He in turn had had it from someone else.
Old Shafter was quite ready.
The stranger made no bones about terms, agreed at once to every condition, and was apparently fairly flush of money.
For seven dollars a week paid in advance he was to have board and lodging.
So it was that McMurdo, the self-confessed fugitive from justice, took up his abode under the roof of the Shafters, the first step which was to lead to so long and dark a train of events, ending in a far distant land.
Chapter 2. The Bodymaster
McMurdo was a man who made his mark quickly.
Wherever he was the folk around soon knew it.
Within a week he had become infinitely the most important person at Shafter's.
There were ten or a dozen boarders there; but they were honest foremen or commonplace clerks from the stores, of a very different calibre from the young Irishman.