At last he turned away. He crammed some papers into one of the pockets of his coat, picked up a plug of chewing tobacco and disposed it handily, seized a stocky hunting crop, drew on his fur mitts, and passed out of the room for the white expanse of the barrack square.
Sturt was a fierce disciplinarian and an exceedingly shrewd police officer. No one knew better than he the severity of the conditions governing the lives of those who acknowledged the authority of the Police Department. And no one knew better than he the need for such severity if a mere handful of men were to maintain law and order in a territory large enough to support a world of strenuous human souls.
Nor would he have had things otherwise. Police traditions were ingrained in his sturdy nature. The “Force” and its purposes bounded his whole outlook. He understood that it was not only his duty but his desire to see that its esprit was maintained to the last degree, and no affront or outrage against its traditions went undealt with. And discipline? Well, discipline in the Mounted Police was the whole of everything as he saw it.
It was little wonder, therefore, that the morning’s mail had grievously upset him. He had received a private letter from Doctor Fraser at Buffalo Coulee. And the doctor was a man with whom he had not infrequently come into contact; a man for whom he entertained a certain respect. It was an astounding letter. A letter which very nearly added further bristle to his cropped hair.
The letter conveyed the information that, for something over two weeks, Constable Ernest Sinclair had been missing from his post at Buffalo Coulee.
Constable Sinclair was missing. Missing! It was that curiously ugly word which the doctor had used. And no one had a better appreciation of its significance than Sergeant-major Sturt.
There were, of course, all sorts of possible explanations for such a situation. But the sergeant-major’s mind saw few alternatives. That was the result of extensive knowledge and experience. There was first of all the matter of life and death. Many an able constable had lost his life in the execution of his duty. There was the winter, the intense cold, blizzards. Then there was shooting, when dealing with criminals—a hundred and one chances. But Sturt was incapable of accepting any excuse where a policeman’s life was involved. It was always the same. An “intolerable,” a “damnable” expression of inefficiency.
Another alternative he saw was desertion. It was just possible that Sinclair had deserted across the United States border. But somehow he could not bring himself to accept such a theory. He knew the man’s keenness and ambition too well. There was one thing certain, however. Should desertion prove to be the answer, all his passive, blasphemous disgust would be swiftly translated into fierce activity.
The reflection with the greatest appeal, based of course on Sturt’s personal knowledge of the man in question, was the chance that Sinclair was away on a hot trail after some criminal, a trail that had carried him farther than he had anticipated. But, even so, it offered no excuse for creating a position in police affairs wherein it was possible for a mere civilian to interfere. That was against all police tradition and, in Sturt’s mind, the worst possible exhibition of inefficiency.
The man chewed and spat the whole way across the barrack square. It was an almost mute expression of his disturbance. He moved swiftly, his rubber-shod feet ploughing their resolute way through the soft snow without concern for the depth of the drifts. And by the time he reached the Orderly Room, where he knew he would find Superintendent Croisette already at work, it would have been a simple matter to have tracked him down by the trail of tobacco juice he left behind him in the snow.