A general shout of anger greeted the suggestion.

“I have but to raise my finger,” cried McGinty, “and I could put two hundred men into this town that would clear it out from end to end.”  Then suddenly raising his voice and bending his huge black brows into a terrible frown, “See here, Brother Morris, I have my eye on you, and have had for some time!  You’ve no heart yourself, and you try to take the heart out of others.  It will be an ill day for you, Brother Morris, when your own name comes on our agenda paper, and I’m thinking that it’s just there that I ought to place it.”

Morris had turned deadly pale, and his knees seemed to give way under him as he fell back into his chair.  He raised his glass in his trembling hand and drank before he could answer.  “I apologize, Eminent Bodymaster, to you and to every brother in this lodge if I have said more than I should.  I am a faithful member—­you all know that—­and it is my fear lest evil come to the lodge which makes me speak in anxious words.  But I have greater trust in your judgment than in my own, Eminent Bodymaster, and I promise you that I will not offend again.”

The Bodymaster’s scowl relaxed as he listened to the humble words.  “Very good, Brother Morris.  It’s myself that would be sorry if it were needful to give you a lesson.  But so long as I am in this chair we shall be a united lodge in word and in deed.  And now, boys,” he continued, looking round at the company, “I’ll say this much, that if Stanger got his full deserts there would be more trouble than we need ask for.  These editors hang together, and every journal in the state would be crying out for police and troops.  But I guess you can give him a pretty severe warning.  Will you fix it, Brother Baldwin?”

“Sure!” said the young man eagerly.

“How many will you take?”

“Half a dozen, and two to guard the door.  You’ll come, Gower, and you, Mansel, and you, Scanlan, and the two Willabys.”

“I promised the new brother he should go,” said the chairman.

Ted Baldwin looked at McMurdo with eyes which showed that he had not forgotten nor forgiven.  “Well, he can come if he wants,” he said in a surly voice.  “That’s enough.  The sooner we get to work the better.”

The company broke up with shouts and yells and snatches of drunken song.  The bar was still crowded with revellers, and many of the brethren remained there.  The little band who had been told off for duty passed out into the street, proceeding in twos and threes along the sidewalk so as not to provoke attention.  It was a bitterly cold night, with a half-moon shining brilliantly in a frosty, star-spangled sky.  The men stopped and gathered in a yard which faced a high building.  The words, “Vermissa Herald” were printed in gold lettering between the brightly lit windows.  From within came the clanking of the printing press.

“Here, you,” said Baldwin to McMurdo, “you can stand below at the door and see that the road is kept open for us.  Arthur Willaby can stay with you.  You others come with me.  Have no fears, boys; for we have a dozen witnesses that we are in the Union Bar at this very moment.”