McMurdo was a man who made his mark quickly.

Wherever he was the folk around soon knew it.

Within a week he had become infinitely the most important person at Shafter's.

There were ten or a dozen boarders there; but they were honest foremen or commonplace clerks from the stores, of a very different calibre from the young Irishman.

Of an evening when they gathered together his joke was always the readiest, his conversation the brightest, and his song the best.