ark-bearded,
resolute fellow, put the thoughts of himself and comrades into words as
the ex-prisoners passed him.

"You damned murderers!" he said. "We'll fix you yet!"

Chapter 5

The Darkest Hour

If anything had been needed to give an impetus to Jack McMurdo's
popularity among his fellows it would have been his arrest and
acquittal. That a man on the very night of joining the lodge should
have done something which brought him before the magistrate was a new
record in the annals of the society. Already he had earned the
reputation of a good boon companion, a cheery reveller, and withal a
man of high temper, who would not take an insult even from the
all-powerful Boss himself. But in addition to this he impressed his
comrades with the idea that among them all there was not one whose
brain was so ready to devise a bloodthirsty scheme, or whose hand would
be more capable of carrying it out. "He'll be the boy for the clean
job," said the oldsters to one another, and waited their time until
they could set him to his work.

McGinty had instruments enough already; but he recognized that this was
a supremely able one. He felt like a man holding a fierce bloodhound in
leash. There were curs to do the smaller work; but some day he would
slip this creature upon its prey. A few members of the lodge, Ted
Baldwin among them, resented the rapid rise of the stranger and hated
him for it; but they kept clear of him, for he was as ready to fight as
to laugh.

But if he gained favour with his fellows, there was another quarter,
one which had become even more vital to him, in which he lost it. Ettie
Shafter's father would have nothing more to do with him, nor would he
allow him to enter the house. Ettie herself was too deeply in love to
give him up altogether, and yet her own good sense warned her of what
would come from a marriage with a man who was regarded as a criminal.

One morning after a sleepless night she determined to see him, possibly
for the last time, and make one strong endeavour to draw him from those
evil influences which were sucking him down. She went to his house, as
he had often begged her to do, and made her way into the room which he
used as his sitting-room. He was seated at a table, with his back
turned and a letter in front of him. A sudden spirit of girlish
mischief came over her--she was still only nineteen. He had not heard
her when she pushed open the door. Now she tiptoed forward and laid her
h