Taking cars over the Shamokin branch of the Philadelphia and Reading r the ensuing morning, McKenna started for his destination; but, overhearing a conversation occurring in the seat before his own, between two rough-looking men who boarded the train at a station not far from Shenandoah, during the course of which he learned that Muff Lawler had gone on a short visit to some friends in Pottsville, he concluded it would be best to shun the locality for the present and proceed at once to Tamaqua, a city that, thus far, he had devoted very little attention to. When the train stopped, therefore, at the point named, he took up his satchel—having left the remainder of his baggage at the hotel in Girardville—alighted at the depot, and, proceeding at once to the Columbia House, which he had understood from Dormer was frequented by the Mollie Maguires when visiting the city, secured a room and made the acquaintance of the innkeeper, named Marks. Although by this time somewhat accustomed to rough society and unruly transactions, he soon acquired the information that, of all the cities, towns, and villages he had seen in Pennsylvania, to Tamaqua, at that date, must be awarded the palm for holding prominence in these particular characteristics. It appeared to be the centre of attraction for a flock of unemployed stragglers, discharged men from adjacent collieries, tramps, and other reprobates. Liquor flowed unrestrainedly, and was largely consumed in the various saloons and taverns. A storm of wind, rain, and sleet prevailed, and the streets wore a deserted appearance, while the grog-shops and gambling-rooms 106were all crowded and in full blast. There were other disturbing elements at work in the community, one being the strike of the miners, which had just been inaugurated. A basis for the settlement of differences existing between the proprietors and the employés of collieries, had only recently found the miners prepared with a prompt negative, and, without some agreement—and that seemed far away—not a man among the laborers would dare begin operations. Hence idleness prevailed—"an idle brain is the devil's own workshop," in the coal regions as elsewhere—and bad habits, bad deeds, were among the results accompanying this unsatisfactory state of affairs. While some of the miners had gone elsewhere, seeking jobs for the winter—a portion to Luzerne, and others to Columbia County—there were many who, having families and homes thereabouts demanding attention, yet remained, waiting for some change to better their condition.
Tamaqua was filled with excited men and exciting whisky.
Not long after reaching the city, who should present himself to McKenna's notice but the identical Dan Kelly, left, not so long before, in Pottsville; the man who became his friend, and who, somewhat earlier, had backed Fighting Frazer in his contest in Dormer's house. Of course they expressed themselves as mutually glad to see each other. The operative explained to Kelly that the party for whom he was to have worked in the mountains, on the mythical water basin, was found to be a first-class deception; and, leaving him in disgust, he had visited the adjacent country in search of work. All of this Kelly received with perfect faith in its truth, however untruthful; and that personage told the detective, in turn, that he was more fortunate, having obtained a paying job at Boston Run Colliery, less than two miles from the borough of Tamaqua. In fact, the reason of his visit to town that day was to buy a suit of shifting clothes.
Kelly at once insisted that the operative should accompany 107him to a saloon and partake of something warm and stimulative. This constituted an invitation not easily refusable under the circumstances. It was accepted, and the drinkables enjoyed. After this, and following some talk about mining and acquaintances in Pottsville, the detective went with Kelly to the train, and saw him safely off for home. Kelly had remarked that Tamaqua was no place for men like himself and companion, as there were no friends in the town, the nearest being at Old Mines, some five miles distant. Occasionally a few straggling brothers accidentally convened at some tavern in Tamaqua, but no regular organization had ever commenced or been maintained in the city; several times, however, the thing had been started, and as often fallen through.
Upon returning to the Columbia House, and while partaking of supper, McKenna was accosted, in a friendly way, by a man who had been introduced to him as Gillespie:
"Are you posted as to the standing in the community of the man with whom I just saw you at the depot—I mean the one carrying the bundle on his arm?"
"An' why not?" answered the detective, still maintaining more of the brogue than was natural for him. "Why not? Do I know Dan Kelly? Sure an' I lately made meself a companion of his, at Pat Dormer's place, in the borough of Pottsville. An' didn't he back Fighting Frazer agin me fur the first bit of a scrimmage I ever enjoyed in Schuylkill County? That he did! An' he war gentleman enough not to harbor malice agin me! On the conthrary, I flatter meself that he an' I are rather warrum friends at the prisent moment! What should I be inquarin' as to his character for? He's all correct, isn't he?"
"Manus has been very unfortunate."
"Manus who?"
"Manus Kull, sure!"
108"Manus Kull? Is that the name ye give the person I saw off on the train, beyant?"
"Certainly! That's his name!"
"Well, Mr. Gillespie, I hev regard for ye, but must say that ye labor under a mistaken idea! It war Dan Kelly, a miner—an' he has work not so far from this town—that I saw to the train the day!"
"Oh, I know what I am talking about!" said Gillespie, a little nettled by McKenna's unbelief. "He is Manus Kull! I insist upon that, say what you may! Haven't I known him since he was knee high to a rabbit? and, sorry I am to say it, since he came to the age of maturity it is very little I've learned to his credit."
"Kelly's the name I've always heard him called—Dan Kelly, at that—an' sure I didn't take him for wan of those havin' occasion to dale in double names an' deceptions!"
"He is none other than Manus Kull; tho' since his troubles he may have adopted some other man's name, having doubly dishonored his own. And, what is more to the purpose in my speaking with you, to put you on your guard, lest you make an intimate associate of him, to my certain knowledge he has served a term of three years in Luzerne County jail for biting off a man's ear, in the course of a rough-and-tumble fight, at the town of Wilkesbarre. And upon one court-day there were not less than eight or nine warrants out and in the hands of officers for his arrest, for offenses ranging all the way from assault and battery to burglary and highway robbery. He has broken his poor mother's heart, has Manus Kull!"
The talk continued in this strain for some moments, during which the detective learned—as before he had more than half suspected—that Kull, alias Kelly, was only one among many hard cases usually congregating at the Sheridan House. Expressing some surprise, however, that he should be thus misled, he continued his meal in silence.
109During the same evening two miners, named Mullhearn and McGinly, arrived at the hotel from the neighborhood of Mauch Chunk, both in a state of semi-intoxication and ready for any sort of adventure that might come within reach. The large bar-room gradually filled with people. Finally the two strangers, concluding a deal of loud talk plentifully interspersed with oaths, managed to get up a wrestling match in the apartment, a ring being cleared for the purpose. Then all was noise and confusion. Some, not particularly interested in manly sports, were engaged in drowning sorrow, from lack of work, in deep potations at the bar. Others sat, nodding stupidly in their chairs. After a protracted struggle, in which several heavy falls were given and received on either side, Mullhearn was fairly thrown, his antagonist coming down upon him with great force, and McGinly declared the victor. The result of this decision was the formation of two parties in the assemblage, a McGinly party and a Mullhearn party; this culminated, as might have been expected, in the usual Kilkenny fight, in which all participated, battering skulls, blacking eyes, breaking noses, and spoiling countenances generally. During the prevalence of this hurly-burly, one Dougherty, who commanded a crowd of roughs like himself, and who was affected more than those about him by the liquor he had drank, pulled out a pistol and commenced discharging it into the walls, ceilings, floors, counters, or whatever eligible objects he chanced to see. Fortunately, the supply of cartridges was quickly exhausted and nobody hurt except the ruffian himself. One of the missiles from his weapon, rebounding from the hard wood of the counter, came back with force, striking Dougherty in the left hip, inflicting a painful but not deadly wound. The shooting had been in sport, and, the practical joker, having received merited reward for his ghastly jest, the disturbance was quieted, and while his injury was examined almost silence reigned. McKenna, saying he had some experience in the surgical line 110volunteered to dress Dougherty's hurt. His navy service was again alluded to, and, as there was no doctor nigh, the duty finally devolved upon him of staunching the blood and binding up the injury. A little whisky and water, properly applied, soon performed the first, and a keen pen-knife quickly laid bare the bullet, which had not penetrated deeply, and it was deftly extracted by the fingers. Then more whisky and water cleansed the hurt, while a plaster was procured from a neighboring drug-store, applied, and, the patient, feeling quite easy, before the borough police had discovered who had done the shooting, Dougherty resumed his carousal with his associates.
"McKenna saying he had some experience in the surgical line, volunteered to dress Dougherty's hurt."
Marks, the proprietor of the hotel, was able to breathe more freely when the Dougherty crowd vacated the premises. McKenna earned many plaudits from Dougherty's friends for the skill he had exhibited in amateur surgery, but Dougherty himself said that he had cut him more and deeper than necessary, and he would never forgive him for it. Unreasonable as this certainly was, his followers earnestly endeavored to convince the drunken fellow of his error, but the liquor in him had turned his brain, and it is presumable that he might have sought to punish the detective, who had assisted to preserve his worthless life, had not others prevailed upon him to defer it until the morrow, and finally succeeded in coaxing and dragging him off to another tavern. In a short time he was as drunk as ever. Some of the Dougherty crowd said if they ever wanted a doctor they "would send for that fellow just from the Rocky Mountains."
As much to get out of the way of the intoxicated men as from any other reason, McKenna, the hour still being early, left the bar-room and hunted up Pat Nolan, to whom he bore a letter from Dormer, finding the man soberly at his home. Nolan read the epistle and said he was happy to meet any friend of Dormer, but was sorry to say that work, for the present at least, was simply out of the question. They had 111some quiet games at cards, and passed a couple of hours pleasantly, when the detective bade all good-night, and, at about eleven o'clock, went back to the Columbia House. Before midnight, leaving the place well filled on the ground floor, he retired to his bed—but not to sleep, as fate or circumstance ordained. Too much noise rang upon his drowsy ear to make slumber possible. He had been between the sheets, tossing uneasily from side to side and enjoying such brief intervals of repose as he could catch betwixt waves of uproar and riot rising from the depths beneath him, during a couple of hours, perhaps, when there was a resounding rattle at his chamber door. Without moving, he asked, in no pleasant tone:
"Who the divil's there?"
The answer was not particularly reassuring:
"We want to get in!" said somebody in a thick, gruff voice.
McKenna quickly appreciated the fact that Dougherty and his unruly crew were looking for him.
"Go away, an' don't bother me!" shouted the operative. But this had no other effect than to increase the force that some person was exerting upon the bolts of the bedroom door. Visions of sanguinary Mollie Maguires, and an unpleasant feeling that they might possibly have penetrated his disguise, discovered his deception, flitted through his weary brain. But instantly dispersing all such thoughts as mere dreams—
——"Interludes, which Fancy weaves
When the monarch, Reason, sleeps"—
he leaped from the bed, making considerable stir, lighted a lamp, and said, in a loud, determined, and unfaltering voice:
"Now, get away out of that, ye spalpeens, or I'll jist blow the head off some of yez!"
112The shaking of the lock soon ceased, and the steps of several persons were heard retreating. Once more seeking his pillow, the weary man endeavored to obtain some repose. But in a little while he again distinguished the stealthy fall of human feet nigh the entrance of his apartment. Dougherty, for the second time, was trying to force admission to his presence.
"We must get in!" exclaimed the drunken man.
Exasperated at this long-continued annoyance, McKenna turned out, struck a light, donned a portion of his garments, suddenly unlocked and opened the door, and brought the forbidding, dark muzzle of his heavy seven-shooter plump in Dougherty's face, demanding his business with him at such an hour and such a place. Hesitating somewhat, and dodging his head from side to side to escape McKenna's aim, he faltered out:
"I can't find me partner! Didn't know but he might be in this room!"
"I don't know anything about your partner, if you have wan, an' I give ye due notice that I've had plenty and to spare of you an' your eternal racket! So get out of this, quick! An' don't ye come banging about here any more! Sure, an' if ye do, I'll make serious trouble wid ye!"
Perfectly quieted down by the pistol, the detective's undaunted front and resolute language, Dougherty and his companions took themselves off, invoking anything but compliments upon the man who had sent them away so unceremoniously. Again McKenna extinguished his lamp and courted repose. For a short time he slept fitfully and ill at ease, but, about an hour before daylight, he was aroused by sounds of a desperate row in progress below stairs. Pistol-shot after pistol-shot echoed along the corridors and through the rooms, making the hearer think that a small army of bushwhackers were attacking the house, and practising to see how many bullets they could lodge in the weatherboarding. 113He finally started up, unable longer to bear the confusion, and, after putting on his clothing, took the light in his left hand, and with the right resting on the butt of his revolver, which he held ready for immediate use, in his outside coat pocket, noiselessly opened the door, made his exit, and moved toward the supposed scene of conflict. Not much accustomed to the sense of fear, the detective thought, as he bent his steps in the direction of the warfare, and as the jar and other evidences of deadly strife smote more clearly upon his ear, he really experienced a feeling akin to that of a soldier when receiving the "baptism of fire" upon his initial battle-ground. At least there was a queer creeping of the flesh, a chilly blast over his back and shoulders, a rising up of the scalp, as he entered the dark, deserted bar-room, and still heard, as though in the distance, the rattle of small arms. The fight was evidently losing none of its intensity. "Perhaps it has been transferred to the kitchen or dining-room," he thought. It must be in one or the other, and in which he could not decide. Upon opening the entrance of the latter place, however, the mystery was quickly solved, and a strange spectacle presented itself to his vision.
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