Going down the creek bank in the brush until he was out of sight of the camp, he gained the trail and started back. He walked as openly as though he belonged to the outfit; stopped at several points to look critically at the work being done, then strode on with a nod or grunt of approval. None challenged his advance; not even a look questioned him. He entered the tent as though he had every right to do so, as, indeed, he had, although it was a right of a different sort than any who observed him might have imagined.
As the canvas flaps fell behind him, he made a rapid survey of the interior—two folding cots with bedding, camp stools, a table built of empty dynamite boxes with the labels of the "Kingdom Come" brand much in evidence, and an improvised clothes horse hung with an assortment of masculine apparel. His particular interest settled on what looked like a carpenter's tool chest, but which, for want of any likelier container, he took to be the camp's treasury box. Without much hope; he stooped and tried the lid. It was locked.
In the act of kneeling to examine this, the tent was suffused in sunlight from the opening of a flap. He straightened and turned as a young squaw entered, her head bound in a bright-colored bandanna. Possibly she was the fastidious Bonnemort's chambermaid, he thought, come to make the bed. His heart was pounding. An alarm would ruin all.
"Kla-how-yah!" she grunted the usual Chinook greeting, but evinced no surprise at finding him in the tent.
"Don't mind me," he managed to reply with a well assumed assurance, hoping she at least could understand English, even though she did not speak it.
But she spoke it, and to his utter consternation. "Right good make-up if it fools a Mountie," she said with a lilting laugh that was controlled not to carry beyond the canvas. "How do you like me as a klootch?"
"Moira!" he whispered.
"None other, Sergeant Scarlet."