"Our sergeant of the Dismounted is positively brilliant this morning," she said, confounding him utterly with twin flashes of Irish blue. "Why, all the time I attended school in Ottawa, I saw no one more considerate. You see, when Oliver gets back from this inconsiderate mush of his, I'll become quite useless as your handmaiden, Emma, with all the things a brother will be needing done for him."
Mrs. Morrow had not been advised of the true situation, but she had her own ideas as to the proper habitat in an outland's camp for a girl like Moira.
"Oh, you'll keep right on living at Mission House as long as you're here, my dear," she said. "The shack of a bachelor trader is no place for so dashing a belle."
"But I know Olie's quarters, whatever they are, will need my sisterly attentions," she protested, spreading unconscious agony to the two men. "His room at home always was a sight. A place for everything but nothing in its place seemed to be that Mick's motto."
As the two men went on ahead to the small dwelling that had been closed since the previous spring thaw, Seymour found himself asking again why she had come. Were sisters as devoted as that? As motherly? Never having had a sister, he was unable to answer.
The pair stripped weather boarding from doors and windows, aired the house thoroughly and carried in a supply of wood from the shed. They then closed it tight and built roaring fires in every available stove to remove the winter chill. The native hostler from the post already had shoveled paths through the snow.
So far as the two males could see, but little inside cleaning would be necessary. But the women, on coming to the house presently, revised that verdict and fell to with broom and mop.
The smoke from Mission House stove-pipes probably had been reported to Karmack, for he arrived presently, his interpreter drawing a toboggan loaded with provisions which were presented to the missionaries with compliments from the trading company. The gift was gracious, the supplies being of a sort not found in the somewhat meager store of staples provided by the societies. They were gratefully received.
Came then a second shock from Moira, again an innocent one, in the form of coupled questions.
"But Mr. Karmack, have you locked the store?" she asked first.