Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/44

42 Baxter nodded; cleared his throat; cleared it again.

"Sixteen years I've been in the Force," he said. "And never a word against me, Sergeant."

"I beg your pardon."

Tempest had answered tone rather than words, and Baxter nodded again.

"Granted," he said. Then, "Over two years, isn't it?"

"Officially two. Nearer three, allowing for travel and change of seasons."

"I've got till ice goes out in spring," said Baxter, and his eyes lit with longing. "I could marry her right now—an' leave her again. I couldn't take a woman up there?"

"No," said Tempest. "You couldn't take a woman up there."

Baxter's knotty hands stirred and grew still again. He looked out at the blur beyond the windows where an unseen child was laughing. Tempest's sympathy showed in his silence, and Baxter stood up at last.

"Thank you, Sergeant," he said; halted, and added, grim and slow: "I guess I can't marry her. Herschel an' the North have done up better men than me."

"You're judged fit, or they wouldn't send you. There have been no excesses in your life for you to fret over, Baxter. You'll get along well. There are two more in the detachment, you know, and it is seldom that some of the whalers don't winter there."

Baxter looked at him.

"As man to man?" he said. "It gets hold of one? That having dark at daylight, as you may say—and seeing nothing half the time but those Esquimaux with their long tails trailin'—and letters once a year. And the knowing, maybe for months at a time, that there's nothin' between you and your God—nothing white, but the two-three men with you and the snow. It gets hold of one? As man to man, Sergeant?"

"It does," said Tempest quietly. "And yet you can stand it, Baxter."

"If you say so, Sergeant. You've got all your senses, right enough. But—I don't know. I don't know."

"You do know," said Tempest, and his voice rang sud-