BEST OF BAD BUSINESS
In his grown-up life, Sergeant Seymour had met a procession of
emergencies. Seldom had he failed to do the right and proper
thing--the best for all concerned. But never had he faced a more
difficult proposition than that presented by the young woman who now
faced him on the trail, awaiting news of the brother she had
journeyed so far to join.
When he thought of what lay in the hut they had just replaced under
Mounted Police seal, he was distressed to the quick. When he
pondered the distress and disappointment that must be hers when she
learned the truth, that hidden strain of kindness within him promptly
interposed barrier against his blurting out the facts, police
fashion. He felt that he must temporize.
"You've come to the right camp, Miss O'Malley, but your brother won't
be in to-night. In the morning----. But surely you did not mush
from the Mackenzie alone?"
A small sigh, doubtless of disappointment at the further delay,
passed her lips; but no exclamation came. Evidently she was a
self-contained young person.
No, she explained readily, she had not come alone. The Rev. Luke
Morrow and his wife were behind with another sled and they had
traveled only from Wolf Lake. The Rev. Morrow, it seemed, was a
friend and fellow churchman of her father, then stationed at Gold,
British Columbia.
"_Only_ mushed from Wolf Lake!" exclaimed Constable La Marr,
stressing the only, although after one glance into her wonder face he
was hating himself the more for having let the fox hunter get away
from him.
The missionaries were having trail trouble, she continued. Being so
near journey's end, she had dashed on with her lighter load, hoping
to send her brother to help them into camp, as well as being the
earlier to the reunion.
"Constable La Marr will go out at once," declared the sergeant. "How
far are they?"
"Scarcely a mile. We were in sight of your flag when they spilled."
La Marr at once took the back trail, not waiting to go to the post
for the worn police team nor, considering the distance, wishing to
experiment with the girl's strange huskies.
At the moment Moira turned to quell an incipient dog fight; the
sergeant turned quickly to Karmack.
"Not a word to her until after the inquest--until we've a chance to
break it to her gently."
The trader nodded agreement and was introduced when she had
straightened out her team.
"Mr. Karmack was--is your brother's chief here at lonely young
Armistice."
For a moment he held his breath for fear the verb slip would be
noticed and the question of tense raised. The girl, however, was too
much interested in her surroundings to heed. The trader helped by
bowing in his best manner and seizing one of her mittened hands in
both his own for a warm greeting.
"A fine lad, Oliver. Dear eyes, what a fine chap!"
His startling exclamative caused her own eyes to open, but Karmack
merely grinned in amiable fashion.
"I hope you and your friends will accept the poor hospitality of the
trading post, at least for this night," he concluded heartily.
"We'll have plenty of room."
"But isn't there a mission house," began the girl. "I thought the
Morrows----"
Seymour interrupted.
"Nothing doing, Karmack, with your commercialized hospitality.
They're the first visitors of the winter; I claim them in the name of
the king." He turned to the girl. "The mission house hasn't been
opened for months. We'll make you comfortable at the detachment
barrack--won't have to use the guard room, either. If you'll draw
rein at the flag pole----"
Her "mush--mush on!" to the dogs rang clear and gave the policeman
further speech with the factor.
"You couldn't have her there to-night, Karmack, in view of what I
have to tell her to-morrow. Her brother's things scattered all
about----she'd ask too many questions. Have you tangled in no time."
Again Karmack nodded agreement. He hadn't thought of that, but only
of being hospitable. It would have been a treat, though, to
entertain such a charmer under the chaperonage of the missionary
couple. He would send up some butter for their supper. That of the
police stores smelled to the heavens.
"That's fine; if ours came from cows, they were athletes," Seymour
replied with a grimace. "Come up with yourself for coffee. And I
wish you'd send your man for their dogs and kennel them for the
night. My malamutes raise Billy-blue when there's any new canine
clan in sniffing distance."
The isolation of Armistice, with its difficulties of transportation,
combined with its newness as a police post caused even the living
room of the detachment to take on a barracks-like austerity.
The scant furniture had been made on the spot and was all too rustic.
There were bunks along three walls and a scattering of skins upon the
rough boards of the floor. A lithograph of King George, draped with
the colors, occupied a position of honor, the only other decoration
being a print of the widely popular "Eddie," Prince of Wales. But
logs blazed cheerfully in the stone fireplace and Moira O'Malley,
divested of her outer trail clothes, looked very much at home as she
stood to its warmth.
Not until he returned from the kitchen and the starting of a
"company" supper did Russell Seymour realize in full the startling
beauty of the Irish girl who had come to them at such an unfortunate
moment. She was within an inch of being as tall as himself as she
stood there on the hearth. Her lampblack hair, coiled low on her
lovely neck, actually was dressed to show her small ears--and almost
had he forgotten that white women had pairs of such.
A generous mouth, full and red of lips, sent his eyes hastening on
their fleeting inspection when she became aware of his presence in
the kitchen doorway. If the even rows of pearls behind those lips
had flashed him a smile then, the temptation must have been too
great. Her slender figure merely hinted at rounding out in its mould
of black blanket-cloth. He glanced shyly at her ankles--always the
cover-point in his estimate of feminine pulchritude. She still wore
her trail _muckluks_ of fur, clumsy looking as a squaw's sacking, but
he knew beyond doubt how silk stockings and pumps would become her.
In the eyes he had remarked on the trail, however, Moira's beauty
reached its highest peak, he decided. They were as blue as the heart
of an Ungova iceberg and as warm as the fire which glowed behind her.
They looked out at him in a friendly, inquiring way from behind
lashes as dark as an Arctic winter night.
And on the morrow those lashes would be wet with tears of grief. At
the moment he'd gladly have given his hope of heaven to have ushered
a laughing young Oliver O'Malley into the room.
"Decorative, to say the least," she remarked, at last flashing him
the threatened smile.
"Yes, ma'am--what ma'am?" he stammered.
"The uniform of the Mounted as you wear it in that door frame," she
teased him. "At that, I'd rather see it--you on a horse."
He fell back on the only defense he knew--a pretense at seriousness.
"Up here we're the Royal Canadian _Dis_-Mounted Police, Miss
O'Malley. We know only two seasons--dog and canoe. There isn't a
single 'G' Division mount north of Fort Resolution. By the time I
see a horse again, I'll probably have forgotten how to ride. I'll
climb aboard Injun style and try to steer him by his tail."
The sergeant was glad to hear the crunch of steps upon the snow.
Under the circumstances, he was in no mood for persiflage and more
than willing to give up the bluff that seemed required. He stifled a
sigh of relief as La Marr ushered in the missionaries.
A quiet couple, plain, both a trifle frail-looking for Arctic rigors,
the Morrows proved to be. Serious as they were about "The Work" to
which they were prepared to give years of sacrifice, both were
"regulars" in the life of the North. Scarcely would they wait to
warm up before insisting on helping their hosts prepare supper.
Moira, too, insisted on having a hand. The lean-to kitchen refused
to hold them all, however, so Seymour cited the "too many cooks" rule
and discharged all but Mrs. Morrow.
The meal which soon was on the oilcloth was more substantial than
formal. It consisted of warmed-up soup from a great kettle that held
a week's supply at a time, then sizzling carabou steaks, sour-dough
bread, boiled beans and bacon and, of course, marmalade from distant
England. It was the sort of menu that "sticks to the ribs"
gratefully after a day in the open. When Karmack came in for his
promised coffee, he found the post gayer than ever he had known it to
be. Yet, for three of them buoyancy was as forced as jigging at a
wake.
With tact increased by the fear that some chance slip would disclose
to their lovely guest the news that he felt temporarily should be
kept from her, Sergeant Seymour discovered that the ladies were worn
by their long run in the biting cold. He threw open the door of
"officers' room," disclosing a wood fire crackling in a Yukon stove
and two bunks spread with blankets fresh from the post's reserve
supply.
"Not much to offer as a guest room, but our one best bet," he
apologized. "I'll confess frankly that there isn't a single
bunk-sheet in the detachment. But I think I can guarantee a sound
sleep for both of you. I'll promise there'll be no breakfast alarm
in the morning, but the makings of a meal will be beside the kitchen
stove when you're ready."
Protest unexpected came from mild-mannered Mrs. Morrow. "But we're
routing you out of house and home, sergeant," she exclaimed. With a
nod of her blond head, she indicated an extra uniform which dangled
from a hook against the wall, telltale staff stripes upon its crimson
sleeve.
"A dreadful thing to do," added Moira. "And on your first night home
after your long patrol!"
That portion of Seymour's face that was not bearded took color from
the tunic that had betrayed him. "And I thought I'd removed all
trace of the former occupant. Must be getting color blind." He
carried the jacket into the living room. "Don't worry about your
reverend, Mrs. Morrow; he'll bunk as snug as a bug out here with La
Marr and me," he called back.
There was a chorus of good-nights; then the men settled to their
pipes before the fireplace. After a reasonable wait in silence,
Seymour lowered his voice and communicated to Luke Morrow the news of
the tragedy. Without reservation, the missionary approved their
course of keeping it from Moira until after the necessary legal
formalities had been carried out. Then, he said, he would take
charge with a religious reverence that might lighten the blow.
"She's a wonderful woman, Moira O'Malley," he said with deep feeling.
"She endeared herself to everyone who met her over at Wolf Lake.
Utterly wrapped up in her brother, this will be a terrible blow. I
wonder if----" He hesitated. "Would it be admissible, do you think,
to tell her of the death but not the fearful form?"
Glances exchanged by the three laymen showed that they appreciated
the missionary's struggle--kindly thought against strict
truthfulness. Long had he taught the "truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth." But just now he wavered.
"By gar! It absolutely would!" Karmack vociferated.
Seymour's quick wit worked out a solution.
"An accident of the Arctic prairies. I'll trust having that one
marked up against me in the Doomsday Book."
"Blessed are the kindly of heart," murmured the "sky-pilot." "So be
it!"
Of course, they all realized that Moira would learn in time the
nature of the "accident," but that need not be until Time had its
chance to salve the wound. The arrest of Avic need not bring about
disclosure, once the whites in Armistice were pledged to keep it from
her. She might know him only as another unfortunate, misguided
Eskimo slayer, a handcuff brother to Olespe of the Lady Franklin
band, then in the guard room.
"But Mrs. Morrow?" The thought came suddenly to Seymour that the
woman missionary spoke some Eskimo. "She'll hear of it from the
natives."
Luke Morrow smiled; they did not know of the iron which was in the
make-up of his little blond wife as he did.
"She is a good woman, so merciful. I will pray this out with her in
the morning."
For a time, gloomy silence held the group around the fireplace.
Suddenly Karmack leaned over and grasped Morrow almost roughly by the
shoulder.
"Parson, do you know why that girl left her father and the
comparative comforts of a British Columbia gold camp to share a
trader's shack in bleak Armistice with her brother?"
The trader's demand scarcely could have been more vehement had he
personally resented Moira's coming. "I know that he did not expect
her. What's more, he never even spoke of having a sister."
The missionary's calm was perfect.
"She had no way of letting him know that she was coming to spend the
winter with him, once the wireless she sent to Edmonton failed to
reach Wolf Lake," he replied. "She came through herself by team in
the first storm of winter. We had great difficulty in keeping her
with us until we ourselves were ready to make the trip across
country. She'd have come through with an Indian dog driver if we had
not protested so stoutly."
"All that to see a brother, eh?" snorted Karmack. "Are you certain
she is his sister?"
Seymour sprang to his feet, an angry glitter in his gray eyes.
"Enough of that, Karmack! Express another such doubt and out you
go--for good."
For a moment, a snarling expression strove to master the trader's
face. The missionary poured oil.
"I'm sure Mr. Karmack meant nothing wrong. He's just a bit upset by
all these happenings."
"Upset? Dear eyes, yes--I'll say I'm upset." The factor made a
quick grasp for peace, for the sergeant looked dangerous. "All I
meant was that I could understand a wife going to such an effort to
join a husband, but not a sister."
"Any reason to believe Oliver O'Malley had a wife?" Seymour remained
stern.
"None in the world. But a sister---- To make a trip like that, she
must have had some very pressing reason." Again his eyes questioned
the parson.
"If there existed any other than sisterly affection," said Morrow
evenly, "she did not express it to me." His manner was so final as
to make further questioning discourteous.
Clumsily as Karmack had used his probe, he had but echoed a query
that had been in Seymour's mind from his first realization of Moira's
superlative comeliness. The sergeant had meant to ask about this
when he and Morrow were alone, and he would have put his question
without giving offense.
Why had one who deserved to be the honored toast of the Dominion
rushed into the Arctic wilds, evidently unasked, certainly
unexpected, at a time of year when it would be next to impossible to
send her back?
Was there any connection between her coming and what had occurred so
recently in the Eskimo hut? Had she brought a warning of some sort
to this beloved brother and been lulled into thinking she might delay
for a missionary escort and still be in time to serve and save him?
Those rapid-fire speculations, unvoiced, seemed to advise only
negative answers. Yet why had she come?
Constable La Marr, who had been silent all evening to a point of
moodiness, now snapped Seymour from his thoughts with a question of
his own.
"And when are you going to turn me loose after that accursed Avic?"
he demanded in a tone that was scarcely subordinate.
The missionary looked up at his violence, but had no censure for the
speech of it. These men who give their lives to lighten the Arctic
native's sorry burden grow accustomed to strong language.
"At daybreak you will take the dogs, mush over to Prospect, and
subpoena those three mining engineers wintering there to serve on
coroner's jury. Bring them back with you. Miss O'Malley need know
of only one inquest." He glanced with thoughtful eyes toward the
closed door of the inner room. "After that----"
One look at the young constable's face must have told any who saw it
that Avic, the Eskimo, would need to hide like a weasel to escape
that arm of the law.