When McKenna returned to Shenandoah, he found more trouble awaiting him. McAndrew, the Bodymaster, having for a long time been out of work, was determined to go to Luzerne County, where somebody offered him employment in the mines, near Wilkesbarre, and, on the night of the seventeenth of May, gave notice, in open division, that he would have to resign, or leave the books, papers, and business in McKenna’s hands while he should be absent. All expressed regret that he must go, and none more sincerely than the Secretary, in whose care the division would be, in such an event, as there was no Vice-President and no other person considered capable of occupying the managing position. After the close of the meeting, McKenna tried his best to make McAndrew believe it his duty to remain, whatever might happen, and even went as far as to promise to use his own best efforts, and the entire influence of the Mollies, in obtaining work for him if he would stay; but McAndrew’s mind was fully made up. Go he would, and on the eighteenth he started, the operative regretfully accompanying him to the train and wishing him “a safe journey, good luck, and a quick return.” Here was a trial for the detective. Here was that under which he well might tremble. The Mollies all aroused—the wicked element in power—work hard to get—murder and assassination riding rampant over the country, and he, the officer sent to ferret out and report their operations and their misdeeds, acting as the head of one of the most sanguinary divisions in Schuylkill County. What if the order might chance to agree upon the killing of Jesse Major, or Gomer James, or Wm. M. Thomas, or any one of the number who had been secretly threatened with death? What if Jack Kehoe were to call upon him for men to assassinate somebody? Evidently it would require his finest ability to prevent himself from being drawn into the execution of crime, which was foreign to his duty. What should he do? In which direction should he turn? ————●———— CHAPTER XXVIII. THE DETECTIVE IN SORE TRIBULATION.