CHAPTER XXII

A FIGURE OF SPEECH

Carrying an empty tin pail from his mess outfit, to lend borrowing-color to his neighborly call, Seymour trudged openly to the mission. This proved to be a sizeable log structure without cross or belfry which served both as dwelling for the missionary and a place for the Indians to worship. It had been up several years, from the dead look of the logs. The outlook was upon Glacier Creek rather than upon the Cheena. A forest of scrubby cedar and fir skirted the back of it, while not far away was that misplaced rock spur which formed one flank of the closed cañon.

His coming was announced in chorus by several malamutes chained to individual dog houses in the front yard. The venerable sky-pilot himself was at the front door ready to admit him.

"You are welcome, brother--more than welcome," was his greeting. "Your arrival relieves my daughter of the necessity of riding to Gold to assure us that nothing has happened to you."

"Your daughter---- I thought I'd met your niece! Circumstances beyond my control made last night's appointment----"

Seymour's excuses were interrupted by the sudden entry, from what seemed to be the kitchen, of Moira, a radiant surprise in a blue gingham apron below the hem of which showed her riding boots, testimony that she, not the blond Ruth, had been about to ride to his rescue.

"When----?" was all he was able to gasp as he reached out for both her hands.

"Last night's stage-- To think that you---- Oh! Ruth has told me all about how finely you've taken hold of the situation!"

"And Miss Ruth--where is she?" he asked.

"She's had a hard blow in the death of a man she had come to trust. Isn't it enough--glad enough that I'm here, Sergeant Scarlet? I know you must be hungry after that long ride from town. In a minute-and-a-half----"

Seymour reassured her, telling of the precaution he had taken to cover his visit by establishing camp near by. He pointed to the bucket. "Anyone seeing me come here with this, surely must take me for a borrowing neighbor, don't you think? Already I've been spotted as a scout for a gold-dredging outfit with designs on the Cheena."

"Then, brother, if you'll pardon me, I'll hand you over to Moira," said the Missionary. "I'm engaged in a vital work--nothing less than the translation of the Epistles into Chinook. I try to leave all temporal affairs to my daughter and my niece for my time is short--my time is short. You will find her most competent and more fully informed in the details of this outrageous intrigue than I am myself. In this grievous time of turmoil which has befallen us, I thank the good Lord every hour for the return of such a daughter."

"Father, dear!" she gently hushed him.

While the girl was engaged in settling him at a table near a window and arranging his books and papers, Seymour glanced about the comfortable living room. Every stick of furniture, he perceived, was frontier made. The few wall decorations were Indian handiwork--rude carvings in wood, garishly painted; reed basketry of beautiful design; a bow and arrows, canoe paddles. The floor coverings were skins that had never been in the hands of a professional taxidermist. There was an air of home about the place never to be found in the quarters of the longest established police detachments. In this instance, probably, it was the touch of Ruth, the grieving cousin, or of Moira herself before she had put into the Far North in behalf of her supposedly vagrant brother.

He crossed to the fireplace in which cedar logs were in a crackling blaze. Its rock was native galena in which the brownish stains of iron predominated, but so besprinkled was it with mineral facets as to look alive where the fire played upon it. On the mantel were a totem pole and several pieces of carved ivory but no trace of "Outside," not even a phonograph. Either Moira and Ruth were satisfied with existence in the wild or did not wish to be reminded of civilization.

When Moira rejoined him after having settled her father at his self-assigned task, Seymour was fingering idly several specimens of heavy, grayish mineral which lay at the end of the mantel.

"Frog-gold, my father calls that stuff," said the girl. "It's the plague of our Glacier Creek placers, cluttering up our sluices and utterly worthless except in rare instances, such as----"

She ran her eyes over the specimens and picked out one that was shaped curiously like a human hand. In the gray palm was a small nugget of gold, worth possibly a dollar.

"Take this one as a souvenir of your first visit to the mission," she said, and held it out to him.

He had been on the point of asking her for one of the curios, because of a possible connection with the case that had occurred to him, so accepted the gift gladly.

"Do you know the real story of the closing of Glacier Creek, Moira?" he asked, the matter-in-hand always on his mind.

"I heard it all last night from father and from Ruth," she assured him. "This pretended Mountie who has just been murdered made an inspection of the creek in father's behalf because of his love for my cousin. It's a trouble creek, I tell you.

"This Bart Caswell made friends with a hired gunman that Bonnemort and Kluger had on guard and slipped into the gulch where the claims are located. He showed great skill in keeping under cover and was not discovered until the next afternoon, by which time he had seen more than enough.

"His report," Moira went on, "was worse than father had feared. The conscienceless scoundrels had made slaves of all our people, plying them with liquor and working them heartrending hours under the whip. Bart thought the slavers knew their days of oppression were numbered, and were trying to strip the claims of their treasure in the shortest possible time. Undoubtedly the guard at the gate was as much to keep the slaves in as the whites out. Isn't that an intolerable state of affairs? Do you wonder that father is beside himself with anxiety, realizing his impotence until Canada wakes up to what is going on?"

There was no doubting her honest rage, or that it was unselfish, as neither her cousin's claim nor her father's was being plundered.

"Did I understand you to say that Bart was discovered up the gulch?" Seymour asked.

"Bonnemort himself discovered him slipping through the brush near one of their long sluice boxes," Moira informed him. "He would have beaten Bart to death had not his partner happened along. Kluger, who evidently is the brains of the combination, didn't want a white man murdered 'on the works,' as he put it. They brought Bart to the gate and literally kicked him into the open, warning him that he'd have no second chance. If ever they caught him trying to spy on them again, they threatened to shoot him on sight."

Seymour recalled the widow's version, undoubtedly the true one concerning Bart's motives and mental processes regarding the Glacier Creek plunderers. "Until that uniform fell into his hands, he did not see any way of getting the best of them," Mrs. Caswell had told him.

Bart's plan from that point was easily deduced. Once in uniform, it had been necessary for him to "stall" in regard to the Tabor murder--to checkmate Hardley with any citizens' investigation by pretending to make his own. He seemed to have found time, too, for a reassuring visit with Ruth Duperow and perhaps to advance whatever personal game he was playing with the girl.

Yesterday morning the imposter had set out for the guarded cañon on Glacier Creek, counting on the magic of the Mounted uniform, which, for once, had failed to cast its wonted spell. Possibly this failure was because the plunderers had recognized the counterfeit. But the sergeant was not ready to credit that explanation. He preferred to think that it pointed to the desperation of the gold strippers, who would not hesitate to add the murder of a non-commissioned officer to their other crimes.

The sergeant was forced to admit to himself the neatness of Bart's scheme as he now surmised it. Had the uniform "worked," the fake sergeant would have taken the B. & K. clean-up, ostensibly to hold it until the courts adjudicated the Indians' claims. Once the treasure was in his possession, he would have made off with it over the conveniently near Alaskan border and escaped with it on some southbound steamer that touched at no British Columbian port. Just possibly, because of that gift of tongue with women of which Seymour already had seen evidence, Bart would have persuaded Ruth Duperow to accompany him.

"I'll give the Glacier diggings a look-over," he said with a decision that was not as sudden as it sounded, and got to his feet.

Seymour's expression showed as little concern as though he proposed going to the door to glance at the weather prospects. He was not underrating the risks that would come with an attempt to work from the inside out; but he was ignoring them so far as any surface indication was concerned. From the scout he was determined to make, he had every hope of getting the needed direct evidence; at least, he would determine what was "richer than gold" that had led Bart Caswell to tempt fate once too often.

"You'll never get past the gate!" Moira cried in despair and possibly some disappointment that he had taken her own arrival so placidly. "Bonnemort himself has taken charge of the guard there. He was there yesterday morning and yelled to Ruth: 'Tell your friend a uniform makes a fine target!' It was that renewed threat that sent her toward town with her too-late warning. This morning, since you had been delayed, I went over to the creek. He was there, but kept silent--even when I called him a murderer. I tell you, Sergeant Scarlet, darling, the cañon is closed!"

Seymour smiled his appreciation of the care she was showing in his behalf. So she had dared call Bonnemort a murderer to his face! The wonder was she hadn't drawn a bullet for herself instead of silence.

"I'm figuring on coming _out_ through the cañon, Moira dear--sort of unlatching the gate from the inside. There must be another way in." Seymour's tone was confident, although the other way of which he spoke was yet to be found.

"There _is_ another way in!"

This welcome declaration boomed upon their ears from the old missionary at his desk under the window. Evidently he had not been so absorbed in his Biblical translation as they had thought him. Now he pushed back his chair and crossed to the fireplace.

"I discovered this other way while exploring the spur last spring, just before this curse of gold fell upon us," he explained. "Had I known what Bart was up to, I'd have shown him this secret way. I did not actually enter the gulch by it, not trusting muscles that are getting ragged with age, but you can, brother, if your head is level, your fingers and toes strong."

"Score one for the sky-pilot of Argonaut!" cried his daughter, throwing her arms around his neck and patting him on the back. "Since they've smitten us on every cheek we possess, it's high time we smote them back."

In planning for the hazardous attempt immediately, Moira O'Malley's insistence on going along proved a complication. Before the sergeant realized her trend, he had admitted knowing only a smattering of Chinook. The girl, it seemed, spoke the tongue of the provincial Indians fluently.

"These Siwashes are by no means as dumb as they look," she said. "They will know who left the diggings on this murder ride yesterday morning. They'll tell me and then you'll know the man you're after."

Seymour at once rejected her offer as rash beyond reason. Her father, however, seemed passive, perhaps silenced by his admiration for her courage.

"Why, I'll be safe enough with such an officer as you to protect me," Moira declared. "Think what you've already done for me!"

But her trustfulness did not appeal in this extremity. Seymour insisted that such a piece of scouting was no work for a woman. She might cross-examine her Siwashes after he had cleared the creek of whites, but not before. In the end, therefore, there was a compromise, to the extent that Moira should come as far as the edge of the gulch--to see that her father got home safely.

The sergeant departed from the mission openly, carrying his tin pail. He even hoped that the house was, as the girl feared, being watched through a glass from the cañon's mouth. At his camp, he made hurried preparations, pocketing a supply of "hard" rations and extra cartridges for his gun. Down in the meadow, he unpicketed both horses. They could be trusted to stay near the tent and, in case his return was delayed, they must not suffer from want of grass and water. Although the Rev. O'Malley had said nothing about need of a rope for his "other way in," Seymour quickly spliced the two picket strings and coiled the length over his shoulder. Gaining cover of the timber, he made his way as rapidly as possible to the rear of the mission house where the O'Malleys awaited him.

The spur proved a hard climb and the missionary needed help over several of the rougher places. But at length he brought them to a point where the sheer wall of the boxed-in gulch was many feet lower than the remainder.

Even there, a dizzy drop intervened between the top and a narrow ledge that promised a path to timber line for one who was certain of foot. The old man pointed out certain crevices and projections by which a daring climber might work his way down to the ledge; but the sergeant was glad he had brought his rope with which to simplify the start.

The risk that anyone would catch sight of him as he lowered himself seemed slim, for the creek at this point was some distance away and a thick growth of fir lay between. At any rate, this was a risk to be taken; he must negotiate that ledge in daylight.

"You'll come out at the Indian burying ground," said the missionary. "I'm sure it lies in front of this dip in the wall. Conceal yourself there for the night. The Siwashes will be anywhere else after darkness falls."

With this sage advice, the veteran missionary started back over the trail, his mind already speeding to other matters now that he had done all he might in the one at hand.

For just a moment the lovers who had been through so many trying experiences enjoyed their first interval alone since the Montreal parting. This was more mental than physical in view of the stress of the situation.

"You've explained to Ruth?" Seymour asked presently.

"In part--that you're the real Russell Seymour. She still thinks that this Bart was an officer but using your name for some official reason. I haven't told father about Oliver yet, and--should I tell him?"

As often, Seymour's expression was an enigma to her.

"Not yet," he said finally. "It just may take some of the sting away if you can present him with a son-in-law in partial place of his first-born who cannot be returned."

"You think, Russell--oh, do you think you are on the track----"

"I'll get him--Karmack--somewhere," he assured her.

Having knotted his rope at fifteen-inch intervals, the sergeant made one end fast to a sturdy young cedar which grew near the edge and cast the loose end into the cañon. As nearly as he could determine by peering over, the hemp reached almost, if not quite, to the ledge.

"How soon shall we look for your return?" Moira asked a bit hysterically when all was ready.

"When I come out through the cañon gate." He hoped his laugh was reassuring.