Silently, he completed his immediate investigation of the crime. Two points stood out to confirm the suspicion born of his intimate knowledge of the Eskimo garroting methods. Upon the corpus delicti there was absolutely no mark except the sinister purple rim about the throat and a blood spot beneath the skin where the knot in the seal line had taken strangle hold. In the hut there was no sign of a struggle such as he had put forth to save himself in the igloo, not a dent in the earthen floor or a skin rug out of place. Yet, as he well knew, O'Malley was a powerful youth and of fighting stock!
"Let's have the facts—such as you know." The sergeant turned suddenly to Karmack.
"Dear eyes, I should say you shall have them—every one," returned the trader eagerly.
Despite certain mannerisms and his unusual—for the outlands—fastidiousness of dress, Karmack was straightforward and exceedingly matter of fact.
Word from native sources, it seemed, had reached the trading company's store several days before that Avic was in from his trap line with fox pelts "worth a fortune," according to Eskimo standards. He had borrowed this hut in which they now stood in the outskirts of the town from a relative and had sent the native for the makings of a "party," or potlatch. The hunter himself had not appeared in camp or sent any direct word to Karmack that he had fox skins for sale. He had no debit on the books of the Arctic company, so the reasonable supposition of his aloofness was that he meant to drive a hard bargain.
Skilled in barter with the natives, Karmack said he had countered by betraying no interest in the arrival of the aloof hunter. He had felt confident that, given time, Avic would run short of funds for entertaining and market his catch at a reasonable figure. But, at length, had come disturbing rumors over his native "grape-vine." Avic had heard, the rumor went, that the Moravian Mission has established a new trade store at Wolf Lake, near the big river—the mighty Mackenzie. He was excited by tales of high prices paid there and was planning to migrate to that market with his prizes.
"It was then," continued Karmack, "that I told O'Malley to mush over to see this bird and talk him into a good humor. The young chap had developed a knack at sign-language barter, although he knew little Eskimo; I was busy on a bale of furs at the store. He was just to persuade Avic to come into the post where we'd come to some satisfactory agreement as to price for whatever the 'Skim's traps had yielded.
"By gar, sir, two hours passed and Oliver did not come back, nor was there any sign of the hunter. The mission shouldn't have taken him half an hour, for all in the name of reason that the native could have wanted was for us to come to him with an invitation. I began to get anxious and started out to see what was what. Meeting La Marr out front, I asked him to come along with me, still with no apprehension. We found what you yourself have seen—exactly that and nothing more."
He paused for a moment with his emotion, then: "Holy smoke, man, if I had known what would eventuate, I'd never have sent him but gone myself. They're afraid of me, these confounded huskies, and I'd grown to love that boy as a brother!"
"What do you know about O'Malley, Karmack—how he came into the territories—what he'd done in the provinces—all that sort of thing?" Seymour asked the disjointed question seemingly satisfied with the other's preliminary statement.