I dare say not, the leetle baggage! Perhaps she did not vish to frighten you avay”
”Frighten!” McMurdo was on fire in a moment
”Ah, yes, htened of him It is Teddy Baldwin”
”And who the devil is he?”
”He is a boss of Scowrers”
”Scowrers! I've heard of them before It's Scowrers here and Scowrers there, and always in a whisper! What are you all afraid of? Who are the Scowrers?”
The boarding-house keeper instinctively sank his voice, as everyone did who talked about that terrible society ”The Scowrers,” said he, ”are the E man stared ”Why, I am a member of that order myself”
”You! I vould never have had you in my house if I had known it--not if you vere to paywith the order? It's for charity and good fellowshi+p The rules say so”
”Maybe in some places Not here!”
”What is it here?”
”It's a hed incredulously ”How can you prove that?” he asked
”Prove it! Are there not fifty murders to prove it? Vat about Milman and Van Shorst, and the Nicholson family, and old Mr Hyam, and little Billy James, and the others? Prove it! Is there a man or a voman in this valley vat does not know it?”
”See here!” said McMurdo earnestly ”I want you to take back what you've said, or else ood One or the other you must do before I quit this rooer in the town I belong to a society that I know only as an innocent one You'll find it through the length and breadth of the States, but always as an innocent one Nohen I a it here, you tell me that it is the sauess you owe y or else an explanation, Mr Shafter”
”I can but tell you vat the whole vorld knows, mister The bosses of the one are the bosses of the other If you offend the one, it is the other vat vill strike you We have proved it too often”
”That's just gossip--I want proof!” said McMurdo
”If you live here long you vill get your proof But I forget that you are yourself one of them You vill soon be as bad as the rest But you vill find other lodgings, h that one of these people co my Ettie, and that I dare not turn him down, but that I should have another for ht!”
McMurdo found himself under sentence of banishirl who-roo, and he poured his troubles into her ear
”Sure, your father is after giving me notice,” he said ”It's little I would care if it was just h it's only a week that I've known you, you are the very breath of life to me, and I can't live without you!”
”Oh, hush, Mr McMurdo, don't speak so!” said the girl ”I have told you, have I not, that you are too late? There is another, and if I have not promised to marry him at once, at least I can promise no one else”
”Suppose I had been first, Ettie, would I have had a chance?”
The girl sank her face into her hands ”I wish to heaven that you had been first!” she sobbed
McMurdo was down on his knees before her in an instant ”For God's sake, Ettie, let it stand at that!” he cried ”Will you ruin your life and my own for the sake of this prouide than any pro”
He had seized Ettie's white hand between his own strong brown ones
”Say that you will be ether!”
”Not here?”
”Yes, here”
”No, no, Jack!” His arms were round her now ”It could not be here Could you take le passed for a ranite ”No, here,” he said ”I'll hold you against the world, Ettie, right here where we are!”
”Why should we not leave together?”
”No, Ettie, I can't leave here”
”But why?”
”I'd never hold ain if I felt that I had been driven out Besides, what is there to be afraid of? Are we not free folks in a free country? If you love me, and I you, ill dare to come between?”
”You don't know, Jack You've been here too short a time You don't know this Baldwin You don't know McGinty and his Scowrers”
”No, I don't know them, and I don't fear them, and I don't believe in the, and instead of fearing them it has always ended that they have feared me--always, Ettie It's mad on the face of it! If these men, as your father says, have done crime after crime in the valley, and if everyone knows theht to justice? You answer ainst them He would not live a month if he did Also because they have always their own men to swear that the accused one was far from the scene of the crime But surely, Jack, you must have read all this I had understood that every paper in the United States riting about it”
”Well, I have read soht it was a story Maybe these ed and have no other way to help themselves”
”Oh, Jack, don't let me hear you speak so! That is how he speaks--the other one!”