Page:The Valley of Fear.pdf/174

Rh 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 “Goodnights” 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 [172]