"Where's the joke with Miss O'Malley dead?" Seymour demanded, as the Eskimo turned him over to knead his spine. Koplock was too much engaged in his operations to reply readily, then:
"The most big joke him is Miss O'Malley she am not dead but just some hurt like you."
The effect upon Seymour was magical. Power returned to his muscles as suddenly as it had departed from them. Of his own will, he turned over and sat up in the snow. With the Eskimo's aid, he got to his feet. He glanced anxiously over the battle scene, but could see nothing of the beloved figure. His eyes put the question.
"Koplock carry her to tent," answered the native.
"Good boy, Koplock!"
Slowly, for his legs were numb, and with the native's grip to steady him, Seymour walked to the tent. There the girl lay wrapped in a rabbit-skin robe, gazing open-eyed at the roof, upon her flushed face an expression of surprise, as if she did not understand just what had befallen her.
"Thank heaven you're alive!" cried the Mountie, staring down at her, his eyes brimming with tears of rejoicing.
"You—you!" she murmured. "Where is Mr. Karmack?" She seemed afraid and her wide eyes accused him cruelly.
Seymour sat down beside her. "After nearly murdering you, Mister Karmack has continued his flight," he said. "You and I will thrash this out once and for all, Moira. The wound of his shot in your back will have to wait until I've cleared your mind of certain apprehensions."
She turned from him, but he felt certain that she would listen. First he assured her of his great liking for her brother, a mutual regard, he believed. Then he recounted every pertinent detail of the brutal strangling with the Ugiuk-line, not forgetting the evidence of the two too-well-curried fox pelts. Frankly, he set forth Karmack's jealous motive in casting her suspicions upon himself. Her own misinterpretation of the scene she had interrupted in the trade room was contended with a convincing account of the entire struggle, ending with Karmack's attempt to shoot him. To prove the factor's real reason for flight, he read her the warrant which the "scarlet special" had brought from Ottawa.