CHAPTER XX

SCARLET AND GOLD

In the moment of his betrayal Kit had the ghastly sensation of a man whose lungs had been suddenly pumped empty. His heart stopped, his brain went numb, the sense of living stopped for those few shocking seconds. He felt as though he had been stripped bare and pilloried in a public place. Faces surrounded him and eyes looked at him, and the silence grew almost too acute to be endured.

The page of the open book was glossy in the lamplight. He saw the half-tone photo in the upper corner, the strong-jawed, bold-eyed likeness of his brother Jerry. Sergeant Buck Tearl, stalwart in any such crisis as this. But Jerry was gone, out of it. Kitchener and his brother looked nothing alike. Anybody could see the photo and know with certainty that Kit was not the man whose name and the record of whose deeds was printed here in the blackest of ink. And he was alone now, with no Jerry to turn to, standing at bay in the sacred scarlet.

Devon and Cross were hanging over the table looking at the book. Then both raised their heads to look at Kit. All trace of expression was wiped from their faces. The ruthless police visage--their faces might have been chopped out of the same slab of marble.

“Well?” said Devon.

Kit said nothing. What could he say? They had him. Impersonating an officer! A black crime in the police books. These men were terribly jealous of their own. Looming, hard years--a long stretch--the least punishment he could expect. Well--

There was nothing to do but face it out. His back stiffened as though he were to meet an assault. One eyebrow cocked upward. He had known that this might happen. Only it was strange the way it had been brought about. He would have gotten away with the masquerade if Jerry’s funny old picture hadn’t bobbed up to ruin him--

“What about it?” demanded Devon.

As though a command had been given, the pair of constables circled the table, one from one side, one the other. A hard, round muzzle jammed itself into Kit’s ribs. Somebody ripped open the flap of his holster, and his gun was gone. Searching hands passed skillfully up and down his person. A chain clinked, something glinted in the lamplight, steel cuffs bent themselves around his wrists and snapped fast.

Sergeant Cross pulled up a chair. “Sit down!”

Kit sat. He hadn’t tried to resist. They would have had every excuse to kill him. His self-control had come back to him. He was thinking clearly and rapidly.

“Why’d you do it?” asked Devon.

“Warn you!” put in Cross.

Kit’s head turned instinctively, seeking Diane. But the girl had withdrawn into the background, keeping out of his sight. Oogly had climbed down from the upper bunk, fully clad, and was standing with Mayauk, looking on. From the dismayed expression of his face it might have seemed that the Esquimau’s whole world had fallen apart.

Oogly’s gaze reached Kit. For just an instant his narrow eyes held a gleam that might have been mistaken for intelligence, and then his dull and stolid look returned.

“Too much hot here,” he announced abruptly. “Me an’ Uttaktuak. Going for walking.” He took the baby from Mayauk’s arms and moved across the cabin. “Nobody cares?”

Nobody did, apparently. The constables didn’t look around. Oogly opened the door and went out into the snowy night.

“You don’t have to talk--if you don’t want to,” Cross said to his handcuffed prisoner.

Kit acknowledged that remark with a rasping smile, and held his tongue. He had decided what he had to do. There had been enough scandal in the Tearl family. The ugly talk about his father; Jerry leaving home under a cloud. And now Kit. He’d be the first Tearl jail-bird.

Well, nobody had to know it. He’d keep the name out of this. Spare little Jane that shame anyhow. Nobody could make him tell who he was. It wouldn’t do a particle of good to identify himself. Even if he proved to them he was the sergeant’s brother, what of it? His offense was not lessened. If he could make them believe that he had donned the uniform at Jerry’s suggestion, it wouldn’t help him. And Jerry’s memory would be blackened....

“Where is the sergeant?” Devon suddenly shot at him.

Kit saw no reason to withhold all of the facts. “He’s dead.”

“Huh?” The muscles around the corners of Devon’s mouth stiffened visibly. “Where? How?”

“In the old cabin down at Great Owl Run. Six or seven weeks ago. You lose track of time. He was killed and dumped out of the window into the creek.”

The constable’s lips formed a soundless exclamation. “Who the hell killed him?” he snarled.

“This girl’s uncle,” said Kit quietly.

A hurried step across the room, and Diane confronted them. “It’s a lie!” she said.

“Wait a minute now. Hold on!” Devon’s steely glance shifted from Diane to settle upon Kit. He sat significantly silent for a moment, his features limned austerely in the shadow of the lamp.

“Where’d you get the uniform?” he asked abruptly.

Kit’s lips set tighter. He was in danger of entangling himself if he said too much. As Cross had said, he didn’t have to make any admissions. He’d have to think out his story and be very sure that all the parts fitted together. There’d be plenty of time for that. He wasn’t on trial now.

“Where’d you first meet this man?” Cross asked Diane.

“Down around Port-o’-Prayer.”

“Was he alone?”

“No. There was another man with him.”

“Who?”

“He was--I didn’t know at the time. But since I’ve seen this picture I think--I’m sure--he was Sergeant Tearl.”

“Yes?” said Cross sharply.

“Yes!” echoed Devon, and swung around menacingly to Kit. “Killed him yourself, didn’t you? Killed him for his uniform!”

“No,” Kit replied, meeting Devon’s gaze, steel to steel.

“Do you know if he did?” the constable jerked over his shoulder at the girl.

“No. I--I don’t know.”

“Was he wearing the uniform when you first saw him?” Diane hesitated. Kit saw her blanched face beyond the table. “I--I can’t say. If he had the scarlet tunic then it didn’t show under his outer garments. I only noticed it--after we had reached the cabin!”

“Where the murder happened?”

The girl shuddered. “There--yes.”

Kit smiled a twisted, acid smile. The girl was doing her best to convict him of murder. She wanted him taken down country out of her uncle’s way. Innuendoes and half-truths, told with a show of reluctance--she had made a grave case against him. And he would let it go at that for the present. He wasn’t sure how much of his own side of the story he wanted to tell. Anyhow, it would be useless to say anything now in his own defense. Nobody’d believe him. He had been caught in a uniform that didn’t belong to him. Almost as heinous a matter as being a spy in wartime. They’d take him to the inspector’s headquarters no matter what he said--or tried to prove--they’d hang him if they could.

Devon and Cross were already formulating plans.

“I’ll take him down,” said Devon, whose seniority gave him a slight advantage. “Starting at daybreak. He’ll talk when the inspector puts on the clam-squeezers.”

“What the deuce do you suppose his lay was?” asked Cross indignantly, discussing the prisoner as though he were not present. “Bumping off a policeman, and then coming around in sergeant’s chevrons, giving orders to you and me?”

“You leave it to the inspector,” said Devon.

“When you take me down, you’d better take this girl too,” interrupted Kit. “Whatever I’ve done she’s as bad or worse than I. Ask her to explain why she’s hanging around the Great Owl woods. Make her tell you her uncle’s right name, and then find out what he wants here.”

“When we want any more orders from you,” said Devon, “we’ll post you for a commission.”

“While I’m gone,” Devon suggested to Cross, and turned his back on Kit, “you’d better see if you can find Buck Tearl’s body. If he went into the creek he’ll be there still, or down along the Vermilion River.”

“I’m going to look,” said Cross.

“This last storm is busting up the ice. You’ll find plenty of open water and big jams all the way down. You look well. We’ve gotta have the body--”

“Ask her about the sledge-load of gold,” interrupted Kit, and shot a malicious glance at Diane. “Ask her how it came to be where it is now. Get her to tell you all about it.”

Devon faced about, winking. “What do you mean--sledge-load of gold?” His curiosity rebounded to Diane. “What does he mean?”

“Why--I--” The girl hesitated and her glance wandered uneasily towards the stranger, Pettijohn. The man was sitting with his arms hugging the back of his chair, his jutting ears as avid as a pair of funnels.

“Oh, ye-ah!” drawled Devon. “Just wait a minute.” He spoke almost too politely to the visitor. “You said you were going on down to the Yellow-Knife camp to-night.”

“Well, yes, I thought I might--”

“All right!” agreed Devon pointedly.

Pettijohn stood up, disconcerted. He didn’t want to go. That was clear. But the invitation was too plain to be missed. “Well,” he decided, “I guess I might as well be going along.”

Devon picked up the man’s steaming mackinaw and held it for him. He gave him his snowshoes and rifle and helped him to buckle on his back pack. “Sorry you gotta be going,” said Devon. “Well, so-long anyhow. Come and see us again sometime.”

“Thanks awfully!” said Pettijohn wryly. “Thanks for the dinner and everything. Well, so-long, everybody.”

A moment later he had tramped out into the night.

Devon crossed to the front window and scratched into the frost rime with his thumbnail. He applied his eye to the gouged place and then bent his ear to listen. For a minute or two he waited thus to make sure there was no eavesdropping. Then he turned back to Diane.

“All right now. What’s all this about a sledge-load--”

He never finished. The heavy door banged open, admitting a gust of snow and a white-furred figure that looked more like a shaggy, stampeding musk-ox than a man. Then the door was closed, the wavering light steadied, and they saw it was Oogly.

Kit never before had seen the Esquimau aroused from his transcendental calm. Now he was fairly exploding with excitement, horror. “_Uttaktuak!_” he yelled.

Everybody turned, petrified, to stare. Mayauk’s eyes had grown into dark circles of alarm. A sharp incoherency of speech was wrung from Diane’s parting lips. Kit stumbled up from his stool. The two constables stood with sagging jaws.

“What?” exclaimed Devon.

“The baby!” gasped Diane. “Uttaktuak! Something’s happened--”

“Down between ice--falling in creek!” Oogly’s voice broke through above his labored breathing. “Can’t reach ’um--drowning--”

“Where?” demanded Cross.

“In creek--ice-- Oh, my gosh awful!” wailed Oogly.

Mayauk screamed and darted for the door.

“Come on! Show me!” Devon put on one mitten, and didn’t wait to grab the other. He seized Oogly’s elbow and thrust the Esquimau ahead of him out of the doorway.

Constable Cross snatched blindly at the wall pegs, got a blanket and a cap, and then he was gone after the others, banging the door behind him.

In their dash to the rescue it might have seemed that they had forgotten their prisoner. But there really was nothing for them to worry about. A handcuffed man would never get far in the wintry forests.

Kit started to follow, and then ruefully clinked his manacled wrists, and sat down again. Diane was left alone with him.

The girl had checked her first impulse to rush out into the storm. As the running footsteps faded away in the blustering darkness she turned wildly to look around the cabin. The tea-kettle. She filled the vessel afresh at the water-butt and put it on the stove to boil. If the rescuers were lucky enough to come back with a frozen morsel of human flesh in their arms, there’d be no waiting for “first-aid” treatment. Somebody had to stay behind.

She poked up the fire and crowded three fresh logs into the fire-box. Blankets were brought from the bunk and draped over chairs by the stove. She found an old door brick and put it into the oven to heat. Then she went to the back window, scraped off the pane, and tried to see out of doors.

Kit had followed her movements about the room, watching with dreamy, half closed eyes. Then, fervently, after a long silence: “I do hope they get her!”

“Yes,” agreed Diane, her nose still pressing the glass.

There was another endless lapse after that: two beings in one room, listening for the same sounds, thinking kindred thoughts, acutely conscious of one another, separated nevertheless by a barrier as heartbreakingly wide as the polar ice-pack. The clock ticked quietly on its shelf, the kettle began to hum its homely refrain, the draft whipped and lashed up the red-hot chimney; outside they heard the snow slatting across the roof, the hurry of the wind, the crack and groan of the broken ice-floes in the creek, crawling, sliding--

Diane faced about suddenly. “What a frightful night!” she said.

Kit saw her eyes, pitiful somehow, haunted with a tragic lonesomeness. He knew she was not thinking of the weather.

“You and I have done frightful things to each other,” he said.

“You forced me,” she answered dully. “You forced me to do it.”

In the flash of his smile there was a melancholy sweetness, without resentment or reproach. “We ran afoul of things that had us licked before we started. It might have been so different.”

“I know. You think I don’t?” Tears gathered and glistened for an instant on her eyelashes, and then she winked hard and flung back her head. “I’m sorry--”

Her hand gripped towards Kit, to be arrested half-lifted, half-open. “What’s that?”

A tumult of heavy sound welled out of the night: a slow rumble gaining force and momentum; a splintering and grinding; the crack and crash of small field-pieces cutting loose in furious volleys; the ground, the cabin walls trembled against a sudden violence breaking out of the darkness.

Kit and Diane were standing at the rear window, without remembering how they got there. The black head and the ruddy head were touching as they tried to see through the same window-pane. Smothering darkness without. They caught the surge and rush of big water let loose.

“_Saut Sauvage!_” muttered Kit. “The rapids! The ice-dam has gone out.”

“My God!” she whispered.

The battering crunch of great ice cakes, hitting and breaking up. A man shouted somewhere shrilly. A sudden swelling and mingling of all sounds in one thundering outburst. Then, as abruptly, the roar ceased. A jar and a jolt now and then, slacking to quiet. Only the wash and splash of rapid water running free.

Kit did not hear the shack door open. An indraft of snowy air hit the back of his neck. He turned his face from the window. Oogly was standing in the doorway.

Diane whirled. “The baby? Where’s the baby?”

Oogly ignored her. He came into the room and forgot to shut the door. His slyly puckered eyes brought their message for Kit alone. This, he seemed to think, was no time to bother with children or women.

“Finean’dandy!” he announced. “You an’ me go up along barren land. Sea no frozing later. Big whaling ship come along inside pack-ice. You go away on whaling ship--nobody arresting you anytime then.”

Oogly was trying to be nonchalant, but obviously he was pleased with himself. It was beginning to dawn upon Kit that the Esquimau in some mysterious manner had had a hand in the breaking-up of the creek floes. He had lured Devon and Cross out of the shack with a wild yarn about the baby. Kit studied the man’s unemotional countenance in suddenly growing alarm.

“Oogly! Where are the constables?”

For the first time the Esquimau allowed his self-appreciation to appear in a widening grin.

“Constables riding on middle water. Noum coming along back a long while now.”