The scene in the rotunda of Montreal's impressive Windsor Station was as lively as it was metropolitan. Trains arrived with their outpourings of passengers, baggage laden, rejoicing at journey's end in the Paris of Canada. Immigrants, queerly dressed, stood about in huddled groups, waiting to be herded into the cars that would carry them to the wheat lands of Saskatchewan or the green forests of British Columbia. "Red caps" bustled about with the expensive looking luggage of tourists bound back to their own United States with their thirsts, for once, thoroughly quenchedsansany violation of law.
At one gate to the train shed, an explosive Frenchman bade a tearful farewell to a brother ticketed for Winnipeg. At another, behind a brass guard rail, a tall, upstanding citizen waited with impatience the coming of the Ottawa express. His fur coat was unbuttoned and an open-faced suit of evening clothes showed beneath. In fact, even his oldest friends in the far North might have passed him by without recognizing Staff Sergeant Russell Seymour, on special detail.
The hunt for Harry Karmack, embezzler of the funds of the Arctic Trading Company, Ltd., of course, had not been given up. This was Seymour's "special"—and would be until the fugitive was apprehended, as is the way of the Royal Mounted. Even a report brought to Fort McMurray by a wandering Chipewyan that the factor's body had been found frozen at the foot of Ptarmigan Bluffs had not halted the search an hour. The Indian's story was too "pat"; the last lost-in-blizzard note signed "Karmack" too obvious a plant.
A blizzard there had been, to be sure, a stem-winder. Just in time to escape the white scourge howling South, Seymour had mushed into Wolf Creek Station with his precious invalid. But he could not believe that the Armistice factor had permitted himself to be caught in the storm. Too long had Karmack been in the North to meet any such tenderfoot fate. An old trick, that of reporting one's self dead by freezing. The thief might have saved himself the expense of hiring the Indian to bring in the "death notice," for all it was believed.
This blizzard had held Seymour at Wolf for three endless weeks. There had been just one recompense. At the end of that period the mission surgeon had pronounced Moira sufficiently recovered to continue her trip by dog team. The weather had favored them and eventually they had found themselves in Athabaska, end-of-steel! The trains of the Canadian National and the Grand Trunk Pacific had carried them to Ottawa, the girl to a welcome in the home of friends, the sergeant to report at headquarters.
After a conference with the commissioner, Seymour had stepped out of uniform and into plain clothes. The still-hunt then begun had continued for three months, leading first to Quebec whence Karmack had originally hailed. There the sergeant had obtained information which confirmed his disbelief of the lost-in-blizzard note. Karmack had paid a stealthy visit to his old home and departed. Rumor had it that he had gone to the States. Therefore, Seymour did not cross the border to look for him. Knowing the man and his inclinations, the sergeant's hunch was Montreal. From a rented room on City Councillor Street, midway between the French and Up-town quarters of the city, he had played his hunch industriously, but so far without result. He had kept away from the mounted police headquarters on Sherbrooke West and not once had he been taken for what he was, even by fellow members of the Force.
He was growing tired of the city's confinement, but not discouraged. One day he would meet his man, know him no matter what his disguise.
This was to be a night off, the first he had taken since getting back to civilization. It was to be a gala, reunion night; and it was beginning, for the Ottawa express had just ground to a stop in the shed outside the high iron grill.
His pulse beat quicker as he scanned the in-comers—first the smoking-car compliment, then the day-coach passengers and, at last the Pullman elect. Then he saw her, coming with the poise of a queen, a small black bag in her hand. Neatly he hurdled the brass barrier and at the very gate he took her into his arms and kissed her.
"Moira, Moira! You're a glad sight for tired eyes," he murmured.
"But not here, Sergeant Scarlet; not here with the world looking on," she whispered in pretended protest.
He did not care how much of the world saw, for between them an understanding for life had been reached on the trail.
A taxi, its wheels wearing chains with which to grip the snowy streets, hustled them to the Mount Royal Hotel, where he had reserved a room for her. In less time than most men would have believed possible, she had rejoined him in the lobby, a vision fit to snow-blind the gods, gowned in shimmering silver with a black fringe setting it off.
Evenings with Moira were too precious to leave anything to chance and Seymour's program had been carefully prearranged. Again they took a taxi and the taxi took them out St. Catherine Street to a brilliant electric fairyland—the Venetian Gardens. What mattered it that snow never lies in the streets of Venice? Well might they have been in sunny Italy once they had climbed a flight of stairs to pleasure's rendezvous above.
As they entered the huge dancing room, the lights went low and the orchestra that doesn't "jazz" began the soft measures of a waltz. They did not wait to find their table, but swung away with the music—for their first dance together.
And when they were seated, she asked across the narrow board: "Do they teach dancing, as well as riding and straight-shooting, at the Regina depot, Sergeant Scarlet?"
"You're forgetting, you big beau'ful Irisher, that I've been to France since I left the Mounted's riding academy."
After they had danced again: "It's hard to wait, Russell. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth while. Will you ever get your man?"
On the frozen trail, after he had spoken the three magic words and she had returned them to him with equal fervor, they had agreed that marriage was not to be thought of until Harry Karmack had been brought to book.
It was a long moment before he answered.
"I've got to get him, Moira. There'd not be complete happiness for us with that business unfinished. You wouldn't want to change a fine old County Mayo name like O'Malley for that of a quitter would you, now? But know this, girl o' mine——"
He did not finish, his interest claimed by a large red-headed man, a bit the worse for liquor. This chap's attention had been attracted by a pair of police constables, resplendent in their brilliant uniforms, handsome young fellows attached to the Montreal detachment, which has a reputation for "swank."
"Take those young Mounties a bottle of wine and mark it down on my check," the rubric one was saying to the waiter.
The woman with him, a pretty French girl, reached across the table in an effort to quiet him.
"You leave me alone, Florette," he resented. "I got most all the money in the world and those brave lads work for next to nothing a year."
"Next to nothing a year." Seymour repeated the expression under his breath. Where had he heard that expression before as applied to the same Force which yonder cubs decorated? In a flash he was transported back to the trade-room of a sub-Arctic factor.
"But know this, girl of mine," Seymour repeated. "Get him I will."
Sergeant Russell Seymour of the Royal Canadian again was mounted—actually astride a horse with spur at heel and a fine feel of leather between his knees. The best part of the continent separated him from the Montreal fairyland and the regal beauty in whom his ambition and hope lay centered.
An exigency of the service—the policing of the mushroom gold camp which he was approaching—had been responsible for the sudden shift of action's scene. Not that the hunt for the Armistice embezzler had been forgot or abandoned, but with the idea that a cold trail might warm if left alone for a while, its crossing effected when least expected.
The problem at Gold, British Columbia, was so large a one that the authorities had overlooked no advantage. The fact that Seymour had never seen service in the province presented the attractive possibility of his making a preliminary survey in plain clothes, severely plain, in truth—as plain as stained khaki, scuffed leather and battered felt could materialize.
The fact that the region was that selected by Moira's father for his missionary activities and that she proposed soon to join the parent did not make the summer prospect less attractive for the big policeman. The lovely creature riding beside him, however, was not the Irish girl but another he had overtaken entirely by chance.
"Of course," he was saying to her, "it wouldn't be a worth-while gold rush if there wasn't plenty of crowds and excitement. Do you think I'm in time?"
"Oh, there's still a chance for you to locate a pay claim—if luck's riding with you," she said cheerfully. "Scarcely a day passes without someone reporting a new 'discovery.' But you're just three days too late for our first real excitement. One of the B.C.X. stages was held up and robbed last Monday."
Almost did the sergeant give himself away at this crime report. In more ways than his fair informant could possibly imagine, he felt too late.
At a recent conference in Hazelton, a railroad town on the Grand Trunk Pacific, Assistant Commissioner Baxter, in command of the division in which the new diggings lay, had decided that the sergeant should remain incognito until he had had opportunity to study the field of his new important command. In the role of one of the gold-crazed "rushers" the news of the camp would float unrestrained in his presence. He should be able to get an advance line on those who were prone to lawlessness, as well as identify the element which might be counted on the side of law and order. Moreover, he could form an unbiased opinion as to the prospective permanency of the camp and the number of constables needed to police it satisfactorily.
He had shipped a "war bag" containing his uniforms and personal effects by the stage line of this same British Columbia Express which the girl had just mentioned. The charges were prepaid and the baggage was to be held until called for. Then he had set out on a rangy police horse, Kaw, over the Old Sun Trail, a time-blazed path into the Yukon country, from which a cross-cut had let him into Argonaut Valley.
"Did the robbers get—make their escape?" he asked, remembering in time to cut the professional tone from his question.
"Clean as a whistle. They killed the driver at the reins so there isn't a clew even to what they looked like or how many there were."
"But the passengers?" he ventured to ask.
The girl shrugged shapely shoulders. The face that looked from beneath the shielding brim was framed in ash-blond wavelets. The figure that had looked so boyish from a distance, while he was overtaking her, was now rounded into exquisite feminine lines. Her corduroy riding trousers were frankly worn without hint of a skirt, but her gray flannel shirt was V'd at the neck to show a marble throat such as no boy could have endured. And in the belt that pouched a man-weight automatic was the final touch—a small bouquet of waxen snowflowers.
In answer to his question she told him that there were no passengers in the coach. "It was the inbound baggage wagon they held up, you see—doubtless by mistake."
As he pondered the unusual circumstance of road agents mistaking a baggage wagon for a passenger-carrying coach, they were startled by gun fire. Seymour's expert ears placed it a short distance ahead and to the right of them—a bit nearer town. He recognized the snarl of a rifle and, a moment later, the bark of a pistol. Unquestionably, the reports had come from different weapons.
A half-stifled scream drew his attention to the girl at his side. The effect on her was surprising. She could not have showed greater alarm if one of the bullets had perforated her hat. Every trace of color had fled her cheeks.
"Oh, that it's just some hunter and not——"
If she finished her prayerful expression, Seymour did not hear it, for she had dug heels into her horse and the animal was skimming the trail.
Kaw took after the cayuse full tilt; his rider, the while, listening for other shots, but heard none. Ahead, he saw the girl round a sharp turn into what seemed to be a through road into town. If she was seeking the source of the shots they had heard, he knew she need not go far.
When his black negotiated the turn and the road was spread out before him, he saw that she had arrived. Her horse stood nosing another and she was kneeling in the trail beside an indistinct figure. In a moment he had dismounted and stood beside her.
"Too late," she cried, looking up at him with a terrified expression. "If only I hadn't slowed to chat with you—I feared they would get him and was riding to warn him. I thought there was plenty of time to get to town before he started."
She did not blame him for the delay; seemed only to accuse herself. For the sergeant, there was enough of surprise in the figure of the slain man to occupy his mind and eyes.
"Who—who is he?" he asked after staring a moment.
"He's our new mounted police officer, Sergeant Russell Seymour," she said, her voice hushed. "Don't you know the uniform when you see it?"
Seymour did recognize that particular uniform far better than she possibly could have imagined, but he refrained from admitting it.
Reaching down, the sergeant raised the girl to her feet; but he did not set her right on the mistake in identity. The case looked double-barrelled to him inasmuch as it gave him an inside line on the holdup of the express company's stage and a lead toward at least one element of the heterogeneous camp which was opposed to the coming of the Dominion's law-bringers. He meant to handle both angles with the utmost effect and the fact that they existed must for a time remain his secret.
"Looks like murder," he said, his eyes leaving the stolen uniform and focusing on the wound, the clean hole of a steel bullet in the right temple.
"It is murder—from ambush," the girl declared, her voice sharp with conviction.
But Seymour was not so sure. Without disturbing a convulsive death grip, he examined the revolver held in an outflung hand. It had been discharged once.
"'Twasn't a complete ambush, anyway," he reasoned. "He had some hint of what was coming. Couldn't have drawn his gun after that bullet hit him. The way my ears read the reports, he fired just after the rifle spoke—probably a spasmodic pull on the trigger with no aim or hit. You know, Mounties are not supposed to fire first. The rule has killed a number of them."
"He was so brave—absolutely fearless," she murmured.
Seymour might have gone further in reconstructing the crime, but he checked observation on the subject lest she suspect his training.
"You knew him well, Miss——Miss——" he asked, partially to divert her mind from his professional deductions.
"I'm Ruth Duperow," she told him. "My uncle is a missionary here."
At once he remembered Moira's description of the colorful cousin who was keeping her father company. The contrast in type was remarkable.
"Yes," she went on, "I knew the sergeant quite well and admired—both my uncle and I admired his courage and uprightness."
"You said his name was——"
The girl's frankness did not desert her. "His real name was Russell Seymour but we knew him first as Bart Caswell. You see, he has been here for a month, studying the camp without anyone suspecting that he was not the mining expert he pretended he was. Not until the stage robbery did he disclose who he was and put on his uniform."
Seymour turned to hide a smile; the plan which the girl outlined as Bart Caswell's sounded so exactly like his own. When he turned back to her, his hand was stroking meditatively a clean shaven chin.
"Is there a coroner in Gold?" he asked.
"When a man was killed in a shaft cave-in on Sweet Marie Creek last week, a deputy acted before uncle read the service," was the girl's information, delivered with a frown. The reason for the contraction of brow appeared when she added "That deputy sheriff and coroner is a chump named Sam Hardley, and he didn't like Bart—I mean Mr. Seymour."
The real Seymour made mental note of this fragment without seeming to be impressed or more than casually interested.
"At that, Hardley will have to be notified, I suppose," Miss Duperow went on. "It's the law, isn't it?"
The sergeant nodded. "Something of the sort. But first I'm going to have a little look into the brush to see—what I can see. Mind waiting for a few minutes?"
"Don't risk it," cried the girl, taking a step toward him and laying an impulsive hand upon his sleeve. "Whoever murdered Bart may be lurking in the brush and wouldn't hesitate to take a shot at you. You don't know how desperate the——" She broke off in sudden caution and finished inconsequentially: "One killing is enough for to-day."
"A killing too many," he assured her, but swung into the saddle. "I'll take no unnecessary chances, and I'll not be gone long."
With the girl's disapproving look following him, he rode into the underbrush to the left of the trail. From that direction, he figured, had come the bullet. He had small hope of any encounter. With the cowardly attack neatly turned, he could conceive no reason why the perpetrator should hide around the scene of the crime. There was a chance, however, that he might pick up the trail of departure and learn its trend before the camp's amateur sleuths got busy and blotted out all signs.
On superficial survey, it seemed to the sergeant that the bogus officer had been riding out from town on some mission not entirely unsuspected by those against whom he meant to act. Near the trail forks, someone had lain in wait and killed him.
One shot had sufficed. Caswell's effort to answer undoubtedly had been futile. Then the slayer had slunk away in the brush. It seemed unlikely that he would go into town; entirely reasonable that he would return whence he had come. Seymour imagined that that would be the place for which the pretended Mountie was bound, were that ever determined. That the escape had been through the brush seemed likely, since nobody had passed them on the trail after the shooting.
Twenty yards into the brush, he set Kaw parallel with the trail that followed the River Cheena. The undergrowth was not too thick for riding if one watched for fallen trees and devil-club thickets. The ground, soft from recent spring rains, took tracks like putty. An Indian in moccasins might have passed without leaving a trail, but any booted white must have shed footprints like Crusoe's man Friday.
Soon, the officer picked up horse tracks so fresh as to be still sucking moisture from the muskeg. These angled toward the trail over which he had followed Miss Duperow. He traced them back to a clump of poplars. There he found evidence that a horse had been tied, evidently having been ridden from the main trail.
Footprints coming and going testified to a round trip in that direction. He examined these with care. In measuring these with a lead pencil, for lack of a tape, he noted the impress of a peculiar plate on the side of the right sole. Either the wearer was slightly lame or possessed a gait that made it advisable to reinforce the outer edge of his boot.
The foot trail ended in a patch of salmonberry bushes, already in thick leaf and furnishing an ideal curtain. Groping about where the earth was beaten down, he soon discovered a copper cartridge case. His eyes sized this as having been thrown from a 30-30 Winchester, the same sort as that his saddle carried, one likely to be common in that region. Undoubtedly the dented case had held the steel nosed bullet that had ended the career of the crook who had dared impersonate a Mountie.
When Seymour stood erect, he saw he was head and shoulders above the bramble screen, in plain view and easy range of the tragedy scene. Doubtless in the very spot which he occupied, the murderer had stood erect to fling a taunt or shout a false warning at the approaching horseman; then he had shot before the other could act.
The circumstances of the crime reproduced to his own satisfaction, Seymour squandered a moment in studying his partner of the trail, his scrutiny unsuspected by the fair object thereof.
Ruth Duperow stood uncovered, her hat hanging from the horn of her saddle. The sun played upon the unmeshed waves of her silver-gold hair, bringing out unnumbered glints. She was taller than he had thought, almost as tall as her cousin, Moira. Her face was buried in hands that rested on the saddle seat, her poise slumped and heavy with grief.
"Poor youngling," mused the sergeant in deep sympathy. "She's taking it hard. These gentlemen crooks sure raise Ned with the ladies. Knowing that her uncle was a missionary, this Bart would not be at loss what trumps to lead. Reckon his blossoming out in my scarlet just topped the bill. Must have cut quite a figure in life, this Bart Caswell—or whatever his real name was. Handsome dog, too. No resemblance to me." He turned away with the hope that someone else would have the job of telling her the murdered man himself was a criminal.
Regaining his horse, Seymour mounted, minded to follow the hoof-print trail for a way. This was child's play; Kaw attended to it, leaving the sergeant free to peer ahead. Meantime, his mind was busy revolving the surprising facts with which chance had equipped him.
He saw no need for mental doubt over the stage robbery. The uniform in which Bart was clad unquestionably was the dressier of the two he had enclosed in the bag and shipped to Gold. The "E" Division had a new tailor, a mistake had been made in stitching on the insignia and trace of the change remained on the sleeve. Even had there been other members of the Force in the district, he would have sworn to that uniform. He had not a doubt that the handsome deceiver of Cousin Ruth either had held up the stage single handed or had participated in the crime.
He could not agree with Ruth Duperow that the road agent, or agents, had mistaken the express vehicle for one of the passenger coaches in use on this difficult line. That did not stand the test of reason, any more than did a supposition that the robbery had been for the sake of obtaining the uniform of a mounted police officer. No one possibly could have known that such a rig was in transit. At best, the authority which any spurious wearer might command, must be of brief duration for the owner could be counted on to follow his clothes. The risk was not worth the fleeting advantage.
The sergeant did not have to argue himself into a conviction that he must seek elsewhere for the purpose of the holdup. Some other shipment—just what, he meant to find out—that was coveted and worth taking chances to secure must have been expected. He believed that, in examining his loot, the robber-murderer had come upon the uniform and had decided to use it in some other bold stroke without the law.
The sergeant could not withhold admiration for the daring which the man who called himself Caswell had shown in his last hours of life. To put on the trusted and feared uniform, to declare himself the representative of Dominion authority and to undertake the solution of his own crime was a coup as clever and novel as it was impudent. Had the culprit stopped there, he might have made a clean get-away with whatever else of loot the stage carried. Seymour concluded that the prize which had made him resort to murder must be of great value. He did not overlook the possibility that Bart might have been slain by a pal dissatisfied with the division of the spoils. But, in view of hints dropped by Ruth, he was inclined to believe that this morning's slaying had no connection with the B.C.X. crime. The girl, after all, was his best source of information.
Just as he was about to turn back and question her further, the horse tracks he was following broke from the bush into the switchback trail and were lost. At once he swung Kaw around for the return canter. Shortly he overtook his own pack cayuse faithfully plodding in pursuit, and took the animal under halter, that it might not become confused at the crossroads.
At the turn, he saw that a group of men had gathered about the lifeless figure of Bart. A freight wagon drawn by three yoke of oxen had been stopped near by and reins dropped on four or five saddle horses. But he looked in vain for his companion of chance. Ruth Duperow and her mount were gone.
None of the usual greetings of the Northern trail were offered Seymour as he rode up to the group. Instead, he found himself the target for a battery of frowning glances. The men presented a stolid front of frigid scrutiny. The probability flashed upon him that, as the first stranger to reach the scene, he was under suspicion in connection with the crime.
The sergeant stopped his horse and was about to dismount when there was a movement among the men. A short, stout man, from whose ample belt dangled a small cannon of a revolver, waddled forth to stand before him.
"What's happened?" asked Seymour quickly deciding to say nothing of his previous visit.
"That's what we're goin' to find out," said the fat man in that shrill small voice with which humans of undue girth often are afflicted. "Who're you?"
This question was as natural as Seymour's own, but the manner in which it was asked put him on edge. And since Bart had appropriated his name along with his uniform, he could not answer truthfully without laying himself open to a further explanation than he proposed to make at that moment.
"As for that, who're you?" he snapped back.
"I'm Deputy Coroner Samuel Hardley." The speech was pompous; so was his turning back of a coat lapel to exhibit a nickle-plated badge of office. "I'm also deputy sheriff and represent the law of British Columbia in Gold."
Seymour had suspected his interrogator's identity; was ready with his "Glad to meet you, chief."
"And I've got authority to make you answer my questions," piped the deputy. "Where you from and what's your business?"
"From the Caribou country by way of the Old Sun trail," Seymour answered truthfully enough. "There's my outfit." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the pack horse which stood with prospector's equipment in broadside view. "That tells you what my business is."
"Be ready to prove it. What you know about this murder?"
The sergeant wished he knew just how the Duperow girl stood in this matter. Probably, for reasons of her own, she had gone on before any of the town party had arrived—possibly because she had heard them coming. If any of them had seen her, it seemed evident that she had not mentioned his participation in the discovery, or that he was beating the bush on the case. Yet, after all her seeming frankness and her keen personal interest in the victim, why had she "slid out." Since he could not answer that mental query, he decided on reticence in answering the deputy's spoken one.
"I don't know anything about it," he replied with no appreciable delay, although without accenting the "know," as he should have done in strict truth.
"Queer you should come ambling along with Seymour of the Royal Mounted lying in the road not yet cold," grumbled Hardley. "Yes sir-ee; it looks right queer to me. I think I'd better take you in on suspicion."
Seymour bore down on him with a most direct glance, the blue of his eyes almost black in their intensity—black as the ears of Kaw between which he was forced to look for exact focus. "And I think you'd better do nothing of the sort—on suspicion. I'm a Canadian citizen; I have and know my rights."
The sergeant, of course, was running a sheer bluff. The provincial officer might have placed him under arrest; but to suffer detention was not in Seymour's program, for relief from it probably would require the disclosing of his identity at a time when he felt he could work more to advantage under cover. In the brief moment of their roadside controversy, he had "sized" his man and believed him one who would yield to a stronger will without other than ocular demonstration.
But he did not have time to prove his estimate of Hardley. Aid, or interference—whichever way one looked at it—came from an unexpected quarter.
"The stranger's right, Sam," spoke a handsome, blond-haired chap whose look of intelligence recommended him to Seymour as above average. "You haven't any call to arrest him just because he happened along a public trail at an unlucky moment. Far as that goes, you might better arrest yourself."
"What you driving at, Phil Brewster?" demanded Hardley, breaking away from the stranger's gaze and turning on his fellow townsman. "Are you hinting that I had any hand in sending 'West' one of his majesty's officers?"
"You was jealous of him," put in an old man with a twisted face; the driver of the oxen, if one could judge from the goad upon which he leaned.
"And sore as a pup when you found he had been here a month without your suspicioning," contributed another townsman.
Evidently Hardley was not surrounded by any picked posse and was none too much respected as the peace officer of the community.
Relieved to be out of the calcium, at least for the moment, Seymour swung from his horse and crossed the road to look at the body of Bart, the natural move had he really been stranger to the tragedy.
The deputy chose to ignore the jibes of his neighbors. But he renewed his demands upon Brewster for an interpretation of his insinuations, reminding him he was no "bohunk freighter" to be talked to as an ox.
"Oh, I don't think for a minute that you kicked off the staff sergeant," the handsome chap began to explain. To the real Seymour, listening, came a creepy feeling at the use of his name in such a connection. "I was just using you as an example to show your hasty methods with this stranger," Brewster went on. "You were sitting in your saddle and staring down at the remains when I rode up from the creeks. But I didn't suspect you of firing the shot or even of knowing anything about it."
Hardley looked somewhat mollified.
"But Sam was jealous," persisted the ox-driver.
"Stop your noise, Cato!" shrilled the deputy. "There was a perfectly good reason for my being first on the scene. I saw the sergeant ride past my shack all uniformed-up and looking as if he meant business!"
"More'n you'd know how to look," goaded Cato, playfully prodding the deputy with one of his inordinately long arms.
"Want me to bash you up?" Hardley demanded, irritated; then went on with his explanation. "For reasons best known to himself and beyond my ken, now never to be disclosed to mortal understanding, Seymour hadn't been taking me into his confidence either before or after uncovering himself. It wasn't good policemanship on his part, I'll say, but I'm big enough of a man——"
Cato's crackling laughter interrupted. "Big enough, I'll say—but of a man?" he burst out.
"Anyway, I figgered I knew the breed of wolves up the creek better than he did and that he might need help. You know Sam Hardley's gun is always ready. So I saddled up old Loafer there and took out after him, prepared to lend a hand to law and order as was my sworn duty."
There was further exchange among the Goldites—theories regarding the new crime, gratuitous advice for the fat deputy, speculation regarding its effect on the outside reputation of the camp. Glad that interest had shifted from himself, Seymour listened subconsciously.
Suddenly his attention was claimed by a decoration which had not been on the uniform when he had at first scrutinized it. Into the breast opening of the serge coat was tucked a spray of snow flowers.
"Her last tribute," his thoughts whispered. "And an ill-considered one if she has any reason for not wanting her little world to know that she first discovered the crime."
It was unlikely that the imposter had been anywhere that morning where he could pluck flowers which Seymour knew to grow only in the deeper gulches where the packed snow of winter resisted the thaws of spring to the last. The wearing of the nosegay was so out of keeping with the character that Bart had assumed as to attract attention. The sergeant wondered that the men arguing behind him had not already noticed and questioned its presence.
Kneeling ostensibly to tie a bootlace, he rectified the girl's mistake by plucking forth the flowers and tucking them into an inside pocket of his coat. The others, although approaching, evidently had not noticed this deft appropriation. Ruth Duperow's connection with the tragedy was her secret unless later she wished to take the camp into her confidence.
"It's a cinch that these two killings are linked," Hardley was shrilling to all ears within range. "When I get the man that killed the sergeant, I'll have the man that shot the B.C.X. driver; and, vice versa, if I get the man that killed the stage driver, I'll have the one that shot the sergeant."
"Which one do you calculate to get first, Sam?" asked Brewster, straight-faced as an undertaker.
The pudgy deputy stared at him in momentary suspicion, then took the bait. "Cato the Ox might be excused a fool question like that, Phil, but I'd have thought you'd be wise to vice versa. Don't you see, man, that these murderers are one and the same?"
"Then I'd advise you to throw down on that one and the same quick as the Almighty will let you," said Brewster. "The Mounties will be riled to the core over the killing of one of their own; they'll swarm in here like flies as soon as the news gets out."
The mining camp's deputy coroner was obviously disturbed by this logical counsel. Although the morning was not warm, he whipped out a saffron-colored handkerchief and mopped his brow. Evidently that ministration did not satisfy for he took off his hat and polished his pate, which was disclosed to be as bald as an eagle's.
"'Spite your astonishing ignorance in some things, Phil, you sometimes show a glimmer of sense," he said at last. "I was headed right in the first place. I've got to make some arrests and have the victims ready for the Mounties when they come swarming."
His eyes, while delivering himself of this pronouncement, had fixed on the sergeant.
"Victims—you said it," offered Seymour in calculating defense. "Some arrests. I suppose you'll make a bunch of them. Well, start in with me and bring in lots of company. You might as well make the mounted police plumb disgusted with you while you're about it." For a moment he watched Hardley squirm under this obvious scorn, then added: "Isn't a coroner's inquest the first of orderly procedure in a case of this sort? If you get a verdict from a jury, you'll have something to stand on when—when the Mounties come."
Hardley embraced the offering found in Seymour's sudden change from scorn to a practical suggestion. "I'll have an inquest with all due respect to the law, just as soon as we can get the late staff-sergeant into town," he shrilled. "See that you stick around, stranger. There's no telling at who the coroner's jury will point the finger of guilt."
Seymour nodded agreement. From official experience, he knew that there was no telling.
In the slipshod procedure of Deputy Sam Hardley the professional policeman had an illustration of why the force of which he was a member was needed to supplement some county peace officers of the Dominion. Although the fat official undoubtedly believed a commissioned officer of the mounted police had been murdered in cold blood while in the pursuit of duty, his handling of the ease proved most perfunctory. There was no close study of the immediate surroundings; not even a beating of the bush to determine the point from which the fatal shot was fired.
The fact that the victim's revolver had been fired once was noted, not by Hardley, but by the citizen addressed as Phil Brewster who, it developed, operated a freight packing business between Gold and the creeks. Doubtless, the tragedy of the express driver had been handled with similar carelessness, and this unlucky Bart Caswell given every opportunity to launch his daring impersonation.
About all that Hardley did was go through the pockets of the uniform while one of the crowd made a list of contents as they were produced and placed in a large handkerchief. There was a wallet meagerly supplied with small bills, a pocket knife, a ring of keys and a briar pipe—not any of which were familiar to Seymour. But there was in addition a certified copy of his own commission as staff-sergeant of the R.C.M.P., which had been in the war bag, and a sheaf of official blanks. These proceeds of the search were knotted within the handkerchief and deposited in Hardley's pocket, presumably to be handed over to the Mounted.
Soon, the waiting freight wagon was impressed into service as a rude catafalque. With the horsemen in procession formed behind, the cortege headed for the near-by camp. Its pace, at least, was funereal, thanks to oxen deliberation.
Once into the main street, Seymour found a semblance of permanency in the town. The establishments of two rival trading companies were built of logs and surprisingly fronted by show windows. The one hotel, in distinction from several bunk houses, had two stories, with a false front atop the second. Seymour noted also a restaurant, a chop house, a pool hall, several "soft" drink emporiums—all of rough board construction.
A shack of slabs, roofed with cedar shakes, crouched beside the hotel and supported the sign:
OFFICE OF SHERIFFGOLD BRANCHOFFICE OF CORONER
Evidently it was from the door of this that Deputy Coroner Hardley had seen the imposter set out on his fatal ride.
Near this shack stood the temporary post office which divided a store room with the records of the mining recorder. The First Bank of Gold occupied a tent with a wooden floor. For the reassurance of customers and for the information of all, this tent wore a banner on which was painted: "Our palatial permanent home is under construction across the street." Glancing in that direction, the stranger saw a structure of corrugated iron, awaiting a roof.
Gold, at this season of the year, was a night town, so the streets had been practically deserted as the small procession entered. Even though most of the population was at work up the creeks, there was something of an outpouring into King Street as the news of the shooting spread.
Some fifty men and a scattering of women gathered to mill about the freight wagon soon after the oxen were halted before Hardley's shack. From the vantage of his saddle seat, Seymour studied their faces as they received the news, but caught no trace of any emotion that interested him. All seemed genuinely shocked; none, too deeply moved. He heard many express regret over such a drastic blow at the law. If any rejoiced, they did so secretly.
Deputy Hardley consulted with important citizens, identified for Seymour by the one nearest his stirrup as the bank manager, the camp doctor, and the principal realtor. Presently the deputy shrilled an announcement that in his capacity of coroner he would swear a jury and hold an inquest at one o'clock in the uncompleted bank building.
The freight wagon, its somber burden covered with tarpaulin, was drawn to a position at the rear of the unfinished structure, which was open where workmen were laying a heavy flooring for a vault. The townsmen, their curiosity satisfied, began to disperse about their mundane affairs.
In turning Kaw to be about his own, Seymour came face to face with Ruth Duperow, who evidently had just reached town and at speed, for her mount was puffing. The color of excitement was high in the girl's cheeks. But no hint that she ever had seen him before came from the young woman who, within the hour, had been so solicitous of his welfare as to try to keep him from entering the brush in search of the murderer. Her eyes did not avoid his; they simply did not know him.
Having administered this puzzling cut direct, she focused on the gallant figure of Brewster who rode alongside her, his handsome face alight with undoubted admiration.
"What has happened?" Seymour heard her ask.
"Your dashing sergeant-of-staff has been murdered." Brewster's reply was fittingly low.
The girl's eyes flashed angrily. "Terrible! I must say you don't seem greatly distressed, Mr. Brewster, and I'll thank you not to connect me with the poor brave man by sayingmysergeant."
"You've been seeing so much of this Bart person, Ruth, you hadn't had any time for your old friends. Of course, I'm sorry for the way he's been put out of the running, but——"
"That 'but' does you small credit. Who do you suppose——"
"Hardley hasn't decided yet." Seymour caught the flicker of contempt in the freighter's eyes. "Better come and have dinner with me at the hotel; this isn't our tragedy."
Her displeasure seemed increased, and she gathered her reins. "I wouldn't think of it," she said with decision. "I must carry the dreadful news to uncle."
Whirling her horse, she dashed away up the road over which she had so lately come.
"Some actress, but why?" murmured Seymour.
There were several why's that the sergeant found it necessary to consider. Why had she cut him at their second meeting? Why had she feigned entire ignorance of what had happened? He could only hope that the same answer would serve for all—that she had acted so in the hope of being more free to work out a solution of the mystery as to who had killed Bart.
It was evident from Brewster's complaining attitude that the imposter had paid Miss Duperow enough attention to arouse the handsome freighter's jealousy. And Brewster had misplayed his hand by allowing his feeling to crop out at such a moment when he should have shown the murderer's detection and punishment to be his chief interest. He now stood staring up the street after her, looking utterly discomfited.
Dismounting, Seymour led Kaw across the street and joined Brewster, who snapped out of his mood upon being addressed. The information the sergeant sought was pleasantly given.
The stranger undoubtedly could get a room, such as it was, at the Bonanza Hotel. Brewster himself lived there. The "eats" weren't much, but he could take pot-luck at the restaurant. If his room wasn't airy enough, he could get ample ventilation by poking his finger through the partitions. He'd find the stables "around back." There was no telegraph office—yet, and no radio. Yes, the camp was a little slow in catching up with the times. The next mail would go out in the morning.
"Guess I'd better tell that suspicious deputy where I'm stopping," Seymour remarked when duly posted.
Brewster laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "Don't mind Sam Hardley, stranger. By now his mind is loping along some other line of suspicion. Better come to the inquest, though. With Hardley in the coroner's seat it will be better than vaudeville."
The sergeant did attend the inquest in the unroofed bank building, where the workmen had "laid off" for the "event." That he did not find it as amusing as Brewster had promised was not entirely due to the queer feeling that came with every mention of his name as that of the central figure. He writhed at the official flounderings of Hardley, who made an exhibition of a jury which, under sensible direction, would have proved competent.
Seymour had heard strange coroners' verdicts before, but that which this fat deputy sponsored was a prize-winning oddity. Hardley read it aloud:
"We, the jury in this murder case duly impaneled, do and now hereby report that Staff-Sergeant Russell Seymour of the Royal Mounted Canadian Police, in the pursuit of duty in the proximity of Gold, B.C., did come to an untimely death to the regret of this afflicted law-abiding community.
"We, the jury, etc., do find and hereby report further that the aforesaid lamented Seymour was murdered by a rifle bullet fired by the man who held up the B.C.X. stage and killed Ben Tabor, driver thereof and subject of the last preceding inquest of this court, both being foul and fatal murders.
"We, the jury, etc., do find and hereby report still further, that Deputy Coroner Samuel Hardley, Esq., reached the scene of the tragedy with commendable promptitude. We direct him to draw such posse as he finds necessary from amongst the citizens of Gold and run to earth the perpetrator of these dastardly crimes; and, furthermore, we express our confidence that he will leave no stone unturned to justify his reputation as a fearless officer with the encomiums of a successful capture dead or alive."
Hardley's shrill voice was softened by the huskiness of proudful emotion as he finished the reading. From his seat on an empty packing box in the front row of spectators, Phil Brewster uttered a fervent "A-men!" then, catching the eye of Seymour who stood along the wall, he winked sardonically.
"Needless to say, fellow citizens of Gold," Hardley shrilled on after having cleared his throat, "your officer appreciates the confidence of which this jury of his peers has so fitly delivered itself. He will leave no stone unturned to bring to a rope's end the foul fiend guilty of sending to perdition these two men, one a brave officer of the law and the other a worthy driver of the B.C.X. mules. He would respectfully suggest that before you leave this temporary temple of justice, so kindly loaned for the occasion by the public-spirited manager of the First Bank of Gold, each and every one of you look for the last time on one who gave his life that this should be a more decent and law-loving mining camp."
For this last suggestion, Seymour could forgive Hardley's astonishing lack of modesty, even his consigning to "perdition" the two casualties. Although the fat deputy could not have imagined it, he had done the sergeant a pronounced favor.
Seymour lost no time in gaining a position from which he could watch the reaction on every face that looked upon Bart. His attention was caught by a little woman of pleasing countenance, in a drab dress and the beflowered hat of an outsider, whom he had noticed casually during the hearing. Now that the line had thinned to nothing and even the deputy had left his guard-of-honor post, the little woman came forward haltingly and bent over the rude catafalque. Seymour could not see her face for the moment as it was shadowed by her hat brim, but he heard a stifled sob. For an instant, she tottered and seemed so likely to fall that he took a quick step toward her. His aid, however, proved unnecessary. With a shudder, she recovered herself and hurried away, dabbing at her eyes with a bit of cambric.
As the only individual who had shown the least personal emotion, the policeman's interest followed her. So did his steps. Outside, he felt fortunate when he fell in with an acquaintance of the morning, Cato, the driver of oxen.
"Who is the little woman in gray?" he asked casually.
"She's a widdy, but not looking for a second," Cato's face was more twisted than usual by its sarcastic grin.
"And I'm not seeking a first," Seymour set him straight. "I asked because she seemed more affected than the other women by Hardley's tribute line."
The old ox driver seemed reassured. "She's just a big-hearted Jane, owner and cook of the Home Restaurant down the street yonder. The sergeant boarded with her before he bloomed out in the royal uniform. I boarded there too, until she turned me down. I'm just wondering—was it him in the offing that made her cold towards me? Course, he wouldn't look at her, not serious; him being a staff-sergeant in secret. But women nurse wild hopes—'specially widdies. Maybe I'd have a chance now he's been plugged into the discard."
Seymour glanced at him in amazement; that he, with his caricature of a face, could speak of women nursing wild hopes.
Evidently Cato read his thoughts. "You needn't look so doubtful, stranger." He flared with resentment. "Ox driving brings mighty smart wages up here, and I got a claim on Hoodoo Creek that may make me one of them mill'onaires when I get round to working of it next winter. Women can read behind the mask—'specially widdies."
Anxious to be off on the trail of his hunch, the sergeant was not sorry when they came to the Brewster warehouse and Cato left to inquire about his next load of freight for the creeks. Russell Seymour felt suddenly hungry—for home cooking.
There was no one visible in the Home Restaurant when Seymour entered. While talking to Cato, however, he had seen the woman unlock the door and disappear within, and now, after he had shut the door noisily behind him, he heard someone moving behind the partition in the rear. He had time to make choice between a seat at one of the two small tables or a stool at the oilcloth-covered counter beside the range. Presently she came into the room. He was seated at the counter.
That she had been crying was evident; also that she had made an effort to remove the traces. Inwardly Seymour regretted that he had not left her alone longer with her grief.
"I'll leave it to you, ma'am," he said as she came to take his order. "Whatever is easiest for you in the way of a square meal."
She murmured an apology for Gold's scanty markets, but thought she'd be able to feed him without falling back on the can-opener. Bread had been baked that morning, she told him, as she set out a stack of soft slices. But she could not speak as encouragingly about the butter's age.
Seymour liked her voice, understanding its sad inflection, and he could feel full sympathy for her wan smile. Fortunately the range was directly in front of his seat; he could study her without seeming rude as she placed a steak to broil and sliced potatoes for a raw-fry.
In the course of his intent study of her, his hope grew that something valuable could be drawn from her. With the second sip of coffee, he broke bluntly into the matter in hand. "Well, they got poor Bart at last, I see!" he remarked.
He could see that he had startled her, as he had intended to do. She looked at him sharply, as if to make sure he was the stranger she had taken him to be. For a moment he feared she was going to break into tears, but with an effort she controlled herself, evidently being no stranger to sorrow.
"You knew Bart—the sergeant?" she asked, choking back a sob.
"In a way of speaking—yes," said Seymour. "I know that he was not an officer of the Royal Mounted."
With uncertain steps she felt her way along the lunch counter.
"Not—not an officer?" she faltered. "Why, what do you mean, sir?"
"Just what I say, madam. What's more, I know that Bart's sudden taking makes you a sure-enough widow, instead of a pretended one. You have my deepest sympathy, Mrs. Caswell."
To himself, Seymour justified his seeming harshness of utterance on grounds of professional necessity; that there might be real mercy for the woman also involved, in case he succeeded in breaking through her reserve, was another consideration. Everything depended upon her reaction to this "shot" assertion. He had followed her on a hunch bred of her emotions at the imposter's bier. Old man Cato had given him a plausible reason for her showing of grief. While studying her when she stood over the range, however, the idea had come to him that she had been Bart Caswell's wife. He was prepared to be shown that the woman herself was not a criminal, even by inclination. In fact, he was predisposed to believe that she would prove essentially honest.
"You're wrong, stranger—wrong on both counts!" the woman replied. She had steadied herself, was forcing her voice to hold an even tone. Seymour could not yet be sure that his hunch was right.
"Mr. Seymour was a staff-sergeant," she went on. "The coward that murdered him will learn that to his sorrow when Russell's mates come from headquarters to avenge his death. As for my being his widow——" She essayed a little laugh that was almost too much a strain upon her histrionic powers. "I'm not saying what might have come to pass had not death stepped in; but as it stands, he was just a brave friend and a good-paying boarder."
A moment the sergeant merely stared at her; then he leaned along the counter toward her. "You'd like to see your brave friend's slayer punished, wouldn't you?"
A flash of fury lit her worn face; her teeth clicked ominously and her small, work-roughened hands clinched.
"I'd give the world if it were mine and count it well spent!" she cried. "If ever I find out who—" She checked herself, evidently fearing that she was going too far in behalf of a "brave friend and a good-paying boarder."
"Then tell me all you can about Bart, his recent movements and what he had planned for the future," urged Seymour quietly. "I'm here to get the man who killed him, Mrs. Caswell."
Probably it was more his repetition of that "Mrs. Caswell" than his declaration of purpose that suddenly unnerved her. It was such convincing indication that her denials had not been believed. She sank into a chair that stood by the front window and buried her face in her hands. She looked so hopeless that Seymour's heart was wrung with pity for her. His hunch had been right, but there was no need now to press it unfeelingly. She should have all the time she needed for sobbing readjustment.
"How come you to think you know so much about him—about us?" she asked presently without looking up.
"I know, ma'am. I am the real Russell Seymour—the sergeant whose uniform he wore."
His mask was off. He had been more frank than at first he intended to be, but, in all circumstances, he considered the temporary secret of his identity safe with her.
Bart's widow started up in her chair. "Here so soon!" she exclaimed.
"Not soon enough, though, I'm sorry to say. If the Force had planted a detachment here with the first Chinook, probably your husband would not have been tempted to hold up the B.C.X."
Mrs. Caswell groaned in her anguish. "You know—about—about that, too?"
"Naturally. How else would he get possession of my uniform? Tell me, madam; what did he expect to gather in when he held up the baggage stage? It's a cinch that he couldn't have known that my clothes were in transit."
But the little woman was not persuaded to answer at once. Seymour had to show her his official shield, which he had taken from its place of concealment in his trail pack when he stabled the horses before the inquest. He went to some pains, also, to show her that although she was an accessory after the crime, no charge would be placed against her if she helped in unraveling the latest murder.
He pointed out that, in view of the stolen uniform in which Bart had been killed, she could not hope to prevent the fatal stage robbery from being laid to him.
"But I can save his memory the disgrace of a brutal murder!" the widow cried, as though suddenly persuaded that the officer was a genuine one. She fluttered out of her chair into a more confidential position at the counter.
"Bart did shoot Ben Tabor but he had to fire in self-defense. It was his life or Tabor's; he made a brave man's choice." She paused a moment to catch a sob that seemed determined to escape, then proceeded to eulogize as best she might. "Bart Caswell was the gentlest of men. I never knew of his harming a soul before. Except for his wrong idea that the world owed him a living and his peculiar way of collecting it, there is nothing that could be said against him."
"I'm ready to be shown, Mrs. Caswell," the sergeant encouraged her.
He listened then to the old, old story of the double-cross in a new setting and with unusual variations. The First Bank of Gold, according to the widow, used considerable currency in its purchase of dust from the miners. To guard against robbery, the shipments were made in supposed secrecy by the weekly baggage stage, but the driver knew of the valuable load he carried occasionally. Caswell and Tabor had been friends in Vancouver before either came into the north country and soon after their meeting in Gold, the robbery had been planned.
Bart had "stuck" the stage at the agreed point, only to be told by Tabor that the expected $30,000 shipment for that week had been withheld. Not then suspicious, Bart had accepted the statement as fact, expressed his hope that they'd have better luck next time, and was disappearing into the brush when Tabor fired upon him. The bullet struck a silver plate in Bart's back that had been placed there to repair a wound received during a Seattle gun-fight some years before.
The blow staggered him, but he was uninjured. Turning as his friend was in the act of firing again, he had brought down the traitor with a single shot.
A hurried search of the express book showed that the currency shipment had been made. Driving the stage off the trail, Bart had examined the load thoroughly but had found no bank package. He concluded that Tabor had concealed it somewhere along the trail, meaning to get the whole of the loot for himself after putting the blame on the friend he expected to kill.
Watchful for flaws in the widow's account, Seymour seized upon a seeming one. "But if Bart had been killed in the brush, no loot would have been found on him," he pointed out. "Tabor still would have been held responsible for the currency."
"They had planned in advance," she smiled wearily, "that Tabor should report his stage robbed by three masked men. He need only have sworn that the other two got away with the bank package."
Seymour made mental note of at least one way of checking up on Mrs. Caswell's account, then asked her about the uniform.
"Your bag was the only thing on the wagon that Bart thought might be of use to him," she admitted with an air of frankness that was convincing. "He brought it here—to a room he was supposed to have been renting from me—in the half story above the restaurant. When I found him there trying on the suit, he told me about his hard luck."
The sergeant felt that the crux of the interview was approaching, but meant to get at it gradually, retaining the full advantage of the confidence he had established.
"The idea of impersonating an officer of the Mounted—was that merely to assure him a getaway for the Tabor killing?" he asked.
"Partly to delay an investigation of that by pretending to have undertaken it himself; more to help him in another enterprise he had in view up the creeks."
Considering a moment, Seymour ventured:
"Having failed in landing the bank currency, he was going after gold in the raw, perhaps?"
"He told me there was something richer than gold——"
The noisy opening of the street door interrupted. They glanced up to see Cato entering. Looking like a horrid gnome, with his long arms dangling almost to the ground from his misshapen shoulders, the ox driver advanced to a stool one removed from Seymour. Upon this he pulled himself, after giving his neighbor the merest of nods. From the odor of his breath, he evidently had fortified himself for this untimely visit with bottled courage. He leered at the widow as if he considered himself assured of welcome now that his attractive rival had been eliminated.
"'Tis a starving man you see before you, Mary, Queen of Scots," he declared. "But a starving man with a jingle in his pockets. With all the goings-on in camp, I'm rejoiced that the Home is open for serving meals that is meals."
Recalling the hope which Cato had expressed on the street a short while before, Seymour wondered how long he would have to wait for an opportunity to finish his interview. He attacked the steak that had been neglected, hoping that the old man would be too engrossed in his "chances" to notice that the meat was cold.
"I haven't forgotten that second cup of coffee, sir," the widow had presence of mind enough to offer. "If you'll be wishing for supper this evening, please come in by eight as I'll be closing early."
Seymour took this as both his dismissal and an appointment for the widow to finish. Until eight o'clock, then, he would have to wait to know what Bart Caswell had in mind that was richer than gold and was to be had on the Creeks of Argonaut with the aid of a Royal Canadian police uniform.
From the Home Restaurant, the sergeant went to the stables where already he had made his horses comfortable. He secured a clothes poke from the pack of his outfit. The Bonanza Hotel proved advantageously informal in that he was asked "two dollars a night in advance," instead of being confronted with a register for his name and address. A key, attached to a tin disk too large for any normal pocket, was tossed to him by the grouchy boniface, who informed him he would find No. 12 at the head of the stairs.
Opening a canvas door supported on a pair of leather hinges, Seymour entered a tiny room lighted by a single window. It was furnished to the minimum with a blanketed cot, a chair and a table of the roughest construction.
As he sat on the edge of the cot, he recalled the crowded events of the life that had been his in the few months since the strangulation of Oliver O'Malley. Up at Armistice post, by now, the first mail must have arrived. Constable La Marr would know that a "court" was about to start from Ottawa to give Olespe of the Lady Franklin band a trial for his life. He'd know, too, that Avic would not be tried just then because the case against him would be incomplete without the testimony of Harry Karmack, the fugitive factor who undoubtedly had robbed the Arctic Trading Company. And when would he find Karmack—when and where? And Moira O'Malley, when would she arrive in Gold to join her bereaved father until that capture time?
The events of the day, however, were too stressing for his practical mind to long concern itself with anything but the matter immediately at hand.
"Richer than gold!" The last words of the widow kept recurring to his thoughts. What could this presumptuous crook of the wilds have had in mind? The sergeant could think, of course, of commodities that were more precious than the yellow metal, but of none that were indigenous to that upper corner of British Columbia.
So he puzzled over the remark until he concluded that Bart must have used a figure of speech. He would await the widow's interpretation.
Seymour was not surprised to find that he did not think of Mrs. Caswell as a participant in Bart's outlawry. Without protestations of innocence or any oral plea that she had tried in vain to reform the daring rascal, she had acquitted herself of culpability. The weary lines in the face that must have been beautiful not so long ago, the haunted look in her dark eyes, even her superb first effort at denial had won the Mountie's sympathy.
A knock on the canvas door of his room interrupted his study of the local situation. Arising, he unhooked the latch, whereupon the improvised door swung inward of its own weight and the accord of its makeshift hinges.
Disclosed in the frame, filling it perpendicularly but sadly lacking in horizontal proportions, stood a gaunt, miner-clad figure, distinguished by a pair of deep-set eyes which burned like living coals and a shock of white hair which waved its freedom when his slouch hat was removed.
"Will you pardon me, stranger; no intrusion meant." The voice was soft and a smile of utmost benignity came into play. "In the midst of life, we are in death."
"The missionary—Moira O'Malley's father and the uncle of the morning's colorful trailmate!" was Seymour's instant thought; but he gave no sign of the presumed recognition.
"Safe enough statement in this camp to-day," he said to his visitor.
"I'm the sky-pilot of these diggings," the other announced in a pulpit voice that rumbled through the hall.
"Won't you come in, sir?"
The missionary declined with a shake of his head. "I must hasten on my weekly rounds, distributing lessons from the Word. Won't you accept one of these and promise me to read it?" He held out a small tract taken from a handful which he carried.
The sergeant glanced at the title: "What Shall It Profit a Man——" He smiled tolerantly, thinking what a queer yet lovable character his future life's companion had for a parent.
"It is not meet that we should be seen in conference," O'Malley's voice had been lowered to a whisper; then suddenly it boomed so that all beneath the roof might hear: "I trust you will read that tract, brother—read and profit thereby." And with that, he stalked down the hall as though in search of other needy souls.
Seymour watched him. On getting no answer from the next door, the gaunt frame stooped to slip a tract under it. At another a woman answered his knock and a "sister" was informed that in the midst of life she was in death.
Back in his room, Seymour pondered the single whispered sentence with which the sky pilot varied what evidently were his wonted words when distributing tracts. Had Moira written that he had started for Gold and that he knew more than anyone in the world about the family's Arctic tragedy?
But that was impossible, for he had been able to spend but a moment with the girl when orders came to him at Montreal to report at once to the assistant commissioner in command of "E" Division at Vancouver. Seymour himself had not known then that he would eventually arrive in plain clothes at her father's mission station.
What, then, could the whisper mean unless there was a message—temporal rather than spiritual—for him hidden somewhere in the pamphlet?
But when he shook its leaves, no enclosure dropped out. He examined the margins without raising a sign. The inside back cover was blank but nothing had been written thereon. He remembered that the missionary had picked the tract seemingly at random from a pack of several dozen and he was discouraged.
Still, the whisper persisted. "It is not meet that we be seen in conference"—he recalled every significant word of it. Surely such words had not been spoken at random. Drawing the chair to the window, he sat down and began a more intensive study of the printed sheet. Soon, an ink dot beneath a letter rewarded him; then others. Presently he picked out a sequence of dotted letters spelling "P-a-r-d-o-n."
The process reminded him of reading sun-heliograph or taking a blinker message at night. Undoubtedly the communication was of importance that the girl should have gone to such trouble to assure secrecy. The uncle, too, must have shared the secret or he could not have been trusted to pick out the message-dotted tract. From his clothes poke, the sergeant took out a writing pad and with his pencil set the indicated letters into words, with this final result:
P-a-r-d-o-n m-y v-a-m-o-s-e a-n-d c-u-t B-o-t-hf-o-r g-o-o-d o-u-r c-a-u-s-e B-a-r-t s-a-i-d y-o-uc-o-m-i-n-g t-o h-e-l-p N-o-w m-u-s-t c-a-r-r-y o-na-l-o-n-e B-e c-a-r-e-f-u-l K-e-e-p s-i-l-e-n-t C-o-m-eo-u-r c-a-b-i-n l-a-t-e t-o-n-i-g-h-t G-r-e-e-nR-i-v-e-r a-t G-l-a-c-i-e-r R-u-t-h D-u-p-e-r-o-w.
The message amazed him on more than one count. She had "left him cold" at the point of discovery and later on refused to recognize him on the streets of Gold for the good of "our cause." What cause? Unless that was her way of indicating law and order, he knew of no cause they had in common. Again, he was to "carry on alone." What did she expect him to carry on?
Of course, he meant to carry on until he had the man who would have kidnapped Moira O'Malley, except for the enactments of the snows. But why go back to Moira? This cousin was of a different type. Beautiful, to be sure, but not his sort of beauty—not the sort that thrilled and held him. He stopped ruminating with a jerk. Almost had he forgot——