CHAPTER VIII

THE HERO FUGITIVE

As the sergeant moved forward intent upon seizing the rifle, the huge, raw-boned Kogmollyc came into the room with a bound that carried him well over the threshold. The move had every appearance of an attack of one demented; but before Seymour could grapple with him the lack of hostile intent was made manifest.

The rifle Avic carried was thrown regardlessly to the floor. With a snarl inhuman, the Eskimo threw himself down beside the platter of caribou roast. The odors of cooked food had proved too much for racial restraint. Hunger had brought on the precipitate action.

For several minutes, Seymour and his guests stood and watched the fugitive with amazement. He went at the deer shank after the fashion of a starving malamute. Sinking his teeth into the succulent meat, he tore out great mouthfuls which he swallowed without chewing. At first growls were interspersed between the bites, but gradually these were succeeded by grunts of satisfaction. Once he dropped the shank to fill his mouth with bannock, but he returned to the meat, sucking at it while yet his mouth was crowded.

Seymour stooped for the gun, recognized it as a service weapon and grew suddenly grave.

"La Marr's rifle," he muttered.

Crossing to the native, he gripped the back-thrown hood of the _parkee_ and dragged him, sputtering protestingly, to his feet. Avic was considerable to lift, but Seymour was strong and deeply aroused. The caribou shank came with the savage, held in teeth that demanded a last bite.

"Here, you dog, drop that!" came gruff command. "Want to founder yourself?"

Morrow, too, recognized the danger of overloading a stomach long deprived of food, took hold of the meat and tore it away from the Eskimo.

"But surely they'll let him eat more later?" asked Moira of Mrs. Morrow in a hushed tone.

Seymour spoke rapidly to the missionary, asking him to go to the trading post for the interpreter. In some way, the Eskimo grasped the gist of this request.

"Avic, he speak them Engleesh," was his surprising statement.

"Then tell me, where you get this gun?" Seymour demanded. "Where is the red coat that owns him?" Unwittingly he had fallen into the broken speech of the few natives who know other than their own tongue.

Avic grinned widely, showing ivory fangs, in the openings between which shreds of meat still hung.

"Him hungry all same me," he said. "Him out there----" He gestured to the front door which one of the women had closed. "----stay by sled."

Something about this reply seemed to tickle the native for he laughed until the loose folds of his _parkee_ rippled. Neither Seymour nor Morrow waited to learn the reason for the mirth, but dashed out the door.

In the furrowed trail they found La Marr, holding the dogs with difficulty, for they recognized they were at trail's end. The constable was in his sleeping bag which was lashed to the _koinatik_. He had "stay by sled" for an excellent reason. His leg was broken.

"Well, Charlie, I see you got your man," said Seymour, by way of being cheerful, as he steadied the sled which the dogs, under Morrow's guidance, were pulling up the bank into the yard.

"No, Serg., me man got me." The response was in a voice weak from suffering.

They carried him into the house, sleeping bag and all. Before attempting the painful ordeal of extracting the broken, unset limb from the fur-lined sack, they fed him the breast of one of the fool hens that had been left from the interrupted feast. At Seymour's request, the two women went into the kitchen to prepare hot water for the impending operation and a strong broth of which the constable would be in need afterward.

As every missionary in the North is something of a surgeon as well as a lay physician, Luke Morrow hurried to Mission House for his kit. The while, Avic sat on the hearth, contentedly munching a chunk of bannock which no one had the heart to take away from him.

When the room was cleared, Sergeant Seymour leaned over his constable for a low-voiced question. "Is Avic under arrest?"

"I--I hadn't the heart, after all he's done for me," said the injured mountie. "He brought me along willingly enough. Didn't seem the least afraid about coming back to the post. Go easy on him, sergeant. I'd have been wolf food if it hadn't been for him."

The arrest had to be made quickly, before Moira chanced back into the room if their kind-hearted plot was to be sustained. Seymour got the Eskimo's attention, reminded him that he understood English, and went through the formal lines of arrest and warning, with the addition that it was "for the murder of Oliver O'Malley."

"Sure," said the native, who had learned some of his English from American whalers at Herschel Island. "I savey. What do? When we go?"

Seymour did not understand the significance of this last question, but hadn't the time to inquire into it. Leading Avic to the guard room, he turned him in to make friends with Olespe or not, as Eskimo etiquette might decree.

As he was locking the door of the cell room, Moira came from the kitchen with improvised splints and a roll of bandages. She told him quietly of her service in France with a Red Cross unit and asked permission to help with the operation.

"If I can handle the ether or anything----"

"Thank you, Moira," the sergeant interrupted. "If Dr. Morrow can use you, I'll call."

The parson-surgeon returned with medicine and instrument cases. The sleeping bag was slit down its top-center, as the least painful way of removing the patient, and gently they carried him to an improvised operating table in Seymour's quarters.

Morrow proposed an anæsthetic. Even in the hands of a skilled surgeon, he declared, the bone-setting would be most painful; he was just a clumsy, well-intentioned amateur.

"Damme if I'll go out of my head for just a jab of pain," the doughty constable exclaimed.

"A whiff of ether will make it easier, Charlie," suggested his superior. "And I'll whisper a secret--Miss O'Malley is ready to administer it. She served with us in France."

La Marr's black eyes gleamed a second in appreciation. Then he shook his head decisively.

"Aye, and that wouldn't be so bad," he said. "But I've smelled the sweet stuff before. When I am coming out of it I tell all I know. We'll take no chances of ragging her with babbling about Oliver's murder." He turned to Morrow. "Let's go, parson, and do your darndest to make me a straight leg."

The operation took some time, the break being a compound requiring a preliminary reduction. In this Moira did help and perhaps her presence was as potent as anæsthesia. At any rate, not a cry escaped the lips of the broken Mountie.

When the splints finally were fastened and the patient refreshed with a cup of fool-hen broth, Seymour asked an account of the pursuit and accident.

"If you'll hand my jacket--wrote report when I thought we wouldn't pull through." He passed over his note book. "I want to sleep now."

In the living room, the sergeant bent over this blurred scrawl in pencil:

_Sert. Seymour, O.C. Armistice Detachment._

_Sir:_ I have the honor to report:

Followed fugitive from one camp to another, always a jump or two behind him. Seemed not to know where he was headed. Ate all my own supplies. Took to Eskimo grub. Not so worse after stomach gets used. Three days ago, crossing lake on gladed ice. Think it was Lake Blarney. Dogs sight a stray wolf. Run away. Sled swerves into fishing hole. Me thrown into water. Leg broken. Make edge of ice and crawl out. Can't go farther. Dogs catch, kill and eat wolf. Come back looking for me, but not near enough so I can swing on sled.

Am freezing to death when come Avic over my trail. For why? He makes camp in spruce, builds fire, tries to fix leg best he can. Asks, "Where go?" I say Armistice. We start. Blizzard comes; grub goes. Can't find cache. May be we get through chewing leather,--maybe not.

Can't make Avic as O'Malley's strangler. Gentle as a woman with me. He's not under arrest, but trying his darndest to get me back to post. If blizzard holds, neither of us will. Maybe this reach you some day.

Respect., C. LA MARR, Constable R.C.M.P.

Returning to the improvised hospital to ask a question or two needed to fill in gaps in the report, Seymour found Moira sitting beside the bed, stroking the fevered brow with her strong, white hands. She raised one in caution. The patient was asleep.