"It is not meet that we should be seen in conference," O'Malley's voice had been lowered to a whisper; then suddenly it boomed so that all beneath the roof might hear: "I trust you will read that tract, brother—read and profit thereby." And with that, he stalked down the hall as though in search of other needy souls.
Seymour watched him. On getting no answer from the next door, the gaunt frame stooped to slip a tract under it. At another a woman answered his knock and a "sister" was informed that in the midst of life she was in death.
Back in his room, Seymour pondered the single whispered sentence with which the sky pilot varied what evidently were his wonted words when distributing tracts. Had Moira written that he had started for Gold and that he knew more than anyone in the world about the family's Arctic tragedy?
But that was impossible, for he had been able to spend but a moment with the girl when orders came to him at Montreal to report at once to the assistant commissioner in command of "E" Division at Vancouver. Seymour himself had not known then that he would eventually arrive in plain clothes at her father's mission station.
What, then, could the whisper mean unless there was a message—temporal rather than spiritual—for him hidden somewhere in the pamphlet?
But when he shook its leaves, no enclosure dropped out. He examined the margins without raising a sign. The inside back cover was blank but nothing had been written thereon. He remembered that the missionary had picked the tract seemingly at random from a pack of several dozen and he was discouraged.
Still, the whisper persisted. "It is not meet that we be seen in conference"—he recalled every significant word of it. Surely such words had not been spoken at random. Drawing the chair to the window, he sat down and began a more intensive study of the printed sheet. Soon, an ink dot beneath a letter rewarded him; then others. Presently he picked out a sequence of dotted letters spelling "P-a-r-d-o-n."
The process reminded him of reading sun-heliograph or taking a blinker message at night. Undoubtedly the communication was of importance that the girl should have gone to such trouble to assure secrecy. The uncle, too, must have shared the secret or he could not have been trusted to pick out the message-dotted tract. From his clothes poke, the sergeant took out a writing pad and with his pencil set the indicated letters into words, with this final result:
P-a-r-d-o-n m-y v-a-m-o-s-e a-n-d c-u-t B-o-t-h
f-o-r g-o-o-d o-u-r c-a-u-s-e B-a-r-t s-a-i-d y-o-u
c-o-m-i-n-g t-o h-e-l-p N-o-w m-u-s-t c-a-r-r-y o-n
a-l-o-n-e B-e c-a-r-e-f-u-l K-e-e-p s-i-l-e-n-t C-o-m-e
o-u-r c-a-b-i-n l-a-t-e t-o-n-i-g-h-t G-r-e-e-n
R-i-v-e-r a-t G-l-a-c-i-e-r R-u-t-h D-u-p-e-r-o-w.
The message amazed him on more than one count. She had "left him cold" at the point of discovery and later on refused to recognize him on the streets of Gold for the good of "our cause." What cause? Unless that was her way of indicating law and order, he knew of no cause they had in common. Again, he was to "carry on alone." What did she expect him to carry on?