To Mack, still prone upon his vertebræ, this was good enough information. He was getting into it by degrees. The Mollies, then, had grips, pass-words, toasts, likewise body-masters; and as he snored, he also registered the facts. Cooney then "quit," and strangely enough Mack, so far from being molested by anyone, was actually taken to the hearts of the Mollies as one of themselves. Thereafter there remained but the inner ring to conquer and Mack, plentifully supplied with money—the result, he pretended, of nefarious tradings and misdoings—set about improving his position. By violent and reckless talk he soon won the confidence of his fellows and as he boasted of having borne a hand in crimes which had actually been perpetrated in years gone by, and of which, as a detective, he must have known the details, the local Mollies began to reflect that in Mack they possessed a "hunch"—that is to say, a man over whom they held a sword and who was at the same time in intelligence, intrepidity and means incomparably above his fellows. He was described about this time: five feet eight inches high, broad forehead, chestnut hair and of very genial aspect. Accordingly Mack was chosen to be an active Molly. Subsequently and in the course of the judicial proceedings which finally broke up the Brotherhood, Mack was able to show that he had never once engaged in the commission of a planned crime and that by cipher and especially prearranged telegrams he was able in many cases to prevent the further commission of murders in the coal regions. That the double-dealing duties which fell to Mack were of a perilous nature may be realised from the fact that after a few months in residence among the Mollies all his hair had fallen off, he had lost his eyebrows and his sight had become impaired. During this time his duties compelled him to make unwilling love—the lady was _exigeante_, worse luck—to the sister of a high-placed Molly in order to extract special information. And as for the quantities of vile whisky he had found himself forced to swallow round the low bars he frequented, Mack, commonly a sober soul, declared afterwards that this was in many ways the hardest part of his business. A period came, however, when suspicion began to throw its red eye upon him and his death, on general principles and as a possible spy, was finally decided upon. Other men might have excusably enough fled the place, but this was too brave a man to fail his employers just as he was on the point of penetrating to the mystic shrine of the organisation and finding out where "killing orders" came from. One Kehoe, it was, who suspecting Mack for a spy, called a number of Mollies together and advocated the summary murder of the man. Evidently Kehoe knew something, for at this meeting he adjured his brethren to take rapid action. "For God's sake," he cried, "have him killed this very night that ever was, or half the countryside will hang."