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Once in their power, they would find a way to make him speak.

It was not the first time that they had handled an unwilling witness.

McMurdo went to Hobson's Patch as agreed.

The police seemed to take particular interest in him that morning, and Captain Marvin-he who had claimed the old acquaintance with him at Chicago-actually addressed him as he waited at the station.

McMurdo turned away and refused to speak with him.

He was back from his mission in the afternoon, and saw McGinty at the Union House.

"He is coming," he said.

"Good!" said McGinty.

The giant was in his shirt sleeves, with chains and seals gleaming athwart his ample waistcoat and a diamond twinkling through the fringe of his bristling beard.

Drink and politics had made the Boss a very rich as well as powerful man.

The more terrible, therefore, seemed that glimpse of the prison or the gallows which had risen before him the night before.

"Do you reckon he knows much?" he asked anxiously.

McMurdo shook his head gloomily.

"He's been here some time-six weeks at the least.

I guess he didn't come into these parts to look at the prospect.

If he has been working among us all that time with the railroad money at his back, I should expect that he has got results, and that he has passed them on."

"There's not a weak man in the lodge," cried McGinty.

"True as steel, every man of them.

And yet, by the Lord! there is that skunk Morris.

What about him? If any man gives us away, it would be he.

I've a mind to send a couple of the boys round before evening to give him a beating up and see what they can get from him."

"Well, there would be no harm in that," McMurdo answered.

"I won't deny that I have a liking for Morris and would be sorry to see him come to harm.

He has spoken to me once or twice over lodge matters, and though he may not see them the same as you or I, he never seemed the sort that squeals.

But still it is not for me to stand between him and you."

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