A generous mouth, full and red of lips, sent his eyes hastening on their fleeting inspection when she became aware of his presence in the kitchen doorway. If the even rows of pearls behind those lips had flashed him a smile then, the temptation must have been too great. Her slender figure merely hinted at rounding out in its mould of black blanket-cloth. He glanced shyly at her ankles--always the cover-point in his estimate of feminine pulchritude. She still wore her trail _muckluks_ of fur, clumsy looking as a squaw's sacking, but he knew beyond doubt how silk stockings and pumps would become her.
In the eyes he had remarked on the trail, however, Moira's beauty reached its highest peak, he decided. They were as blue as the heart of an Ungova iceberg and as warm as the fire which glowed behind her. They looked out at him in a friendly, inquiring way from behind lashes as dark as an Arctic winter night.
And on the morrow those lashes would be wet with tears of grief. At the moment he'd gladly have given his hope of heaven to have ushered a laughing young Oliver O'Malley into the room.
"Decorative, to say the least," she remarked, at last flashing him the threatened smile.
"The uniform of the Mounted as you wear it in that door frame," she teased him. "At that, I'd rather see it--you on a horse."
He fell back on the only defense he knew--a pretense at seriousness. "Up here we're the Royal Canadian _Dis_-Mounted Police, Miss O'Malley. We know only two seasons--dog and canoe. There isn't a single 'G' Division mount north of Fort Resolution. By the time I see a horse again, I'll probably have forgotten how to ride. I'll climb aboard Injun style and try to steer him by his tail."
The sergeant was glad to hear the crunch of steps upon the snow. Under the circumstances, he was in no mood for persiflage and more than willing to give up the bluff that seemed required. He stifled a sigh of relief as La Marr ushered in the missionaries.
A quiet couple, plain, both a trifle frail-looking for Arctic rigors, the Morrows proved to be. Serious as they were about "The Work" to which they were prepared to give years of sacrifice, both were "regulars" in the life of the North. Scarcely would they wait to warm up before insisting on helping their hosts prepare supper. Moira, too, insisted on having a hand. The lean-to kitchen refused to hold them all, however, so Seymour cited the "too many cooks" rule and discharged all but Mrs. Morrow.