SILVER AND BLACK
La Marr was away at dawn with a _venire facias_ for each of the three
gold explorers, the only competent jurors within reach. As it was a
matter of forty miles' rough sledding to the prospectors' camp and
return, the inquests could scarcely be held before the late
afternoon. That the girl whose emotions they were conspiring to
protect might be too busy for vagrant suspicions, Sergeant Seymour
suggested to the Morrows that they open up Mission House while he was
at liberty to help them.
"Don't want to seem inhospitable, Mrs. Morrow," he said in his
slowest, most deferential manner, "and you know you'll be welcome
here as long as you care to stay, but I'm sure you want to get into
your own place as soon as possible. Never know when some Arctic
hades is going to cut loose and take me out on the trail. I'm off
duty this morning--more than ready to help with the heavy work."
This brought an offer from Moira O'Malley that struck the hearts of
those who knew.
"Our sergeant of the Dismounted is positively brilliant this
morning," she said, confounding him utterly with twin flashes of
Irish blue. "Why, all the time I attended school in Ottawa, I saw no
one more considerate. You see, when Oliver gets back from this
inconsiderate mush of his, I'll become quite useless as your
handmaiden, Emma, with all the things a brother will be needing done
for him."
Mrs. Morrow had not been advised of the true situation, but she had
her own ideas as to the proper habitat in an outland's camp for a
girl like Moira.
"Oh, you'll keep right on living at Mission House as long as you're
here, my dear," she said. "The shack of a bachelor trader is no
place for so dashing a belle."
"But I know Olie's quarters, whatever they are, will need my sisterly
attentions," she protested, spreading unconscious agony to the two
men. "His room at home always was a sight. A place for everything
but nothing in its place seemed to be that Mick's motto."
As the two men went on ahead to the small dwelling that had been
closed since the previous spring thaw, Seymour found himself asking
again why she had come. Were sisters as devoted as that? As
motherly? Never having had a sister, he was unable to answer.
The pair stripped weather boarding from doors and windows, aired the
house thoroughly and carried in a supply of wood from the shed. They
then closed it tight and built roaring fires in every available stove
to remove the winter chill. The native hostler from the post already
had shoveled paths through the snow.
So far as the two males could see, but little inside cleaning would
be necessary. But the women, on coming to the house presently,
revised that verdict and fell to with broom and mop.
The smoke from Mission House stove-pipes probably had been reported
to Karmack, for he arrived presently, his interpreter drawing a
toboggan loaded with provisions which were presented to the
missionaries with compliments from the trading company. The gift was
gracious, the supplies being of a sort not found in the somewhat
meager store of staples provided by the societies. They were
gratefully received.
Came then a second shock from Moira, again an innocent one, in the
form of coupled questions.
"But Mr. Karmack, have you locked the store?" she asked first.
"Not much trade these wintry days and if customers come, they'll
stick around like summer bull-flies." He accomplished the only laugh
of the morning.
"But who is there to tell Oliver, when he comes back, that I've
arrived and am waiting?"
Harry Karmack's freshly shaved, usually ruddy face went as white as
the girl's natural pallor at this unexpected turn to his attempted
whimsicality. He staggered back as if she had struck him a blow.
Seymour, standing near, steadied him into a chair.
"That bad heart of yours again, old top?" the sergeant asked quietly.
No one ever had heard of anything being the matter with Karmack's
heart, but the timely question served to cover his emotion. Mrs.
Morrow noticed it, but did not wonder thereat, Evidently Moira had
hit these sons of isolation hard, and there were in prospect
interesting sessions, she thought, for Mission House living room that
winter.
Seymour decided he had endured enough agony for one morning and so,
on the plea of police routine, started for the post. But the
thumbscrew of misadventure was to receive one more turn. From the
door of Mission House the melodious voice of Moira carried to him.
"Oh, Sergeant Scarlet, please do keep an eye open for my merry
brother along Rideau Street, or whatever you call the thoroughfare
which passes your headquarters."
"And I'll have him paged at the Chateau Laurier and ask for him out
at Brittania Park," he managed to answer in terms of the city of her
schooling. But he had no heart for the jest, mindful of the change
that soon must come to her happy mood.
He entered the police shack by the back door and looked in for a
moment on Olespe. His prisoner from Lady Franklin oblivious of his
fate, seemed to revel in the luxury of the guard room's warmth. The
sergeant went through and out the front way.
"Rideau Street indeed," ran his thoughts. "What a name for that
streak through the snow in Armistice!"
At that, Moira showed that she knew her Ottawa, for Rideau is the
street on which face the red brick headquarters of the Royal Mounted.
Would that she had never left the capital! Would that he could waft
her home again, sacrifice though that would be in this ice-bound
isolation!
Straight to Avic's hut he went and broke the seal upon the door, as
was his right. Again his eyes were upon all that remained of her
"merry brother." He wondered about death and the hereafter and
various things that never should enter a Mountie's mind--not when
he's stationed north of Sixty-six.
Then, suddenly, his eyes seemed to open as though a mote had been
cast from each. Perhaps this was effected by the magic of Moira's
charm and beauty. Certainly he saw details that had not impressed
him the previous afternoon.
As might a wolverine in defense of her young, he pounced upon the
silver fox pelt that lay on the sleeping bench beside the murdered
youth--lay in such a way as to indicate its purchase had already been
negotiated. He studied the set of the fur and sniffed at the tanning
on the inner side. His eyes widened as he held the beautiful exhibit
before him and realized the possibilities that were opened up by this
definite clue.
"Magic skin," he murmured half aloud after the fashion of men who
find themselves often alone in the wilderness. "You widen the
mystery; may you help to close it!"
Gently, without shrinking from the cold touch, he removed the last
clutch of O'Malley's fingers from the black fox--probably the pelt of
ostensible contention. Close examination of this showed the same
conditions to exist.
Neither of the foxes had been trapped in the present winter; both had
been cured at least a year.
"Magic skin," he repeated, and breathed a wish too fervent for
utterance even in the hut where he stood alone.
In the act of wishing, memory put its finger on him. There came to
mind that famous tale of Balzac's, "The Magic Skin." The story dealt
with the hide of an ass which, with every wish invoked from it,
shrank until the greedy owner was threatened with the disappearance
of his magic possession.
Perhaps Seymour had best cease wishing. But he recalled he had a
pair of magic skins in hand; grew defiant of the venerable myth, and
wished again, more fervently even than before that it would fall to
his lot to solve the deepened mystery of the Oliver O'Malley murder.
Opening the pea jacket of his winter uniform, he tucked both furs
beneath his tunic. Closing and resealing the hut, he strode back to
the police cabin. Had he intended to appropriate the silver and
black treasures for his own gain, he scarcely could have hidden them
more carefully.