One leap carried him across the littered tupik. Two hard hands fastened on Scarth’s scrawny throat. The sergeant dragged the little man out into the glaring sunshine, shook him viciously for a long moment, and then sent him spinning with a well placed kick.
The trader was on his feet again in a moment, close set eyes darting fire. He opened his slit of a mouth; then thinking better of it, he wheeled away and padded off for the post, mumbling to himself.
Cleaver watched him pass out of sight; then once more he ducked back into the tupik, calling:
“Oh, Kanneyok, I have made a true talk; I am a redcoat and you are the children of the great white king. The skin boat goes out. There will be red meat before the sun comes again. I have spoken.”
“Ai! Ai!”
A chorus of grunts answered him, but Cleaver sensed that the natives’ tones lacked conviction. Swearing softly to himself, the Mountie plunged out into the clean air and made his way up to the detachment building.
“Ain’t no way for a buck to talk to his superior, but that was a damn’ fool play,” Constable Noonan offered from his perch on the bunk. “You got us in dutch, Sergeant dear. We’ll never be able to handle the Esks again if we falls down on this job, an’ I got a hunch that’s what Mr. Scarth is after. Suit his tradin’ fine if the natives go wild an’ woolly. I ain’t no Sherlock Holmes, but if this ain’t a plant I’m a Hindoo philosopher.”
“Oh, shut up!” Cleaver put in irritably. “I’ve got enough on my hands without scrapping with you. We’re going out in the skin boat in the morning, ice or no ice, and we’re going to bring back a walrus. I’ve given the king’s word for that. It’s getting dark. Any intention of feeding the dogs tonight?”
“Thought you said I weren’t no dog man—”