"We've handed them too many rifles, for one thing," offered Seymour slowly. "But don't you worry, the Mounted will get the deluded creatures in hand. Will you come with us for a look at the O'Malley scene?"
Karmack reached for his furs.
"If you don't," he remarked, a severe note in his voice, "you scarlet soldiers won't be any safer than us traders. When I think of young O'Malley, one of the finest chaps I ever knew, struck down here at a police post——"
A catch in his voice stopped him. Taking a battery lantern from a cupboard beside the doorway, he signified he was ready for the said inspection.
La Marr led the way to the scene of the crime—a stone hut half buried in the snow. At the door he broke the R.C.M.P. seal which he placed there before setting out on his futile pursuit of the suspect.
"Nothing was disturbed, sir," said the constable in a hushed voice. "Everything is as Karmack and I found it when we came to investigate why O'Malley did not return to the store."
They stepped out of the gathering dusk into a windowless room. The roof was so low as to cause the shortest of them to stoop. The trader pushed the button on his lantern and raised it.
Across the cave-like room, which was bare of furniture after the Eskimo fashion, Seymour stared. There, in a sitting posture on a sleeping bench, was all that was mortal of the assistant factor.
In life, O'Malley had been a handsome youth of pronounced Irish type. Sudden death had wrought so few changes that the sergeant had difficulty in believing that he looked on other than a sleeping fellow human. A dankness, as of a tomb, served to convince him.
The victim's head rested against the back wall of the hut; his crossed feet upon a deerskin floor covering. Clutched in one hand was a black fox pelt. Upon the sleeping bench beside him lay one of silver. Both looked to be unusually fine skins. Presumably, some dispute over the price of the prizes was the motive of the crime.