CHAPTER XXI

THE CLOSED CREEK

By noon, Seymour had his A-tent pitched on the hank of the Cheena, between the trail and the stream, a few rods below the point where Glacier Creek made its indigo-colored contribution. Above the scrubby timber spiralled the smoke of the hidden mission, to which the officer proposed to pay a neighborly call when he had finished the meal of bacon and beans which he was preparing.

Yesterday, O'Malley and his niece had made it plain that they wished a conference with him to be secret and under cover of night. His unexplained capture had made that impossible. Whether or not their caution was well founded, he was unwilling to await the fall of another night. He would need to make camp somewhere and felt it might better be near enough to excuse an open call. Hence he had pitched his tent here.

But Seymour had done more that morning than ride out from Gold five muddy miles and make camp. His years of detachment service had made him something of a jack-of-all-trades, and his cayuse-packed outfit was comprehensive. Kaw, grazing on the lush grass of the meadow, now was as neatly shod as he could have been at the hands of any blacksmith. No longer was the animal a fit subject for Deputy Hardley's suspicions.

The sergeant had scoured his tin dishes in the river bank sand and was returning to the tent when he saw a horseman observing him from the main trail. The man stared a moment longer, then rode toward him. Soon, Seymour recognized him and wondered at such curiosity from a man of affairs.

"You're my first visitor, Brewster!" he called as the cordial freighter drew near. "Welcome to camp. If you'd been fifteen minutes earlier, I'd have fed you. Now, if you're hungry, over there's the grub box."

"So it's really you?" The visitor's response was oddly halting, as if he was finding it difficult to believe his eyes.

"To my best knowledge and belief, I'm no one else."

Brewster laughed and swung into a chatting position by hooking one leg over the horn of his saddle. "And here I was hot-footing into town to get you out of jail."

"Kind of you, but apparently unnecessary," Seymour offered a laugh of his own. "Where did you get the idea I was in limbo?"

The sergeant did not need to feign his look of mystification. That the news of an arrest that Hardley himself did not remember had traveled to the creeks to be heard by Brewster served only to deepen the puzzle.

"Did Hardley mention jail to you?" he asked. "He didn't to me, and I saw him just before I left town."

"It wasn't Hardley--haven't seen him since he left my room last evening. But Cato said Hardley had pinched you and locked you up. He declared he had helped in the capture and was pleased with himself."

At mention of Cato, the sergeant was suddenly in the clear, although not so much as an eyelash flicker betrayed the fact. He recalled now the inordinately long arms of the man. Doubtless these had puckered the blanket around his midriff and beaten him into unconsciousness. The lovelorn old codger, fired with jealousy, must have been stalking the widow's place, mistaken him for a rival and acted under the dictates of his brandy-befuddled brain. That he had forgotten to confide the fact of imprisonment to Hardley was evident; but then, he had neglected to lock the jail. How the ox driver had got possession of the key was a detail unexplained, but Seymour would never be sufficiently curious about that to inquire into it. To have been taken single-handed by Cato was not particularly flattering, even though the gnome was possessed of superhuman strength.

"Wasn't Cato hitting the hootch yesterday?" was all he asked of the driver's employer.

"He was that," admitted Brewster, "and he had a hang-over this morning. But how he ever imagined---- Oh, well, there's no harm done, long as it was only a drunken dream. I was afraid Hardley would lose another day getting after the Seymour murderers and I didn't want to see you suffer from his foolishness. But you've picked a queer place to camp, strikes me. Didn't you know that Glacier Creek is closed?"

The sergeant had not heard this and was curious to know how any creek could be "closed." Brewster told him. The genial old missionary, Shan O'Malley, had laid the foundation for the situation in the early days of the rush. With more foresight than many laymen, he had seen what was coming. To hold the Indians of his congregation, or whatever he called it, and to keep them from contact with the white "rushers" as far as possible, he had induced them to claim, stake and register every foot of bar and bench from the cañon entrance back to the glacier. To make a close corporation of it, he and his niece Ruth had staked the two full claims between the cañon gate and the Cheena. Glacier Creek had not proved a bonanza, but O'Malley did not seem to care; the laziest Siwash could pan out a living, and the old man was keeping his flock together.

Then along came Bonnemort and Kluger, a shrewd pair from somewhere back in eastern Canada. They saw a chance of operating the Glacier Creek diggings on a large scale. The Bonnemort of the combination admitted to being a half-breed, and he knew how to handle the Siwashes. Before the missionary knew what was up, the pair had leased every Indian claim beyond the cañon gate. Moreover--and Brewster was forced to smile appreciatively as he told it--they had hired the Indians to work their own claims. When all was set, they posted a "No Trespass" sign and stationed an armed guard at the narrow entrance. When this sentry turned back the sky-pilot intent on visiting his flock, the whole district had learned of the coup.

Brewster said he had been right friendly with Ruth Duperow and her uncle at that time. Because of their fears that the Siwashes were being robbed, he had brought Sam Hardley to investigate. The B. & K. outfit had produced their leases and the Indians denied that they were being worked against their will. As no established trail ran up the creek, which was a veritable cul-de-sac because of its glacier source, Hardley had decided that the leases were within their rights and that there wasn't a thing to be done about it. The creek was still closed, and because there was only one entrance--through the narrow mouth of the cañon, where one man could hold up a regiment--it was likely to remain so until the within-the-law operators took down the bars.

"I lost out with the sky-pilot and Miss Duperow because I wouldn't storm the gate," Brewster concluded regretfully. "About that time appeared this Sergeant Seymour, then under cover as a mining expert. He fell hard for the girl, which is not against him, for there isn't a finer in all B.C. than Miss Ruth. I don't know what he thought of the monopoly or what he intended to do when he got into uniform. As you know, the stage robbers killed him before he got saddled up."

"What do you make of it yourself?"

Brewster shrugged his broad shoulders. "I may be prejudiced. You see, while I lost my best girl, I landed my B. & K. packing contract. I'll say they pay their bills. Hope you won't think I was trying to horn into your game by criticizing your camp selection. But I thought you might not know how things stood on Glacier."

Seymour thanked him, then glanced into the river. "Maybe I like the looks of the Cheena," he added.

"Scouting for dredger people, eh?" Brewster made shrewd surmise. "I hear they're cleaning up strong in the Klondike. The Cheena ought to pay rich for anyone with money enough to put in a hydraulic plant. Remember that Philip Brewster is in the freighter business in case you begin operations. Good luck to you and goodbye for the present."

The sergeant watched Brewster ride across the flat to the main trail; noted that he turned back toward the creeks. Evidently the freighter had been riding into Gold to effect, as he said, Seymour's release. An obliging individual, Brewster, even if he had given his fat deputy friend foolish advice about holding back the Mounted.

So Glacier was a closed creek. A guarded "gate" had been swung across its cañon mouth. Upon what? Upon Bart Caswell's something "richer than gold," he strongly suspected. Perhaps upon the "sergeant's" slayer as well. Seymour was part Irish; he enjoyed passing the impassable--or trying to.