“That he never leaves the valley,” said Baldwin.

McMurdo nodded. “Good for you, Brother Baldwin,” he said. “You and I have had our differences, but you have said the true word to-night.”

“Where is he, then? Where shall we know him?”

“Eminent Bodymaster,” said McMurdo, earnestly, “I would put it to you that this is too vital a thing for us to discuss in open lodge. God forbid that I should throw a doubt on anyone here; but if so much as a word of gossip got to the ears of this man, there would be an end of any chance of our getting him. I would ask the lodge to choose a trusty committee, Mr. Chairman—yourself, if I might suggest it, and Brother Baldwin here, and five more. Then I can talk freely of what I know and of what I advise should be done.”

The proposition was at once adopted, and the committee chosen. Besides the chairman and Baldwin there were the vulture-faced secretary, Harraway, Tiger Cormac, the brutal young assassin, Carter, the treasurer, and the brothers Willaby, fearless and desperate men who would stick at nothing.

The usual revelry of the lodge was short and subdued: for there was a cloud upon the men’s spirits, and many there for the first time began to see the cloud of avenging Law drifting up in that serene sky under which they had dwelt so long. The horrors they had dealt out to others had been so much a part of their settled lives that the thought of retribution had become a remote one, and so seemed the more startling now that it came so closely upon them. They broke up early and left their leaders to their council.

“Now, McMurdo!” said McGinty when they were alone. The seven men sat frozen in their seats.

“I said just now that I knew Birdy Edwards,” McMurdo explained. “I need not tell you that he is not here under that name. He’s a brave man, but not a crazy one. He passes under the name of Steve Wilson, and he is lodging at Hobson’s Patch.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because I fell into talk with him. I thought little of it at the time, nor would have given it a second thought but for this letter; but now I’m sure it’s the man. I met him on the cars when I went down the line on Wednesday—a hard case if ever there was one. He said he was a reporter. I believed it for the moment. Wanted to know all he could about the Scowrers and what he called ‘the outrages’ for a New York paper. Asked me every kind of question so as to get something. You bet I was giving nothing away. ‘I’d pay for it and pay well,’ said he, ‘if I could get some stuff that would suit my editor.’ I said what I thought would please him best, and he handed me a twenty-dollar bill for my information. ‘There’s ten times that for you,’ said he, ‘if you can find me all that I want.’”

“What did you tell him, then?”

“Any stuff I could make up.”