“You’ve got enough brains to feed them some tallow, at any rate,” the sergeant cut in on him. “Go out, Timothy Noonan, or I’ll throw you out!”
Constable Noonan dodged about the heater, grabbed his parka off a peg and slid through the door. Once outside he listened for a moment to the ice pans’ tinkling and the mournful wailing of Scarth’s huskies. Then with an expressive shoulder shrug, Noonan made his way up to the little storehouse.
The key grated in the lock, and with that well known sound eager whines burst from the dogs penned in the corral. Scarth’s starving brutes heard those expectant whimpers and filled the night air with agonized howling.
It was a good three hours later when Noonan pushed in the door of the detachment building and grinned over at his chief. Cleaver was stretched on his bunk, khaki shirted, body bathed in yellow lamplight, and deep in “Soldiers Three”. The sergeant threw the book down and glared at the rubicund face.
“Look here, you nighthawk,” he called. “Haven’t you got any savvy at all? You stay away from that girl, or I’ll—”
“Nix on the gentle sentiment tonight,” the constable broke in. “Love’s off; murder’s on. Been prowlin’. We won’t possess any skin boat in the mornin’; the Esks will have it that the great white king ain’t the caribou’s chin whiskers no longer, an’ Scarth will be known as the very strong man from here to Hoboken.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Cleaver boomed, jerking bolt upright. “Scarth wouldn’t dare break up that boat; not after that three months I got him for monkeying with our schooner last year.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised!” Noonan mocked his superior. “There’s more ways of killin’ a polar bear than choking it with chocolate eclairs. Climb into your parka an’ mukluks an’ we’ll take in the movie. It’s a real fifty cent show. Come on.”
Mumbling uncomplimentary things regarding his companion’s mentality, Cleaver vaulted off the bunk, pulled on his sealskin boots and parka, and followed Noonan’s squat figure out into the night.