Never Fire First: A Canadian Northwest Mounted Story

by James French Dorrance

Morrow had followed him to police quarters almost at once with an offer of the Mission House malamutes for the stern chase—stern in more than one sense of the word. Knowing that both the police teams were worn out—the one of the scarlet special and the other of mercy's errand—Seymour had accepted the mission's team, although he preferred always to drive his own dogs when they were in the least fit.

From Morrow, he had details of Karmack's morning visit which had resulted in Moira's unfortunate decision to attempt to go "Outside" under his escortage. Karmack had said he meant to take the shortest course to the Mackenzie on the frozen surface of which he expected to find a more or less traveled trail. He would be delighted to have Moira's company. She could drive her own team and would find it easy to follow his own huskies. They would have the Arctic's interpreter, a famous musher, to break trail and keep them on the right track. It would be an express trip, he had declared, and she would find herself with her friends before she knew it.

"Emma and I tried to dissuade her from taking the chance," the missionary had told Seymour with tears in his voice, "but the temptation was too much for the girl. We assured her she would be welcome to spend the rest of the winter, but she wanted to depart the scene of the tragedy."

At the moment, Seymour had wondered how much her ill-founded disappointment in him had affected her decision. And this thought kept recurring to him now as he followed the double sled trails. It clinched his determination to overtake them at the earliest possible moment.

Fortunately there was no wind to-night and he had nothing to contend against but the bitterness of the cold. He was traveling "light" with caribou pemmican, hardtack and tea as the major contents of his grub sack. The mission dogs were running as if out for an exercise jaunt; but the air was too frigid to permit much riding for their driver. Often he had to hold them back that he might not become absolutely winded.

Already he had proved one lie in Karmack's statement to the girl and the missionary, as reported with undoubted truthfulness by the latter. The fugitive was not headed directly for the Mackenzie River, the natural highway "Outside." That would have taken him by the Wolf Lake trading and mission station. Even in the night, the sergeant recognized the ridge they were following and that there had been a sharp veering to the south-west. The course would bring them to the river far from any outpost and doubtless Karmack, if he got away, would continue to avoid all such on the way up river until certain he had out-distanced any pursuit.

The possibility that already the girl regretted her hasty decision to leave the Morrows occurred to him as a possible reason for Karmack's change of course. If she had threatened to give up the attempt upon reaching Wolf Lake, the factor, naturally, would give the other missionaries a wide berth. But cheering as was the idea, he soon dismissed it. Moira O'Malley was not the sort to turn back on an endeavor, and it was improbable that there had been any alarming overtures from Karmack so early in the wild project. He was clever, was Handsome Harry, and, by his own boast, experienced with women. He would wait until he had completely won her by the countless services that would crop up on a trip of this sort. All the more reason, then, for Seymour to overtake and capture before they got beyond reach of return to Armistice. Again and again his goad of caribou hide snapped near the ears of his team. The panting animals flattened their bodies while he rode the sled in defiance of the frost.

Soon after break of day, belated in this latitude and season, came his reward. In the course of the night's sled run he had worked out of the bare tundra country of the foreshore into a region splotched here and there with brush. Now he saw rising from one of the clumps ahead a spiral of smoke marking someone's breakfast fire.

No difficulty was there in guessing whose fire—not in the Great Barrens! Evidently, from the distance covered, Karmack had driven far into the night, but, none the less, did not mean to be deprived of an early start on the second day of his dash for freedom.

Seymour dragged the mission dogs to a halt a mile away from the fugitive's camp. When rival teams meet on the snows, they dash at each others' throats with a chorus of yowls and all the strength of their respective masters is required to keep them apart. The sergeant expected to be engaged otherwise than clubbing malamutes when he got to that breakfast fire.