There on the flesh of the forearm was a circle with a triangle within it, deep and red, as the branding iron had left it. One or two of his neighbours pulled up their sleeves and showed their own lodge marks.
"We've all had it," said one; "but not all as brave as you over it."
"Tut! It was nothing," said he; but it burned and ached all the same.
When the drinks which followed the ceremony of initiation had all been disposed of, the business of the lodge proceeded. McMurdo, accustomed only to the prosaic performances of Chicago, listened with open ears and more surprise than he ventured to show to what followed.
"The first business on the agenda paper," said McGinty, "is to read the following letter from Division Master Windle of Merton County Lodge 249. He says:
"DEAR SIR:
"There is a job to be done on Andrew Rae of Rae &
Sturmash, coal owners near this place. You will remember
that your lodge owes us a return, having had the service of
two brethren in the matter of the patrolman last fall. You
will send two good men, they will be taken charge of by
Treasurer Higgins of this lodge, whose address you know.
He will show them when to act and where. Yours in freedom,
"J. W. WINDLE D. M. A. O. F.
"Windle has never refused us when we have had occasion to ask for the loan of a man or two, and it is not for us to refuse him." McGinty paused and looked round the room with his dull, malevolent eyes. "Who will volunteer for the job?"
Several young fellows held up their hands. The Bodymaster looked at them with an approving smile.
"You'll do, Tiger Cormac. If you handle it as well as you did the last, you won't be wrong. And you, Wilson."
"I've no pistol," said the volunteer, a mere boy in his teens.
"It's your first, is it not? Well, you have to be blooded some time. It will be a great start for you. As to the pistol, you'll find it waiting for you, or I'm mistaken. If you report yourselves on Monday, it will be time enough. You'll get a great welcome when you return."
"Any reward this time?" asked Cormac, a thick-set, dark- faced, brutal-looking young man, whose ferocity had earned him the nickname of "Tiger."
"Never mind the reward. You just do it for the honour of the thing. Maybe when it is done there will be a few odd dollars at the bottom of the box."
"What has the man done?" asked young Wilson.
"Sure, it's not for the likes of you to ask what the man has done. He has been judged over there. That's no business of ours. All we have to do is to carry it out for them, same as they would for us. Speaking of that, two brothers from the Merton lodge are coming over to us next week to do some business in this quarter."
"Who are they?" asked someone.
"Faith, it is wiser not to ask. If you know nothing, you can testify nothing, and no trouble can come of it. But they are men who will make a clean job when they are about it."
"And time, too!" cried Ted Baldwin. "Folk are gettin' out of hand in these parts. It was only last week that three of our men were turned off by Foreman Blaker. It's been owing him a long time, and he'll get it full and proper."
"Get what?" McMurdo whispered to his neighbour.
"The business end of a buckshot cartridge!" cried the man with a loud laugh. "What think you of our ways, Brother?"
McMurdo's criminal soul seemed to have already absorbed the spirit of the vile association of which he was now a member. "I like it well," said he. "'Tis a proper place for a lad of mettle."
Several of those who sat around heard his words and applauded them.
"What's that?" cried the black-maned Bodymaster from the end of the table.
"'Tis our new brother, sir, who finds our ways to his taste."
McMurdo rose to his feet for an instant. "I would say, Eminent Bodymaster, that if a man should be wanted I should take it as an honour to be chosen to help the lodge."
There was great applause at this. It was felt that a new sun was pushing its rim above the horizon.