ed the other. "I guess we may meet
again."

"I'm not afraid of you, and don't you think it!" cried McMurdo. "My
name's Jack McMurdo--see? If you want me, you'll find me at Jacob
Shafter's on Sheridan Street, Vermissa; so I'm not hiding from you, am
I? Day or night I dare to look the like of you in the face--don't make
any mistake about that!"

There was a murmur of sympathy and admiration from the miners at the
dauntless demeanour of the newcomer, while the two policemen shrugged
their shoulders and renewed a conversation between themselves.

A few minutes later the train ran into the ill-lit station, and there
was a general clearing; for Vermissa was by far the largest town on the
line. McMurdo picked up his leather gripsack and was about to start off
into the darkness, when one of the miners accosted him.

"By Gar, mate! you know how to speak to the cops," he said in a voice
of awe. "It was grand to hear you. Let me carry your grip and show you
the road. I'm passing Shafter's on the way to my own shack."

There was a chorus of friendly "Good-nights" from the other miners as
they passed from the platform. Before ever he had set foot in it,
McMurdo the turbulent had become a character in Vermissa.

The country had been a place of terror; but the town was in its way
even more depressing. Down that long valley there was at least a
certain gloomy grandeur in the huge fires and the clouds of drifting
smoke, while the strength and industry of man found fitting monuments
in the hills which he had spilled by the side of his monstrous
excavations. But the town showed a dead level of mean ugliness and
squalor. The broad street was churned up by the traffic into a horrible
rutted paste of muddy snow. The sidewalks were narrow and uneven. The
numerous gas-lamps served only to show more clearly a long line of
wooden houses, each with its veranda facing the street, unkempt and
dirty.

As they approached the centre of the town the scene was brightened by a
row of well-lit stores, and even more by a cluster of saloons and
gaming houses, in which the miners spent their hard-earned but generous
wages.

"That's the Union House," said the guide, pointing to one saloon which
rose almost to the dignity of being a hotel. "Jack McGinty is the boss
there."

"What sort of a man is he?" McMurdo asked.

"What! have you never heard of the boss?"

"How could I have heard of him when you know that I am a stranger in
these parts?"

"