With Brewster tied to his saddle and Karmack, still handcuffed, on foot, the prisoners were started down creek under the guns of the sergeant and his volunteer aid. Beneath the non-com.'s arm was a worn boot for a lame right foot, his prize "Exhibit B." First honors in the evidence line were in the commissioner's vault back in Ottawa—"Exhibit A," a pair of fox pelts, one silver and one black. Of the three murders he had solved, that of poor Oliver O'Malley would always have first place in his personal record book.
On the down creek tramp, Seymour told Moira what he knew of the wonder story of platinum. Her missionary father had not been the first to call this occasional associate of gold a nuisance and to throw it away, not knowing what else to do with it. In less than a generation the gray metal had emerged from the lesser metals, crept past silver and then raced beyond gold into the limelight of popularity. Whatever the ultimate fate of the ore it was certain to remain a treasure-metal until long after Glacier Creek had been mined out.
For his own satisfaction, as well as hers, he outlined the plot against the Indians as he now saw it. Phil Brewster, he believed, had recognized platinum in the frog-gold which the Siwashes were discarding. The freighter had sent back to Montreal for Kluger to direct the harvest. Knowing at least something of Karmack's plight, Kluger had brought the Armistice murderer with him as an assistant and had posed him as a half-breed as part of the disguise. Whether or not the latter knew that the father of the youth he had caused to be slain in the Arctic lived in the immediate vicinity of the platinum bed was a question. At any rate, the criminal probably figured that he would be safer in a sealed British Columbia cañon than in the cafés of the city that lately has become the gayest in North America. Brewster undoubtedly had been riding guard outside under cover of his established freighting business.
The trio had corralled the Indians on their own claims in the easiest possible way—by giving them all the gold that was sluiced, while they took the six-times richer platinum. Their discovery that Bart Caswell had recognized their precious metal had sealed his death warrant. Its execution had been prompt, as she knew. He could only hope that the official executions which seemed called for would not be too long delayed.
After some persuasion and the reminder that Moira was a persistent young person, he sketched the steps by which he had walked through the local mystery. His conviction that Bart had robbed the stage, based on recognition of the uniform, had given him a "head start" and had proved a lever with the widow Caswell. She had started him on a "richer than gold" search. Moira herself, with her tip about the frog-gold, had spurred him, for he suspected it to be platinum. The squaw tale that the Siwashes were getting all the gold had helped, and the shaking of a platinum nugget from the ore sack had completed his enlightenment. As for the black-hearted Karmack, whose hair had turned red—well, that was an excellent piece of dyer's art, but one Scarlet Seymour would be long forgiving himself for not having recognized it as such that memorable night at the Venetian Gardens.
"Do you suppose my being there had anything to do——" began Moira.
"Why, most wonderful girl alive, I particularly wanted to get him to close the books with——" He interrupted himself at thought of the platinum wealth at the mouth of the creek.
They passed the graveyard diggings without disturbing the Siwashes at their labors. At the tent camp in the cañon, Seymour surprised Kluger, sacking platinum for the get-away which Brewster had warned him was imminent. The little man was so preoccupied with his delightful task, and in such fancied security, that the sergeant had a gun to his back before he looked up from the booty. Two additional saddle horses were annexed here, which Moira and Seymour mounted.
At the "gate" they surprised one of the two hired guards in controversy with O'Malley. Anxious about his daughter, the old missionary was trying to talk his way into the gulch. At seeing his employers under arrest, the guard resigned on the spot and could not hand over his rifle soon enough. On the ride into Gold, the other guard was encountered, headed back to his "work." Single-handed, Shan O'Malley made the last necessary capture, adding another prospective witness for the king's case.
Not until Seymour had gone through the formality of borrowing the town jail from Deputy Hardley, and the prisoners were safely immured, with the ice-box door really locked, did Moira seem to remember her costume. A signal sent from her seat in the saddle brought the sergeant out of the curious crowd about the log calaboose.