You've been here too short a time. You
don't know this Baldwin. You don't know McGinty and his
Scowrers."
"No, I don't know them, and I don't fear them, and I don't
believe in them!" said McMurdo. "I've lived among rough men, my
darling, and instead of fearing them it has always ended that
they have feared me--always, Ettie. It's mad on the face of it!
If these men, as your father says, have done crime after crime in
the valley, and if everyone knows them by name, how comes it that
none are brought to justice? You answer me that, Ettie!"
"Because no witness dares to appear against them. He would not
live a month if he did. Also because they have always their own
men to swear that the accused one was far from the scene of the
crime. But surely, Jack, you must have read all this. I had
understood that every paper in the United States was writing
about it."
"Well, I have read something, it is true; but I had thought it
was a story. Maybe these men have some reason in what they do.
Maybe they are wronged and have no other way to help themselves."
"Oh, Jack, don't let me hear you speak so! That is how he
speaks--the other one!"
"Baldwin--he speaks like that, does he?"
"And that is why I loathe him so.
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