"Do you know the real story of the closing of Glacier Creek, Moira?" he asked, the matter-in-hand always on his mind.
"I heard it all last night from father and from Ruth," she assured him. "This pretended Mountie who has just been murdered made an inspection of the creek in father's behalf because of his love for my cousin. It's a trouble creek, I tell you.
"This Bart Caswell made friends with a hired gunman that Bonnemort and Kluger had on guard and slipped into the gulch where the claims are located. He showed great skill in keeping under cover and was not discovered until the next afternoon, by which time he had seen more than enough.
"His report," Moira went on, "was worse than father had feared. The conscienceless scoundrels had made slaves of all our people, plying them with liquor and working them heartrending hours under the whip. Bart thought the slavers knew their days of oppression were numbered, and were trying to strip the claims of their treasure in the shortest possible time. Undoubtedly the guard at the gate was as much to keep the slaves in as the whites out. Isn't that an intolerable state of affairs? Do you wonder that father is beside himself with anxiety, realizing his impotence until Canada wakes up to what is going on?"
There was no doubting her honest rage, or that it was unselfish, as neither her cousin's claim nor her father's was being plundered.
"Did I understand you to say that Bart was discovered up the gulch?" Seymour asked.
"Bonnemort himself discovered him slipping through the brush near one of their long sluice boxes," Moira informed him. "He would have beaten Bart to death had not his partner happened along. Kluger, who evidently is the brains of the combination, didn't want a white man murdered 'on the works,' as he put it. They brought Bart to the gate and literally kicked him into the open, warning him that he'd have no second chance. If ever they caught him trying to spy on them again, they threatened to shoot him on sight."
Seymour recalled the widow's version, undoubtedly the true one concerning Bart's motives and mental processes regarding the Glacier Creek plunderers. "Until that uniform fell into his hands, he did not see any way of getting the best of them," Mrs. Caswell had told him.
Bart's plan from that point was easily deduced. Once in uniform, it had been necessary for him to "stall" in regard to the Tabor murder—to checkmate Hardley with any citizens' investigation by pretending to make his own. He seemed to have found time, too, for a reassuring visit with Ruth Duperow and perhaps to advance whatever personal game he was playing with the girl.
Yesterday morning the imposter had set out for the guarded cañon on Glacier Creek, counting on the magic of the Mounted uniform, which, for once, had failed to cast its wonted spell. Possibly this failure was because the plunderers had recognized the counterfeit. But the sergeant was not ready to credit that explanation. He preferred to think that it pointed to the desperation of the gold strippers, who would not hesitate to add the murder of a non-commissioned officer to their other crimes.