Page:The Valley of Fear.pdf/280

Rh watch over them. It was an empty house which had been torn down by the gunpowder, and the grim old Color Sergeant of the War was still teaching discipline to the miners of Iron Dike.

“Leave him to me,” said McMurdo. “He’s my man, and I’ll get him sure if I have to wait a year for him.”

A vote of thanks and confidence was passed in full lodge, and so for the time the matter ended. When a few weeks later it was reported in the papers that Wilcox had been shot at from an ambuscade, it was an open secret that McMurdo was still at work upon his unfinished job.

Such were the methods of the Society of Freemen, and such were the deeds of the Scowrers by which they spread their rule of fear over the great and rich district which was for so long a period haunted by their terrible presence. Why should these pages be stained by further crimes? Have I not said enough to show the men and their methods?

These deeds are written in history, and there are records wherein one may read the details of them. There one may learn of the shooting of Policemen Hunt and Evans because they had [278]