CHAPTER XXIV

TENT-TOLD TALES

Seymour stood and stared at the young woman, marveling at her complete transformation. A right good make-up, she had called it. He could truthfully make the statement stronger. When her eyes were hidden and her voice stilled, all trace of his beloved was gone. She looked as Siwash as though she had been born on the trail of a squaw mother and had passed her babyhood strapped to a board.

The fine lines of her slim young figure were swathed in rags after the fashion of the North Coast native women. Waist line was nil, her makeshift skirt seemed to drop from her shoulders. For a one-piece garment, it certainly was of pieces, patched and pinned and tied together. He doubted if she could step out of it without taking it apart.

To her complexion she had done something to give it a rich copper tinge. The hands were stained to match. Her lips had been thickened with paint lines and over her patrician nose ran a series of blue lines, a counterfeit of the tattooing with which the Argonaut native women disfigure themselves. A finger tied up in a soiled rag added the last touch of verisimilitude.

Recovering from his first shock, Seymour reminded himself of their situation. "Didn't I make it plain yesterday that your coming here was beyond all reason?" he demanded almost petulantly.

"Not so far beyond as myself," she murmured rebelliously. "I'm here, am I not? And you'll find me more reasonable for having had my own way."

She intended following him from the first, she admitted, and for that reason she had watched his descent from the top of the cliff, marking the difficulties he had overcome. After helping her father back to the mission, she had given her evening to make-up and costume. She left home before daybreak.

"Do you mean to say you tip-toed that ledge and made the jump into the fir tree?" he asked incredulously.

She shook her head, flashing him a smile. "I profited by watching you. I came all the way down by rope, bringing an extra coil, ready knotted, from the mission and tying it to the end of yours."

"But you won't be able to fool the squaws!" he observed, again looking troubled.

"Haven't tried. They think I slipped in to see how they are faring and togged out as one of them that the whites would not suspect my visit. They seem pleased--perhaps flattered--and will keep my secret."

Seymour did not relish the situation created by her persistence. The girl's presence was a grave complication. It handicapped him just when his investigation was advancing with unexpected smoothness. But now that she was in, his duty was to get her out safely.

"And how are your Indian wards faring?" he asked, by way of gaining time to figure out the safest, most expeditious exit for her.

"They puzzle me for they have no complaint," she answered. "Either conditions have changed or that imposter was sadly misled in his observations. Actually, the Indians seem to look upon Bonnemort and Kluger as benefactors. '_Hiyu skookum_ Boston men,' they call the rascals."

"B. & K. are taking the bulk of the clean-up," Seymour told her. "I watched the divvy when they stripped the sluices out front this morning."

"But that doesn't seem possible," Moira protested. "I hear from two of my most trusted klootchmen that the Indians are given _all_ the gold."

Seymour seemed not to have heard. He was. crossing to the front of the wall tent where, beneath the table, he had sighted a sack exactly like the treasure-weighted one he had seen the partners carry from the creek. But if this was the same, it had been emptied.

"All the gold, I said," repeated the girl, impatient at his seeming lack of attention to her astonishing report. "What do you make of that, Sergeant Scarlet?"

"I'll say that is right kind and unbelievably generous of B. & K. and that a right lively surprise is awaiting my Irisher when I get her out of jeopardy."

The sergeant had upturned the sack and was shaking it. A single jagged lump, evidently held in the fabric when the sack had been dumped, thudded to the ground. Both leaned over to examine it. The girl straightened first.

"More of that old frog-gold," she said with another low, aggravating laugh.

Seymour picked up the specimen. It was of the same grayish, metallic substance as the hand-shaped piece which Moira had given him at the mission. This one, however, held no yellow offering.

"Richer than gold!" In thought, Seymour murmured Bart's exclamation of promise to Mrs. Caswell.

He believed that at last he knew the answer to one part of the Glacier Creek riddle. But he said nothing to the girl about his hopes as he pocketed the fragment.

"You said the Siwashes would tell you which of the two men rode away from the gulch, the morning of the murder," he reminded her. "Did they?"

"That's another peculiar thing," she replied, lines of perplexity wrinkling her stained brow. "My _klootchmen_ friends insist that both Kluger and Bonnemort were here as usual all that morning. They made _hiyu_ clean-up--gathered much gold--that Thursday morning and are positive they are not mistaken about the kind white men. The Indians haven't heard that Bart was murdered; they still are chuckling at the way he was run out of the gulch."

"That would seem to leave us cold--as cold as we are on the trail of that scoundrel Karmack, wouldn't it?"

Not a flicker did the girl show to indicate that she had hope of hearing something in that particular get-your-man direction.

But within the tent Seymour saw something else to convince him that the search for Bart's slayer was exceedingly "warm." In the presence of this second inanimate witness, he was more anxious than ever to get the girl safely out of the gulch--before the fireworks.

"I'm nearly through in here," he went on. "Have you planned how you will get yourself out?"

"I can go back the way I came, I suppose," she answered with a pout that was not as effective as it would have been had she been naturally clad. "But I thought you were going to open the cañon gate--from the inside out?"

"Even so, I can't have you within range when I--when I pick the lock."

"You mean--you mean there may be some shooting?" she demanded with suppressed excitement.

He did not like the gleam of hope that seemed to shine in her eyes. "You've done your part, Moira--more than any other woman would have dared to do. I wonder if I can trust you to wait for me in that graveyard down the creek?"

"To sit and idly wait when I might have a hand in the excitement!" she moaned. "Being a woman is an awful handicap, Sergeant Scarlet."

"That will be the helping part in this crime clean-up," he assured her, "to sit and wait. And if I do not come for you, you are to make your own way back to the mission and wait some more until other Mounties arrive to settle the score. You've done enough; leave the rest to me."

Moira protested that she had accomplished nothing but the ruin of their theories. Couldn't she do something constructive?

"We are done with theories and it's time I demonstrate some facts," said the sergeant in a convincing tone. "I feel certain I can promise you the arrest of Bart's slayer if you'll go at once to the hide-out I suggested."

"But the _klootchmen_ said----"

"Squaw talk--forget it." He was growing impatient. "Likely they don't know one day from another. Any moment Bonnemort may return. Don't risk his seeing you. Please go while there is time!" He turned to the tent front and held back one of its flaps.

"Moira unwelcome--a new sensation!" she murmured disappointedly, then shuffled out of the tent with the flat-footed walk of an Argonaut squaw.

The sergeant watched her a moment. How brave, how resourceful she was! Then he turned and focused his gaze on an overturned boot that lay near the improvised clothes horse.

This was a right boot, according to the sole of it. Staring at him from the outer edge of that sole was a peculiar plate, presumably to counteract the wear of some foot lameness or a peculiarity of gait. As plainly as if it had been articulate, this told him; "The man who wears me killed Bart Caswell!"