There was no possible question that Factor Harry Karmack's dinner was a function. Although it had never been mentioned by Moira or the Morrows, the sergeant had all the details. These had been relayed by his native hostler who had them direct from the Arctic's interpreter, the latter having acted as butler for the all-important occasion. The meal had been served in courses, mind you, for the first time in the history of the camp. The factor's store of delicacies, even to the tinned plum pudding, intended for the Christmas feast, had been freely broached.
Seymour could not hope to equal such a spread from police rations, but he was not to be outdone in hospitality. Miss O'Malley and the Morrows had accepted his invitation to a sour-dough luncheon. The factor had not accepted for an excellent reason that you probably can imagine.
The three from Mission House were coming this very noon and the sergeant had been occupied part of the morning correcting the haphazard housekeeping of quarters. In fact, they had come, as was attested by the knocking upon the front door.
More lovely than ever Moira seemed to him as she returned a smile to his enthusiastic greetings. She was dressed to-day entirely in white, the first time he had ever seen her in anything but black.
"What a snow bird you are, Moira!" he exclaimed, almost forgetting to greet the missionaries.
"In that case, I'm relieved you're not packing a gun, Sergeant Scarlet."
"Not even side arms," he said, releasing his whimsical smile. "I'm the one that's wounded—fluttering. Put your wraps in the tent, all of you, and I'll put you to work."
For the first time they noticed the stage-setting he had created for his social bow. Every stick of furniture had been removed and the floor covered with reindeer moss, gray, soft and fragrant. Two reserve sleds, padded with outspread sleeping bags, were evidently intended to serve as seats. The "tent" to which he had referred them was a drape of canvas over the door leading into his own room. About the hearth were scattered pots, pans and dishes of tin. The fireplace glowed like a camp fire permitted to grow dim for culinary service.
"So this is what you meant by a sour-dough party," observed Mrs. Morrow, her voice betraying her enthusiasm over the idea.
"Wonder if I'm hard-bitten enough by now to get the idea?" Moira asked them.
"We're hitting the trail," explained the missionary. "We've just pitched camp and are about to make muck-muck. As Northwesterners never pack grub for idle hands to eat, we'd better strip off our coats and get into action."
Where the fire glowed the hottest, Seymour rigged an iron spit from which he suspended a shank of caribou on a wire as supple as a piece of string. Beneath, he placed a pan to catch the drippings. To Moira he entrusted a second wire so attached that an occasional pull kept the meat turning.
"There's nothing more delicious than roast caribou," he advised her, "and this is the very best way to roast it."
Luke Morrow was to attend the broiling of a dozen fool-hens—a variety of grouse—which the sergeant had shot that morning. To Mrs. Emma was assigned the task of picking over a mess of fiddle-head ferns which, by some magic, he had kept fresh since fall. He was certain that, when properly boiled, they would produce a dish of greens more delicate than spinach.
"And you, Russell?" queried the girl, for they soon had taken to first names, except that she sometimes called him "Sergeant Scarlet." "Because of your rank, I suppose you'll merely boss the job and eat twice as much as anyone else."
He did not answer, but fell to his knees beside the open mouth of a flour sack. With the aid of water and an occasional pinch of baking powder, he quickly mixed a wad of dough. Greasing a gold-pan with a length of bacon rind, he filled it with the dough and stood it up facing the fire.
"I'm baking bannock," he answered Moira's quizzical look. "When the outside is browned, I'll toss it like a pancake, and soon we'll have a better bread than mother ever made."
The primitive feast at last was ready and they fell upon it seated tailor-fashion upon the moss. The caribou was so tender, remarked Rev. Morrow in complimenting the fair spit attendant, that you could put your finger through it.
"Don't waste time putting anything through it but your teeth," remarked their host.
Later, when they had turned to moss berries and condensed "cow," provided as a typical desert, Moira expressed regret that Seymour's attractive young constable was not present to share the feast.
"Have you heard anything from La Marr, Seymour?" asked the missionary.
"Not a word."
Something in his tone startled the girl. "Has he gone on a dangerous mission?" she asked. "Are you worried about him?"
The sergeant shook his head. "He's one of the trail-boys and will find others to stand by if he's in trouble." And after a moment's silence, he quoted:
"The cord that ties the trail-boys has lashedThem heart to heart;No stage presents their joys, no actorsPlay their parts;Their struggles are seldom known, becauseThrough wilds untrodThese daring spirits roam where there isNaught but God."
The spell of silence that followed his pronouncement of the Deity was rudely broken by a hammering on the outer door. So peremptory was the summons that Seymour sprang to his feet, crossed the room and flung the door open, only to start back in amazement.
"Avic of the foxes, by all that's holy!" he exclaimed.
Framed in the doorway, his small eyes peering from a strained face out of the wolverine hood of hisparkee, the fugitive Eskimo stood alone. Instead of handcuffs on his wrists, he held a rifle across his breast.
As the sergeant moved forward intent upon seizing the rifle, the huge, raw-boned Kogmollyc came into the room with a bound that carried him well over the threshold. The move had every appearance of an attack of one demented; but before Seymour could grapple with him the lack of hostile intent was made manifest.
The rifle Avic carried was thrown regardlessly to the floor. With a snarl inhuman, the Eskimo threw himself down beside the platter of caribou roast. The odors of cooked food had proved too much for racial restraint. Hunger had brought on the precipitate action.
For several minutes, Seymour and his guests stood and watched the fugitive with amazement. He went at the deer shank after the fashion of a starving malamute. Sinking his teeth into the succulent meat, he tore out great mouthfuls which he swallowed without chewing. At first growls were interspersed between the bites, but gradually these were succeeded by grunts of satisfaction. Once he dropped the shank to fill his mouth with bannock, but he returned to the meat, sucking at it while yet his mouth was crowded.
Seymour stooped for the gun, recognized it as a service weapon and grew suddenly grave.
"La Marr's rifle," he muttered.
Crossing to the native, he gripped the back-thrown hood of theparkeeand dragged him, sputtering protestingly, to his feet. Avic was considerable to lift, but Seymour was strong and deeply aroused. The caribou shank came with the savage, held in teeth that demanded a last bite.
"Here, you dog, drop that!" came gruff command. "Want to founder yourself?"
Morrow, too, recognized the danger of overloading a stomach long deprived of food, took hold of the meat and tore it away from the Eskimo.
"But surely they'll let him eat more later?" asked Moira of Mrs. Morrow in a hushed tone.
Seymour spoke rapidly to the missionary, asking him to go to the trading post for the interpreter. In some way, the Eskimo grasped the gist of this request.
"Avic, he speak them Engleesh," was his surprising statement.
"Then tell me, where you get this gun?" Seymour demanded. "Where is the red coat that owns him?" Unwittingly he had fallen into the broken speech of the few natives who know other than their own tongue.
Avic grinned widely, showing ivory fangs, in the openings between which shreds of meat still hung.
"Him hungry all same me," he said. "Him out there——" He gestured to the front door which one of the women had closed. "——stay by sled."
Something about this reply seemed to tickle the native for he laughed until the loose folds of hisparkeerippled. Neither Seymour nor Morrow waited to learn the reason for the mirth, but dashed out the door.
In the furrowed trail they found La Marr, holding the dogs with difficulty, for they recognized they were at trail's end. The constable was in his sleeping bag which was lashed to thekoinatik. He had "stay by sled" for an excellent reason. His leg was broken.
"Well, Charlie, I see you got your man," said Seymour, by way of being cheerful, as he steadied the sled which the dogs, under Morrow's guidance, were pulling up the bank into the yard.
"No, Serg., me man got me." The response was in a voice weak from suffering.
They carried him into the house, sleeping bag and all. Before attempting the painful ordeal of extracting the broken, unset limb from the fur-lined sack, they fed him the breast of one of the fool hens that had been left from the interrupted feast. At Seymour's request, the two women went into the kitchen to prepare hot water for the impending operation and a strong broth of which the constable would be in need afterward.
As every missionary in the North is something of a surgeon as well as a lay physician, Luke Morrow hurried to Mission House for his kit. The while, Avic sat on the hearth, contentedly munching a chunk of bannock which no one had the heart to take away from him.
When the room was cleared, Sergeant Seymour leaned over his constable for a low-voiced question. "Is Avic under arrest?"
"I—I hadn't the heart, after all he's done for me," said the injured mountie. "He brought me along willingly enough. Didn't seem the least afraid about coming back to the post. Go easy on him, sergeant. I'd have been wolf food if it hadn't been for him."
The arrest had to be made quickly, before Moira chanced back into the room if their kind-hearted plot was to be sustained. Seymour got the Eskimo's attention, reminded him that he understood English, and went through the formal lines of arrest and warning, with the addition that it was "for the murder of Oliver O'Malley."
"Sure," said the native, who had learned some of his English from American whalers at Herschel Island. "I savey. What do? When we go?"
Seymour did not understand the significance of this last question, but hadn't the time to inquire into it. Leading Avic to the guard room, he turned him in to make friends with Olespe or not, as Eskimo etiquette might decree.
As he was locking the door of the cell room, Moira came from the kitchen with improvised splints and a roll of bandages. She told him quietly of her service in France with a Red Cross unit and asked permission to help with the operation.
"If I can handle the ether or anything——"
"Thank you, Moira," the sergeant interrupted. "If Dr. Morrow can use you, I'll call."
The parson-surgeon returned with medicine and instrument cases. The sleeping bag was slit down its top-center, as the least painful way of removing the patient, and gently they carried him to an improvised operating table in Seymour's quarters.
Morrow proposed an anæsthetic. Even in the hands of a skilled surgeon, he declared, the bone-setting would be most painful; he was just a clumsy, well-intentioned amateur.
"Damme if I'll go out of my head for just a jab of pain," the doughty constable exclaimed.
"A whiff of ether will make it easier, Charlie," suggested his superior. "And I'll whisper a secret—Miss O'Malley is ready to administer it. She served with us in France."
La Marr's black eyes gleamed a second in appreciation. Then he shook his head decisively.
"Aye, and that wouldn't be so bad," he said. "But I've smelled the sweet stuff before. When I am coming out of it I tell all I know. We'll take no chances of ragging her with babbling about Oliver's murder." He turned to Morrow. "Let's go, parson, and do your darndest to make me a straight leg."
The operation took some time, the break being a compound requiring a preliminary reduction. In this Moira did help and perhaps her presence was as potent as anæsthesia. At any rate, not a cry escaped the lips of the broken Mountie.
When the splints finally were fastened and the patient refreshed with a cup of fool-hen broth, Seymour asked an account of the pursuit and accident.
"If you'll hand my jacket—wrote report when I thought we wouldn't pull through." He passed over his note book. "I want to sleep now."
In the living room, the sergeant bent over this blurred scrawl in pencil:
Sert. Seymour, O.C.Armistice Detachment.
Sir:I have the honor to report:
Followed fugitive from one camp to another, always a jump or two behind him. Seemed not to know where he was headed. Ate all my own supplies. Took to Eskimo grub. Not so worse after stomach gets used. Three days ago, crossing lake on gladed ice. Think it was Lake Blarney. Dogs sight a stray wolf. Run away. Sled swerves into fishing hole. Me thrown into water. Leg broken. Make edge of ice and crawl out. Can't go farther. Dogs catch, kill and eat wolf. Come back looking for me, but not near enough so I can swing on sled.
Am freezing to death when come Avic over my trail. For why? He makes camp in spruce, builds fire, tries to fix leg best he can. Asks, "Where go?" I say Armistice. We start. Blizzard comes; grub goes. Can't find cache. May be we get through chewing leather,—maybe not.
Can't make Avic as O'Malley's strangler. Gentle as a woman with me. He's not under arrest, but trying his darndest to get me back to post. If blizzard holds, neither of us will. Maybe this reach you some day.
Respect.,C. LA MARR,Constable R.C.M.P.
Returning to the improvised hospital to ask a question or two needed to fill in gaps in the report, Seymour found Moira sitting beside the bed, stroking the fevered brow with her strong, white hands. She raised one in caution. The patient was asleep.
Partial explanation of Avic's queer behavior came next morning from the Eskimo himself. After breakfast, but before Moira had arrived to undertake her tour of nursing La Marr, Seymour brought the suspect out for examination. The Huskie beat him to the first question.
"When we go?"
Remembering that this identical inquiry had been last voiced by the native the previous afternoon, the sergeant surmised that it must have some significance.
"Go—go where?" he asked. "Where do you expect to go, Avic?"
The Eskimo made a sweeping gesture in a southerly direction. "Up big river," he mumbled gutturally. "See all world. Ride in smoke wagon on land, same like steamboat on water. Live in stone house, big as mountain. Good grub. Long sleeps. Warm like summer all time."
"And why should all that good luck come to you?" Seymour demanded. "Who's been putting such fool ideas into your head?"
Avic looked puzzled. There were words in the sergeant's questions that were new to him. The officer was about to simplify his query when the native blurted out the desired information, evidently sensing that some support was needed by his expectations.
"Nanatalmute boys, she kill white man. Red policeman take boys on long trip. Treat her fine, them boys. Stay away two, three freeze-up. Come back big mens."
Seymour groaned inwardly as he grasped the reference. The Nanatalmutes were the Eskimo who roam the Arctic foreshore to the west of the Mackenzie River. Some years ago an abusive trader had been killed by two youths of the tribe. The authorities of that day decided they should be taken "Outside" for trial. The court developed certain extenuating circumstances which resulted in penitentiary sentences for the pair. In prison, they learned to speak English and were given mechanical training. At term's end, they were returned to their band in this land of "midnight suns and noonday nights."
Theorists held that the two would spread a respect for the white man's greatness and power—that their tales of punishment would make the land safe for the interlopers of another race. The effect, Seymour well knew, had been different. The Nanatalmutes had reported that they had been royally treated. They described the wonders of provincial cities, the thrills of the railway travel, the surprising warmth, the palatial house in which they lived and countless other details that had impressed their childlike minds. Almost, did this mistake of the Law put a premium on white murder, so great was the envy of the two who had turned punishment into signal honor.
So this was Avic's motive for the murder of young O'Malley! Seymour had the native's word that he expected a trip "Outside." The only implication was practically an admission of guilt.
The sergeant knew that procedure had changed. Courts now were sent into the farthest North and trials held at or near the crime's locale. Conviction in Avic's case would more likely mean a hanging, with his fellows looking on, than a pleasure jaunt anywhere. But of this he did not speak. Even this practical admission from the native did not convince him that the Huskie alone was responsible for the killing. His own deductions from the situation in the hut were too well grounded and vivid.
"When we go?" Again came the query from the eager native, this repetition sharpened with impatience.
"Not soon," answered Seymour with a shrug; then suddenly turned the inquiry. "Where did you get those fox skins you show to the factor?"
"Avic trap foxes—black and silver," came the ready answer. "Avic fine hunter—ver' best."
"When did you take them from your traps?"
Seymour considered this question vital. He was convinced that the skins had been cured many months before. If the native lied about this, he would feel certain that his sense of mystery had not been misplaced; that there was more behind the murder than Avic's desire for a trip into the outside world.
The Eskimo did not answer at once. He seemed to be counting back. The sergeant gave him his time.
"Not count weeks and days," he said at last, "Avic trap 'em when the sun go away and the snow comes."
"You mean just after this winter began?" Seymour wished to guard against any misunderstanding.
"This same winter. Avic cousin wife fix 'em plenty. Avic bring 'em to post. Much travel better than trade-barter from store, so not sell. When we go?"
The sergeant did not press the inquiry at the moment. There was a long, long winter ahead of them in which he hoped the whole truth would out.
Several practical reasons decided his next move. He put both of the accused natives under open arrest. Cell room at police quarters was at a premium and food of the sort the natives required was difficult to prepare in a white man's kitchen. The health of the prisoners, which must be his concern until the court had passed on their guilt, was certain to be better if they lived under native conditions. Friends and relatives were more than ready to take them in for sustenance allowance he granted each. After making them understand that they were not to leave camp under penalty of his wrath, he turned them loose—a parole, it may be said here, that was not broken.
The happiest weeks in Russell Seymour's memory were those that immediately followed. With his lone constable bedfast, his presence at or near headquarters was required unless some dire emergency rose. For once, he thanked his lucky stars that nothing happened to break the joyous monotony.
For a week, Moira, in her role of nurse, spent most of her days at the post. While she was kindness itself to La Marr and anticipated most of his wants, there was no doubt that her real interest was in the sergeant. A close friendship sprang up as they found many interests in common and exchanged life stories with endless detail. At that, each had their mental reservations. Nothing the girl said, for instance, threw any light on her real reason for making her unseasonable and unexpected northward dash. And his lips never hinted that he was hopelessly in love.
In holding back, however, the girl had every advantage over the man. She did not need word of mouth to tell her the state of his feelings. Indeed, her worry was over the promptness of her own heart, as she confided to Emma Morrow. Was propinquity disturbing her judgment, and isolation distorting her viewpoint? She feared a mistake that might make them both unhappy in the future. With a tact that at times made her feel cruel both to him and herself, she held the situation level with the spirit of friendship.
Her attitude was made easy by the more active wooing of Harry Karmack. The handsome factor was not held back by any sense of poverty, which is felt perforce by anyone who had little but his police pay, a far from princely dole. Karmack was as persistent as circumstances and Moira would permit; quite too impetuous, in fact, for the comfort of one whose interests were divided.
For a time, the girl was put to it to keep the two apart. When they both "made" Mission House at the same time, she felt that she was spending the evening in a TNT factory. While the men never actually clashed physically, she felt certain that only Seymour's military discipline kept them apart. At last, she was forced to put them on schedule, giving each two evenings a week, but with understanding that they were not to come even on their assigned nights unless she previously sent them word. The need for such an expedient could scarcely arise "Outside," but she saw no other way out of the difficulty in Armistice, unless she was ready to undertake a "for-better-or-worse" decision. And out of this situation grew Russell Seymour's greatest despair.
The first of his evenings arrived, but no summons from the Irish beauty. The next afternoon, with Mrs. Morrow, she dropped in at police headquarters to cheer the convalescing constable. She chose a time when she must have known the sergeant was afield exercising the police team of malamutes. Also, according to La Marr, she had not been indisposed the previous evening.
A second of Seymour's scheduled visits passed into the discard of time with no word from her, and then a third. Being an exponent of direct action, Seymour decided to learn the reason for this sudden change which, to him, was unexplainable. He made certain she had not started on her daily snow-shoe sprint about the camp, an exercise of which she was fond and at which, for a girl, something of an expert. Mid-afternoon, he presented himself at Mission House. Luke Morrow admitted him; carried his request for an interview.
More anxious than he dared to admit, even to himself, the sergeant waited, his fingers crunching the fur of his cap as he paced the living room. Even before Morrow spoke on returning, he knew the beauty's thumbs were down. The missionary's expression was too sympathetic for any answer.
"Miss O'Malley asks that you'll excuse her, sergeant," was his formal report.
"Is she ill?"
"Not physically, I'm afraid."
Seymour was too dazed for his pride to come into action. To be turned away without a word didn't seem fair. What's more, it wasn't at all like Moira O'Malley. Surely he had the right to know his fault—his crime?
"Thunderin' icebergs, Luke Morrow! Tell me what I've done to be treated like this?" he demanded.
"I'm sure I can't imagine, Russell."
"Does Madame Emma know?"
The sky-pilot shook his head. "Moira has not mentioned your name to either of us since the last evening you spent here." He hesitated a moment. "She does know at last that her brother was murdered—that such was the accident of the Arctic we reported to her."
"Then she thinks I'm responsible for trying to soften that ordeal?" Even as he asked, however, he felt certain that there must be something more of a misunderstanding than that.
"I took full responsibility for our not telling her the full details," said Morrow. "You'll remember I first suggested——"
"Then Karmack must have——"
He did not finish, but flung himself out the door. Before the missionary could utter a word of caution or advise moderation, Sergeant Seymour was plowing the trail for the Arctic's establishment.
If it is true, as Kipling says, that "single men in barracks don't grow into plaster saints," it is doubly true of the same in lonely detachment shacks of the Royal Mounted scattered about the Arctic foreshore. Living week upon week with the thermometer at the breaking point, with the momentary sun blackened out for days in swirling snow, with a sameness of grub that fairly gnaws the appetite, the wonder is that they carry through with even members of their own outfit.
Suddenly mix in with this condition of life an attractive, unattached, unexpected white woman and you have a yeast more potent than dynamite. Let some outsider stir the mixture with the ladle of false witness and surely the dough overflows the pan.
As he descended upon the trading post and the tricky factor, Russell Seymour was scarcely a staff non-com of the Royal Mounted. For the moment he was simply a he-man who happened to be encased in the king's scarlet. Even as he was accustomed to express regard for the rights of others, so was he ready to defend his own. A dangerous man for the time being and one with an initial advantage over Karmack, for Seymour's nerve was backed by morality and right.
He did not trouble to knock on the door of the factor's living quarters, but yanked at the latch-string. Finding no one in the comparatively luxurious living room, he stamped into the store, a low-ceilinged 36 x 24. Along one wall were shelves on which were displayed the "junk" that goes to make an Arctic trader's stock. Protecting these notions, generally more than less unsuited for customer's use, was a counter. From the ceiling along the other wall, depended the furs and pelts that had been taken in barter and not yet baled for shipment to the marts of trade where women would pay whatever price the market exacted that they might adorn themselves.
Harry Karmack was there, gloating over some fox skins just taken at a fraction of their value from one of the Indian hunters who had come up from the South. If he was surprised at the unannounced visit by way of his living quarters, his face did not betray it. It was a perfect mask.
"You've been making yourself quite a stranger, sergeant," he said, his tone pleasant enough. "It's the very devil what a havoc woman can make of man-to-man friendships up here in the Frozen North. Is it possible you've come to whimper at my success with Moira—Miss O'Malley, the finest woman——"
"Not to whimper, Karmack," Seymour cut in.
"Best take your medicine, sergeant. As a mere Arctic cop, on next to nothing a year, you never had a chance to be anything more to her than an entertaining decoration. From now on, you won't even decorate."
Under this insult-to-injury, Seymour held himself with his stoutest grip.
"I came," he declared with an ominous outward calm, "to learn just what you said to Miss O'Malley when you broke our pact of silence about Oliver's murder."
"Oh, I said just that—told her as gently as possible certain facts. It was high time she knew. Did you expect me to ask your august permission after what has happened?"
The factor put away the pelts he had been examining on Seymour's entry and, with casual manner, came from behind the counter. On the open floor of the store the rivals faced each other.
"You told her more than the facts in this case, Karmack," the sergeant said, his words dragging with earnest emphasis. "I'm here to know what you said and know I will—even if—I am compelled to bash you up."
Karmack laughed harshly, perhaps to show a confidence which he just may have felt, knowing how long-suffering the Mounties are by hard training and practice.
"Threatening violence, eh?" said the factor with a sneer. "Thinking of using your police power to repair your shattered romance? Dear eyes, what a blooming bone to pull!"
"I'm not here as a policeman and I'll lay aside the tools of my trade."
Unhooking the belt that held a holstered revolver to his hip, he placed the accouterments upon the counter at the end nearest the front door. Beside them he laid a "come along," a small steel article with chain attachment useful in handling refractory prisoners. With his long arms swinging loosely at his sides, he strode back to face the factor.
"Now, Karmack, what else did you tell the girl?"
"Perhaps I showed her how careless kind you are to Avic, named by the coroner's jury as her brother's murderer." The handsome factor was enjoying himself. "Of course it would be likely to please her, seeing the only suspect yet named wandering about the camp at will, living in idleness on your bounty, likely to slope off into the snows and never be heard from again."
"The Eskimo is under open arrest—regular enough under the circumstances. I'll stand——"
Seymour caught himself. He did not need to defend his official conduct to this trouble maker. Moreover, he felt that Karmack must have gone further with his insinuations. The matter and manner of Avic's custody might have carried the girl to him in protest, with demand for an explanation; but it was not enough to have brought about an utter break without a word.
"Let's hear the rest of it, Karmack—the whole damnable misrepresentation." Fingers twitching beside the yellow stripe of his trousers showed his tension.
"Perhaps I told her about the foxes—the silver and black!" The factor's tone was triumphant.
Seymour's expression was too well schooled to betray any surprise at this unexpected thrust. "What about the fox pelts?"
"They disappeared, didn't they, most mysteriously? They were in the hut when you left it under seal the night of your return and Moira's arrival. The hut still was sealed when you took the coroner's jury there the next day, but the pelts were not. The jury never saw them. That's what about the fox pelts."
Seymour's lips were as white as the freshly drifted snow outside and his voice as cold as the temperature when he asked what the factor meant to insinuate.
"Perhaps the kindest interpretation for you," Karmack began with gloating insolence, "is that those fox pelts are buying an easy winter for Oliver O'Malley's slayer with an ultimate get-away in the spring. In other words, Seymour, you're a disgrace to the uniform you wear—the first I've ever met with. You're a low-down, grafting bribe-taker and to show you how I respect——"
Instead of finishing his tirade, the factor flashed out with his right in a vicious upper-cut. Seymour sensed rather than saw it coming. Having developed a cat-like quickness, he might have dodged and let the blow slide past; but preferred to take it on his jaw of iron. He needed, he felt, the sting of it to release for the deserved punishment of his detractor all the latent powers within his rangy frame.
At once, the hard-knuckled mill was on—a furious battle of males, for this session, primitive males. Science, if either of them knew aught but the rough and tumble tactics of the outlands, was forgot. Blows were exchanged with a rapidity that must have been beyond the scoring of ring-side experts had there been any present. In the States, thousands pay their tens of dollars to see fights that were so little like this one as to seem primrose teas. There was nothing gentle about it. Not until Karmack sprawled his length on the rough board floor was there the slightest breathing space, unless you'd call breathing the insucked breaths between clinched teeth that sounded more like exhausts from wheezy locomotives.
Seymour stepped back to give the factor time and space to rise if fight still was left in him. Great as was his provocation, he insisted on fighting fair. That there are no rules for rough-and-tumble made no difference to him. He couldn't hit a man who was down.
Karmack came up with a surprising show of strength, his eyes gleaming dangerously. One of these the sergeant closed with a body-wrecking jolt. In turn, he was knocked heavily against the counter. The sharp edge of this caught him across the small of the back, a terrific kidney blow. The surge of pain seemed to open the hinges of his knees.
At that vital moment, when he must have been hard put to keep his feet in any event, the factor fouled him with a vicious kick on the shin. It was inevitable that Seymour go down. In falling, though, he managed to lunge his body forward, gaining a clutching grip on his opponent's torso, and carrying him along.
There on the floor they rolled over and over like a couple of polar bears in deadly combat. First one and then the other was on top and in position to jab. Claret splotches marked their irregular course. Fingers tangled and untangled, now in the factor's black mop, then in the sergeant's brown one. The latter's uniform was tattered; the factor's tweeds were shredded. Punishment, however, was well distributed and the battle, so far, a draw.
But this winter, Karmack had held close to his store and spent long hours with his pipe; Seymour had roamed the open and seared his lungs with the vital air of the North. In the end, this difference which leather-pushers know as "wind condition" told its tale. The factor was rasping when the Mountie was still breathing with comparative ease. Longer and longer on each turn was the policeman holding the uppermost position.
Suddenly Karmack, underneath, ceased violent struggles. It seemed he had weakened.
"Had 'nough?" demanded Seymour. "Ready to tell the girl the truth?"
For answer, he felt the press of steel against his ribs. He realized in a flash that the factor had drawn a gun from some handy concealment and that his seconds probably were numbered unless he rolled instantly out of range.
Roll he did just as the pistol growled.
The bullet grazed a button from his official tunic, then thudded into the plasterboard that covered the log wall. Next second, with a bone-breaking wrench, he twisted the weapon from the trickster's fingers. Scrambling to his feet, he threw down upon his opponent, meaning to cover him, just as the front door of the store was thrown open.
With the rush of icy air from without came a shrill feminine cry more startling than any previous happening of the contest.
"Don't shoot!" was the command that followed. "Don't you dare shoot, you uniformed brute!"
Seymour turned to see Moira glaring at him from behind an automatic pistol of her own, a blue-black little gun that was held as steady as a pointed finger. The sky-pilot up at Mission House was a pacifist, the sergeant knew. Doubtless he had told the girl the direction his anger had taken him.
"At last I believe," the girl went on, passion in her voice, but not the slightest waver in her aim. "Well chosen was the name I gave you, Sergeant Scarlet!"
The stress she gave her nickname for him startled Seymour. "Just what do you mean, Moira?" he asked, keeping one eye upon the prone factor who seemed as startled by the intrusion as himself.
"That I've found the murderer of my brother and don't propose to see him claim another victim."
So that was what Harry Karmack had told the girl. That was why the light of her wondrous eyes had gone out for him. Any added hate of his enemy that might have grown from this was lost in her statement that she believed. To make certain that she considered him guilty, he put the direct question.
"After what I've just seen—on top of all that was pointed out to me—I'm forced to believe," she said brokenly. "Go, before I take a vengeance that is not mine to take, but the Law's. Go—go!"
As broken as the gun he flung at Karmack, Sergeant Seymour gathered up his sidearms from the counter and stalked out of the Arctic's store room.
Ten days after the battle between the sergeant and the factor, the quiet of Armistice camp was again upset, this time most unexpectedly by the arrival of the "scarlet special." A corporal of the Royal Mounted breezed in by dog team over the frozen wastes from far-away Athabaska, the end of rail gateway of the North, where English to some extent gives place to Cree.
That he brought no mail—beyond a sealed order bag for Sergeant Seymour—showed that the special's visit was as sudden as a telegram. But he did carry a late newspaper or two and several magazines that gave week-by-week gists of the world's news since Armistice last had heard from "Outside," so his unexpected arrival was more than welcome to the whites in the camp.
To the disappointment of Corporal Gaspard Le Blanc, the short, plump but doughty French-Canadian who had made the remarkable trip, Seymour was not at the post. The morning after the fight, a report had reached the detachment that a band of Eskimo on Skelly River were destitute. With Constable La Marr still convalescing from his accident, the sergeant had set out to investigate. His return was expected any hour of any day.
As the orders were sealed, the corporal to open them only when assured that something had happened to the ranking non-com to whom they were addressed, there seemed nothing to do but wait.
Factor Karmack was the first to call at headquarters. He met with a cold reception from La Marr, who naturally had sided with his superior on learning of the aspersion put upon the Force by the fur trader's insinuations in the O'Malley case.
"I hear there's a special in from outside," began the factor in his blandest manner. "Hope he had a good trip."
"Aye, not so bad," returned the constable, as communicative as a seal.
"By any chance, did he bring any mail for me?"
"Nothing but police business,—this special."
If Karmack was disturbed, he took pains not to show it.
"But surely he brought some newspapers. Might I borrow——"
"I'm sending a spare paper over to Mission House," was the chilly response. "You'd best go there for your news, Karmack."
The factor made as graceful an exit as any one could have asked, nodding pleasantly to the newly arrived corporal. Familiar with the usual fraternity of life in the land of bared boughs and grieving winds, the genial Gaspard expressed surprise.
"What the hell how is?" he asked. "You gots something on that crow,non?"
"I don't like him," was all La Marr replied, not caring to bare his superior's heart troubles even to one of the Force.
The corporal, steeled against prying into personal affairs, asked no further questions. The two spent the day pleasantly by the open fire, which Avic—the prisoner under open arrest—kept replenished, it happening to be his week for headquarters fatigue duty.
At four in the afternoon, Sergeant Seymour mushed in, tired and worn from his long errand of mercy. This he had solved by moving the improvident band to another camp of natives who were well supplied with food, the usual procedure in a country where it is impracticable to move relief supplies in mid-winter.
His first glance at the features of the corporal, who turned out to help him with the dogs, acted as a cocktail that banished all fatigue. A strange Mountie in quarters could mean only excitement of some sort and that was the most joyous tonic the sergeant knew.
Scarcely did he wait to peel off his trail clothes, so eager was he to break the seal of the dispatch bag. It held but a single sheet of orders—a dispatch from the commissioner himself dated at Ottawa more than five weeks before. With the two subordinates looking on in an interest that dared not be put into question form, he read and reread the message. The second scanning thereof snapped him to his feet.
"When did you arrive, corporal?" he asked.
"This morning—early."
"Said nothing about what brought you, I hope?"
A smile flicked the ruddy Canadian face and the French shoulders shrugged. "How could I, when I know not why they sent me on such a mush of the devil?"
"Karmack was here asking for mail—for the loan of papers," added La Marr. "I told him to go to Mission House for his news."
"Good enough," nodded the O.C. and started getting into the uniform which he wore when at the detachment. In his absence the tunic had been made fairly presentable, with few traces of his clash with the factor. "I'm going out for a prisoner," he said at the door. "You boys sit tight."
Straight across to the store of the Arctic Trading Company he stalked, but to meet with disappointment. Both the store and dwelling of Karmack were locked. Even the native interpreter was not to be roused. But the sergeant remembered what the constable had said about going to Mission House for newspapers. Doubtless, the factor was there, reading what had happened in the all-alive world since last report. It would not surprise him to find the four making a news feast out of the unexpected boon—reading aloud in turn every morsel of type, even to the new advertisements. He quartered to the house of the Morrows.
"Safe home again, Seymour," Luke Morrow greeted him and dragged him hospitably into the living room. "It is well, but I wish you'd been a day sooner."
Seymour did not trouble to learn what the missionary meant by his concluding wish, but asked at once if Karmack was calling.
The missionary shook his head, his expression one of genuine surprise.
"Sort of expected to find him—reading papers brought in by special," explained Seymour. "La Marr said he had sent some over to you and told Karmack to come here for the news."
"Why—but—" Morrow was disturbed to a point of stammering distress. "The factor was here this morning, but he had news of his own. Didn't he leave the keys to the trading post with you police?"
Seymour in his turn, was aroused. "The keys! Why should he leave his keys with us?"
"He came here shortly before noon," explained the sky-pilot. "Said the scarlet special had brought him a summons to Ottawa that could not be denied. He meant to ask you people to take charge until his relief arrived. His years of pioneer service in the North had been rewarded at last, he told us, and he was to be made a high official of the Arctic at the Ottawa headquarters. Naturally, we rejoiced with him."
"The nerve of the scamp!" exclaimed the sergeant. "The only word the special brought was a warrant for his arrest. He has been robbing the company for years and they've just found him out—got the proof. I came to arrest him. He must have surmised that the coming of the special meant only one thing and decided to make his get-away. And howling sun-dogs, this warrant I hold is a secret one! No general alarm has been sent out. Can I see Miss O'Malley—perhaps he's told her something of his plans? In the interests of justice, after she's seen the warrant, I'm sure she'll not protect him, much as she dislikes me."
The missionary seemed stunned. He bent over in his chair and cupped his hands over his eyes in an attitude of prayer.
"Good Lord, forgive us for our sins of omission," Seymour heard him murmur. "We are but mortal and the flesh of all mortals is weak. How were we to know——"
"Here, here!" interrupted the sergeant impatiently, although he had respect enough for prayer. "It's not your fault that Karmack got away or that you let him use Mission House in his courtship. You good folks couldn't have known he had done anything wrong. Send for Miss O'Malley at once. I've no time to lose."
Luke Morrow forgot his supplications for pardon and sprang to his feet. "No time to lose. You're right. That scoundrel was persuasive and we were weak. Karmack took Moira with him, offering her safe conduct to her friends and home in British Columbia. We'll never forgive ourselves for——"
But Sergeant Scarlet was gone in too great a hurry to close the door behind him.
Like a Windigo hoodie of the sub-Arctic on the trail of a craven Cree, Sergeant Seymour pushed through the white silence in pursuit of his fugitive. If the capture of Harry Karmack, embezzler, spurred him officially, the saving of Moira O'Malley from the fate that seemed in store for her lent wings to his snow-shoes. To himself he did not deny the fact that the personal interest was the most potent. There would be weeks and weeks, if required, to run down the dishonest trader. Didn't the Royal Mounted always get their man? But there were only hours, he sincerely believed, in which to spare the most beautiful feminine creature he had ever seen a lifetime of humiliation and grief.
This was no night for travel. All the rules of Northern trails forbade it. With the spirit thermometer down to sixty-five below, he should have been snugly in camp in some snow bank, wrapped in rabbit-skin robes or encased in a sleeping bag, with his malamutes snuggled around him. The spirit within that enabled him to defy the inexorable grip of the frost was the same that had not permitted him to delay pursuit's start an hour.
Frankly, he would not have gone out that night after Karmack had the rascal been escaping alone. Considering the factor's passenger, however, nothing could have kept him at the Armistice detachment post.
There action had been swift once he had the fell news from Luke Morrow. At quarters, he had turned over the post to Corporal Le Blanc. He was to keep the Arctic company's trade-room and furs under seal; to do no trading except that which the welfare of visiting Indians and Eskimos demanded. Hardship might be worked if the trusting natives came in to exchange their furs for supplies and found no mart. The two Eskimo murderers were to remain under open arrest unless they displayed signs of wanderlust after his departure. La Marr was to take no chances with his injured leg, the corporal to make such patrols as were absolutely necessary. Thus, like a good commander, he prepared for the all-too-many eventualities of winter travel.
Morrow had followed him to police quarters almost at once with an offer of the Mission House malamutes for the stern chase—stern in more than one sense of the word. Knowing that both the police teams were worn out—the one of the scarlet special and the other of mercy's errand—Seymour had accepted the mission's team, although he preferred always to drive his own dogs when they were in the least fit.
From Morrow, he had details of Karmack's morning visit which had resulted in Moira's unfortunate decision to attempt to go "Outside" under his escortage. Karmack had said he meant to take the shortest course to the Mackenzie on the frozen surface of which he expected to find a more or less traveled trail. He would be delighted to have Moira's company. She could drive her own team and would find it easy to follow his own huskies. They would have the Arctic's interpreter, a famous musher, to break trail and keep them on the right track. It would be an express trip, he had declared, and she would find herself with her friends before she knew it.
"Emma and I tried to dissuade her from taking the chance," the missionary had told Seymour with tears in his voice, "but the temptation was too much for the girl. We assured her she would be welcome to spend the rest of the winter, but she wanted to depart the scene of the tragedy."
At the moment, Seymour had wondered how much her ill-founded disappointment in him had affected her decision. And this thought kept recurring to him now as he followed the double sled trails. It clinched his determination to overtake them at the earliest possible moment.
Fortunately there was no wind to-night and he had nothing to contend against but the bitterness of the cold. He was traveling "light" with caribou pemmican, hardtack and tea as the major contents of his grub sack. The mission dogs were running as if out for an exercise jaunt; but the air was too frigid to permit much riding for their driver. Often he had to hold them back that he might not become absolutely winded.
Already he had proved one lie in Karmack's statement to the girl and the missionary, as reported with undoubted truthfulness by the latter. The fugitive was not headed directly for the Mackenzie River, the natural highway "Outside." That would have taken him by the Wolf Lake trading and mission station. Even in the night, the sergeant recognized the ridge they were following and that there had been a sharp veering to the south-west. The course would bring them to the river far from any outpost and doubtless Karmack, if he got away, would continue to avoid all such on the way up river until certain he had out-distanced any pursuit.
The possibility that already the girl regretted her hasty decision to leave the Morrows occurred to him as a possible reason for Karmack's change of course. If she had threatened to give up the attempt upon reaching Wolf Lake, the factor, naturally, would give the other missionaries a wide berth. But cheering as was the idea, he soon dismissed it. Moira O'Malley was not the sort to turn back on an endeavor, and it was improbable that there had been any alarming overtures from Karmack so early in the wild project. He was clever, was Handsome Harry, and, by his own boast, experienced with women. He would wait until he had completely won her by the countless services that would crop up on a trip of this sort. All the more reason, then, for Seymour to overtake and capture before they got beyond reach of return to Armistice. Again and again his goad of caribou hide snapped near the ears of his team. The panting animals flattened their bodies while he rode the sled in defiance of the frost.
Soon after break of day, belated in this latitude and season, came his reward. In the course of the night's sled run he had worked out of the bare tundra country of the foreshore into a region splotched here and there with brush. Now he saw rising from one of the clumps ahead a spiral of smoke marking someone's breakfast fire.
No difficulty was there in guessing whose fire—not in the Great Barrens! Evidently, from the distance covered, Karmack had driven far into the night, but, none the less, did not mean to be deprived of an early start on the second day of his dash for freedom.
Seymour dragged the mission dogs to a halt a mile away from the fugitive's camp. When rival teams meet on the snows, they dash at each others' throats with a chorus of yowls and all the strength of their respective masters is required to keep them apart. The sergeant expected to be engaged otherwise than clubbing malamutes when he got to that breakfast fire.
Accordingly, he untraced the team and chained them to the sled in such a way that any attempt to move that vehicle on the part of the animals leashed to one side would immediately meet with resistance of the dogs on the other side. Such an anchorage he had tried before and proved effective; in fact, it is about the only one possible in the open snow-fields.
Tossing each of the seven in the team a frozen fish, he removed hisparkee, exposing to ready grasp the revolver at his hip. From its deer-hide case, he unlimbered his rifle as a precaution against being "potted" in case his approach was discovered at too great a distance for small-arm accuracy. Then he moved swiftly forward, the tails of his "webs" leaving a wake of flying snow.
Evidently, the three of the flight party were at breakfast, for he bore down on the temporary camp without alarm. Soon he was near enough to hear the dogs of their two teams snarling over the morning meal. Noting that they were tethered between him and his objective, he circled for a safer approach.
Almost was he upon the camp when he saw Karmack departing in the direction of the dogs. Easily could he have picked off the accused embezzler with his rifle. But——
"Never fire first!"
With the real slogan of the Royal Mounted he admonished himself under his breath.
Nearer over the crunching snow he crept on that clumsy-looking but most effective footgear which man may have adopted from the snow-shoe rabbit. Now he could make out the front of a pup tent, doubtless thrown up for the protection of the beauty of the party. Koplock, the Arctic's interpreter, could be seen packing utensils for the start. The girl was not in sight.
Two minutes more would have brought him into camp and everyone under cover of his rifle. Then, from out of the tent, came Moira, facing him!
He heard her cry out; could not determine whether from surprise at the unexpected appearance of a human stalking out of the white solitude or as a warning to her companions.
Of these, Karmack whirled at first alarm, but the native did not look up from his task. Evidently the factor recognized the unwelcome visitor, for he started back with a rush, drawing his automatic as he ran.
"Never fire first!" the voice of training whispered as the sergeant hurled himself toward his foe.
Karmack's pistol barked. A bullet whizzed past the policeman's ear, a narrow miss but as good as a mile.
Now came the King's turn. Upward to his shoulder swung the gun with which Seymour had won many a target match. In a second, it seemed, Karmack must bite the snow.
But the gun never was fired. Into direct range between the two men, Moira O'Malley had flung herself, a tall, fur-clad figure. The human target of the scoundrel momentarily was blanketed. What mattered it that the school girl of Ottawa was pointing an automatic as steadily as she had held it upon him in the trade room that time back in Armistice. Sergeant Scarlet could not fire upon an innocent woman.
He barely saw a whiff of smoke leave the mouth of her pistol, scarcely heard what seemed a double report, when a burning sensation along one temple and across the side of his scalp threw him backward to a fall on his side.
And as he toppled into the snow, to lie inert and helpless, it seemed to him that the glorious girl lunged forward to the same cold couch that was his.
Was it possible that, by some involuntary pressure on the trigger, he had fired at Moira O'Malley? In the paralytic clutch of the moment he could not answer the heart-burning question.
Consciousness must have fled Seymour's mind for just a moment. With its return, he realized that Karmack was shouting excited orders to Koplock, the interpreter. Haunted by that last glimpse of Moira tumbling forward into the snow, the sergeant tried to raise himself for another look over the tragic stage. Only his brain seemed awake; body muscles refused to respond to its demand. He could only lie there, staring into the dingy, low-hung sky, and listen.
"Very bad affair this one, boss," he heard.
The voice was Koplock's and the conversational tone, which carried through the frosty stillness plainly, indicated that the interpreter and the factor stood together.
"The red-coat killed her firing at me, you can see that and swear to it, can't you?" Karmack demanded.
"But no, Meestair Karmack," came from the native. "She is hit from the back. It was your bullet that lay her low. Koplock swear to nothing but the truth."
An imprecation sprang from the factor's lips, but scarcely registered with the listening sergeant. He was too filled with rejoicing that no involuntary shot of his had struck her down.
"It don't matter," he heard Karmack grumble. "Go have a look at the policeman. If only she killed him——"
Seymour heard the crunch of snow-shoes; knew that the native was coming toward him. What should he do? He was convinced that his wound was only a "crease"; hoped that the muscular numbness would pass. To feign death under the native's inspection was his first impulse.
But to that plan, several objections immediately presented themselves. The mission-schooled Eskimo would be hard to deceive with no more convincing evidence than a bullet graze. Again, there was no telling how long the paralysis that gripped him would continue. No one could lay out in to-day's temperature for any length of time without freezing.
He recalled that Koplock had always shown a dog-like devotion to him; undoubtedly was grateful for the fees which Seymour had paid for his services as interpreter for the government. Certainly the native was greatly disturbed by what had just happened. To throw himself on the Eskimo's mercy held some risk but more chance of ultimate safety than attempting to play 'possum.
In the moment of the bronze man's crossing, the sergeant had argued this out and come to a decision.
His eyes were closed when Koplock stood over him and touched his body with the toe of his muckluck. The native stooped for a close examination of the head wound. Seymour's eyes opened, his lips moved in a whisper.
"Stand by your king," he said. "Tell Karmack I'm dead, but don't go on with him."
Koplock assented with a wink and quickly straightened.
"Him passed out," Seymour heard him call to his employer. "Center shot."
"Not so bad," came the unfeeling response from the factor. "That's what he gets for edging into my affairs. Come here, you."
The sergeant heard the native shoeing back and then came the calloused instructions of a hard-pressed fugitive who could not afford to lose his head in such an emergency.
"I must mush on with my dogs," said Karmack. "Take the girl back to Armistice on her sled. Tell them—oh, make up any story you like; you'll do that anyhow. I'll be where they'll never get me."
"What do with him?" Koplock asked, pointing toward Seymour.
"The cop—let the wolves bury him."
Five minutes or so after Karmack's "Mush—mush on!" had signalled his continuation of flight, Koplock again was at the side of the sergeant.
"Him very bad mans, that Factor Karmack," he said as he began a vigorous massage of Seymour's limbs. For a moment he worked vigorously to restore circulation and the officer was able to reward him by twitching his fingers.
"Big joke, this on Karmack," went on the native, chuckling gutturally.
"Where's the joke with Miss O'Malley dead?" Seymour demanded, as the Eskimo turned him over to knead his spine. Koplock was too much engaged in his operations to reply readily, then:
"The most big joke him is Miss O'Malley she am not dead but just some hurt like you."
The effect upon Seymour was magical. Power returned to his muscles as suddenly as it had departed from them. Of his own will, he turned over and sat up in the snow. With the Eskimo's aid, he got to his feet. He glanced anxiously over the battle scene, but could see nothing of the beloved figure. His eyes put the question.
"Koplock carry her to tent," answered the native.
"Good boy, Koplock!"
Slowly, for his legs were numb, and with the native's grip to steady him, Seymour walked to the tent. There the girl lay wrapped in a rabbit-skin robe, gazing open-eyed at the roof, upon her flushed face an expression of surprise, as if she did not understand just what had befallen her.
"Thank heaven you're alive!" cried the Mountie, staring down at her, his eyes brimming with tears of rejoicing.
"You—you!" she murmured. "Where is Mr. Karmack?" She seemed afraid and her wide eyes accused him cruelly.
Seymour sat down beside her. "After nearly murdering you,MisterKarmack has continued his flight," he said. "You and I will thrash this out once and for all, Moira. The wound of his shot in your back will have to wait until I've cleared your mind of certain apprehensions."
She turned from him, but he felt certain that she would listen. First he assured her of his great liking for her brother, a mutual regard, he believed. Then he recounted every pertinent detail of the brutal strangling with the Ugiuk-line, not forgetting the evidence of the two too-well-curried fox pelts. Frankly, he set forth Karmack's jealous motive in casting her suspicions upon himself. Her own misinterpretation of the scene she had interrupted in the trade room was contended with a convincing account of the entire struggle, ending with Karmack's attempt to shoot him. To prove the factor's real reason for flight, he read her the warrant which the "scarlet special" had brought from Ottawa.
"And to-day," he concluded, "while trying again to kill me, he shot you instead."
Slowly the girl turned her averted gaze. With a glad throbbing of heart, he saw she was convinced.
"And I believed—a thief," she mourned. "I started for the provinces with him that I might the sooner have the law on you. My heart told me—why, why didn't I listen—that it could not be you. Oh, Sergeant Scarlet, can you ever forgive me?"
"Forgiven already—and forgotten, all but Karmack's devilish part," he assured her.
Now, for the first time, the girl noticed the gash across his scalp. "But you—you're wounded. How——who?——"
"It's just a scratch," said he cheerfully. "Knocked me out for a bit, you know, but all right now. The how and who don't matter. Suppose we see how slightly you're hurt?"
Koplock stood in the tent door with a pan of boiling water, heated at Seymour's orders. The sergeant took this from him and sent him to bring in the police team. Then, with deft fingers, he set about an examination of what proved to be a shoulder wound.
To his great relief, he found that the bullet had gone entirely through, leaving a clean bore through the muscles, with no need for probing. The girl's coma, so like death as to deceive the excited factor, evidently had been from shock. Applying a first-aid dressing, he bundled the injured shoulder against the cold.
Koplock, with fingers none too gentle, looked after Seymour's own injury and bandaged it with material from the police emergency kit. Then they gathered brush from the thicket and built a rousing fire before the tent.
That they would make no attempt to move that day was Seymour's first decision. The girl, he felt, needed rest after the shock of her wounding more than immediate attention from one with more surgical experience than he possessed. Whether to take her back to Armistice or across country to Wolf Lake required more consideration. The fact that there was a missionary surgeon at the lake who had more skill than Luke Morrow finally decided him. Moreover, by going to the trading post, he would be much nearer the frozen highway of the Mackenzie over which his pursuit of Karmack must continue.
In the afternoon, as they lounged in the tent with the genial warmth of the brush fire playing upon them, Seymour broached one of the mysteries of the eventful winter.
"Mind telling me, Moira, what brought you on this wild, unseasonable dash into the North?" he asked her.
"It was fear, Sergeant Scarlet—fear for my brother."
He was surprised. "You mean that you had a premonition that something was going to happen to him?"
"Not that exactly," the girl amplified her first response. "There was a motion picture I chanced to see in Ottawa. It was a dreadful thing called 'The Perils of the North' or something like that. The young man in the picture, away from all of his own kind—well, you know what might happen. He became a—a squaw man. I got to thinking of Oliver. He had dashed off while I was on a visit in Montreal and hadn't even said good-bye. There was nothing really to keep me in the cities and I decided my place was with him. That was why I came and not in time——" she broke off with a sob.
Sergeant Seymour assured her that her apprehensions of her brother becoming a squaw-man were absolutely unfounded. A cleaner specimen of young Canadian, he declared, had never fared to the Arctic foreshore. But he did not tell her, then, the real reason behind Oliver O'Malley's ill-starred venture.