CHAPTER XXV

CLUTCH OF THE BREED

Making her way down Glacier Creek, giving no attention to the working Siwashes and receiving none from them, Moira O'Malley wondered what discovery this enigma of the Mounted had held back from her. She did not resent particularly his lack of confidence, feeling that she had not earned it. That he seemed to disbelieve what the _klootchmen_ had told her of the continued presence of the white and near-white spoilers at once troubled and gratified her. She hated to think that the Indian women would mislead her; but she did want the slayer of her cousin's sweetheart captured and punished. Hope of that seemed built on the Thursday morning absence of either Kluger or his partner.

At the start of this requested exit, the girl did not hurry, but ambled along squaw fashion. Once across the creek and out of sight of the upper diggings, she meant to take to the brush. The Glacier natives would see her no more until Seymour came for her. That he would come for her--that he would be able to come for her, she did not doubt. From the moment she had seen him stride into the tent of Bonnemort as if he owned it, she had felt certain of his ultimate success.

She reached the creek and was about to climb to the foot log when she heard some one start across it from the other side. Raising the eyes which she had held downcast throughout the walk from the tent, she saw, with a tremor of alarm, that Bonnemort had beaten her to the improvised bridge. She sidled away from the log's end and seemed intent on watching the stream. Of course, the up-risen breed would be above noticing a squaw drudge, but she preferred to take no unnecessary chances.

With eyes steadily averted, she waited. The heavy steps drew nearer as the big man set his feet on the flattened surface. Then suddenly, they ceased. He had halted at the end of the log.

"Look up here, you _klootch_!"

The tone was that of a request, but it brought to the girl a sudden chill of terror. She dared not look up, yet scarcely dared she refuse.

Evidently patience with a squaw was not held a virtue by the master. "Sulky, eh?" he grumbled and sprang down from the log to stand directly in front of her. Reaching out, he took her chin between thumb and forefinger and tilted it until her stained face looked up into his.

"A new one, ain't you?" he asked. "Thought I hadn't seen you before, princess."

A look came into his dark eyes that frightened her more. Not daring to utter protest for fear her Chinook would betray her, she cuffed at the hand which held her and broke his hold. Bonnemort's chuckle sounded more ominous to her than an imprecation.

"A Siwash _klootch_ with spirit--and a beauty to boot!" he exclaimed. "There is something new under the sun. Your light's been hidden long enough, young wildcat. Take a stroll up to my tent and we'll talk it over."

His huge hand closed upon her shoulder with a firm grasp, but without undue violence. When he started back to camp, she stepped, perforce, at his side. Although tall for a woman, the red-haired breed was head and shoulders above her, and she recognized a captor that could only be circumvented by guile.

He tried her out with several impertinent questions. Was she married? What would she take for a kiss? Did she like white men, the big bear kind?

He seemed to disown the Indian blood that was reputed to flow in his veins. Evidently he spoke little Chinook, for he complained at her refusal to understand English.

As they strolled slowly along, Moira wasted no thought on self-censure. Seymour had been right--her exploit was absolutely wild. Escape she must, but if humanly possible by her own wit, without involving the Mountie or even disturbing him in his investigation. A plan flashed into her mind and she hastened to perfect it.

With just the reluctance she thought her role required, she accompanied him to the placers. The Siwash men who looked up from their mining grinned at her or turned stolidly away. It was nothing to them that this skookum Boston chief saw fit to pay attention to one of their women. No hope of help lay in that quarter.

When she reached that section of the placer where the two squaws to whom she had disclosed herself earlier in the morning were working a sluice, she began to struggle, hoping they would come to her rescue without disclosing her identity. But with her first jerk, Bonnemort's fingers tightened like a vise, as though he had been expecting some such move. She continued to struggle.

Fear that Seymour had gone into ambush within the tent and would come to her aid, to the upsetting of all his plans, kept her from crying out for help. One of the squaws did throw down her shovel and start toward her, but the other called her back. They whispered a moment, then turned their backs and resumed their toil.

Even the realization that her Indian friends, hardened by the sorcery of too much gold, had failed her, did not lift her voice. At the head of the creek, she glimpsed the glacier imbedded in the mountainside like a gigantic prism, its innumerable facets reflecting the sunlight in all the colors of the rainbow. On either side lay a fringe of brush and timber. All these invited her, offering sanctuary from a fate that promised to be worse than death. But first, before she could flee to the hope of escape they held out, she must break the clutch of Bonnemort, the half-breed.

As she twisted and squirmed, her nails marked his face with furrowing scratches; but the smart of these seemed only to inflame him the more. As penalty, he demanded a kiss then and there where all her tribe could see. In the struggle to enforce his low-voiced decree, the bandanna that bound Moira's head fell to the ground. Her marvelous hair was revealed.

Both hands seized her and held her off, as helpless in his clutch as though she had been a child. For a moment his eyes enjoyed the oddly masked beauty of her. But soon, with comprehension, there entered a new light--that of recognition.

"So!" he muttered, baring his teeth as an angry beast bares its fangs. Transferring his hold to her streaming hair, Bonnemort flung the girl from her feet and started to drag her toward the tent.

At last, all other hope gone, Moira O'Malley screamed for help---the help of her Mountie. The green old glacier broadcasted her distress, reverberating her shrieks until the gulch rang with them.

Within Bonnemort's tent "Scarlet" Seymour knelt before a chest, the lock of which he had just succeeded in breaking. He was staring with dilated eyes upon the real wealth of the Glacier Creek placers--truly richer than gold.

As he reached out his fingers to run them through the heaping gray wealth, a scream sounded. It might have been the cry of a buzzard soaring in the blue above the camp.

But the next moment the shriek took definite form as a human's cry for help. Then came the shrill of his name--a long-drawn "Russell!"

In a flash he comprehended. Moira had been discovered and had fallen into the hands of the despoilers. Without closing the lid of the treasure chest, he sprang to his feet and lunged out of the tent. A hundred yards down the path, he saw the breed and the girl in desperate struggle. Toward the scene of the unequal combat hastened a score of Argonaut natives.

Seymour charged down the incline. "Coming, Moira!" he shouted.

The breed heard and flung his intended victim from him to the rocks. One glance at the oncoming figure enlightened him. "Wolves run in pairs!" he exclaimed. "And die together!"

Moira saw him draw a revolver. Had he fired from the hip, her opportunity never would have come. But Bonnemort, confident in the distance that still separated him from the unknown rescuer, paused to take aim. The girl's fingers had closed around a rock. With all her might she hurled it at his head.

Her aim was poor, but its faultiness proved fortunate. The missile struck Bonnemort's wrist as his finger pressed the trigger. The bullet went wild. The gun was knocked from his hand and was thrown, by some muscular freak, within Moira's reach.

For a second, Bonnemort stood nursing his injured wrist; then, with a snarled curse, he sprang to recover his weapon. But Seymour, at the end of his rush, crowded him off; the girl seized the gun and scrambled to her feet.

She could not understand why the sergeant did not draw and declare himself. As the enemy already had fired, he was no longer under restraint of that Quixotic slogan.

Bonnemort, too, looked puzzled, but evidently took heart from his foe's restraint, for he advanced threateningly. Fearing that Seymour would be no match in a rough-and-tumble, Moira tried to press the miner's gun upon him, but the sergeant waved her back.

"Hold off the Siwashes," he demanded. "This brute has a beating coming to him."

Bonnemort advanced with a chortle of joy, delighted that luck favored him with the respite of physical combat. So many things could happen in a battle of fists. The man-to-man struggle was on.

After his initial rush, which the sergeant cleverly side-stepped, the breed's main idea seemed to be to throw his powerful arms about his opponent. Except for occasional swings, which would have knocked Seymour out had they found their mark, his efforts were directed to this end.

The sergeant had his Armistice detail to thank for his ability to evade. The Eskimo of the Arctic foreshore is above average height, large muscled and trained by occasional necessity to battle with Polar bears. When boxing matches were put on at the detachment, in lieu of other diversion, Seymour had acted as instructor. His greatest difficulty had been to break his pupils of "hugging" and to teach them that a punch was more effective than a clinch any day or where. As a result, he was not only trained to the minute, but highly practiced in slipping out of clinches.

From the first, Bonnemort fought like the Eskimo, trying again and again for a crushing embrace. With each vain effort, Seymour exacted punishment with jabs and cuts to the face. Never was he caught by the other's powerful arms.

For the alleged half-breed, the contest was soon sanguinary. His eyes and lips suffered and his nose became grotesque. On the other hand, Seymour was practically unmarked except for a lump on his forehead and a splotch on his cheek where Bonnemort's fist had touched him.

_Klootchmen_ and braves had come from all parts of the diggings and stood in an irregular circle, staring in open-eyed wonder at the battle. Moira was having an easy task keeping them back, although she still held the gun ready. No partisan spirit developed. If anything, their grunts at clinches evaded and blows sent home favored the strange, more compact fighter. The sergeant was unknown to them, but the fact that the mission girl sponsored him with gun point was enough for them.

Bonnemort's wind was first to fail him and for an untimed round or two, Seymour played for him with hard punches to the body at every opportunity. It became clear that the spoiler's bulk was more "beef" than muscle. He was becoming a spectacle. His rushes lost their force; his swings grew hopelessly wild; his guard, never effective, broke down entirely.

"Punishment enough for manhandling you?" Seymour asked Moira, as the whirligig of battle brought him facing her.

"Yes--yes, he's paid!" she cried.

The sergeant waded in then, regardless of the embrace he no longer feared. He beat Bonnemort to his knees. No _coup de grâce_ was necessary, as the overgrown miner was blubbering for mercy. The Siwash gallery was beginning to grumble that none was delivered when they saw the victor produce a pair of handcuffs and snap them on the defeated one's wrists. Bonnemort seemed too dazed to notice the official trend in the situation, until--

"I arrest you, Harry Karmack, in the name of the King for the murder of Oliver O'Malley, at Armistice, Northwest Territories."

Stunned by the surprise of his capture, turned white by the shock of the unexpected charge, the former factor stared about him wildly.

As for Moira O'Malley, the double surprise was almost too much. Fright had prevented her recognition of the familiar features of her Northern suitor now that his hair was turned to red; and all through the hunt, no hint had come to her from the close-lipped sleuth of the open places that the man he had sworn to "get" had raised his hand against her brother.