"But Mrs. Morrow?" The thought came suddenly to Seymour that the woman missionary spoke some Eskimo. "She'll hear of it from the natives."
Luke Morrow smiled; they did not know of the iron which was in the make-up of his little blond wife as he did.
"She is a good woman, so merciful. I will pray this out with her in the morning."
For a time, gloomy silence held the group around the fireplace. Suddenly Karmack leaned over and grasped Morrow almost roughly by the shoulder.
"Parson, do you know why that girl left her father and the comparative comforts of a British Columbia gold camp to share a trader's shack in bleak Armistice with her brother?"
The trader's demand scarcely could have been more vehement had he personally resented Moira's coming. "I know that he did not expect her. What's more, he never even spoke of having a sister."
The missionary's calm was perfect.
"She had no way of letting him know that she was coming to spend the winter with him, once the wireless she sent to Edmonton failed to reach Wolf Lake," he replied. "She came through herself by team in the first storm of winter. We had great difficulty in keeping her with us until we ourselves were ready to make the trip across country. She'd have come through with an Indian dog driver if we had not protested so stoutly."
"All that to see a brother, eh?" snorted Karmack. "Are you certain she is his sister?"
Seymour sprang to his feet, an angry glitter in his gray eyes. "Enough of that, Karmack! Express another such doubt and out you go—for good."