A Countess from Canada Part 13

"No, four miles farther up the river, and the portage is a mile and a half long. Phil and I call it the backache portage," replied Katherine.

"Why, do you deliver goods so far out? With no compet.i.tion to be afraid of, I should have thought you might have made your customers come to buy from you," he said, frowning, for he knew very well what kind of work was involved in a portage, and it did not seem to him a fit and proper employment for a girl.

"But there is compet.i.tion," laughed Katherine. "There is Peter M'Crawney, with all the great Hudson's Bay Company behind him. That is our most formidable rival, while up on Marble Island there has been started a sort of United States General Stores and Canned Food Depot. Of course, that is eight hundred miles away, and should not be dangerous, but it makes more difference than anyone might suppose."

"Well, it isn't round the corner of the next block at any rate," Jervis replied, laughing to think that trade could suffer from a rival establishment so far away.

"Yes it is, only the block is a big one, you see," she answered, and they all laughed merrily. When one is young, and the sun is shining, it is so easy to be gay, even though grim care stalks in the background.

"I thought that you and M'Crawney were rather in the position of business partners than trade rivals," Jervis said, as, pa.s.sing the last bend of the river, he swung the boat along the stretch of straight water to the store.

"In a sense we are partners; that is, we agree to work together, and to supply each other's shortages in stores so far as we can. But the rivalry is there all the same. Peter M'Crawney knows he would sell three times the stuff that he does now if it were not for us; while of course our hands would be freer but for him, only we are tied to him, because half of our customers are able to pay us only in skins, and then Peter M'Crawney is our Bank of Exchange."

Katherine could not forbear a grimace as she spoke, for peltry can be a very odorous currency, and she had to examine every skin closely before deciding what it was worth in flour, bacon, or tobacco, because the red man is a past master in the art of outwitting the white man, when it comes to a question of trade.

"The plan of bartering skins for stores is not a good one, and the man who buys the skins ought not to be the one who sells the sugar and tea," Jervis remarked in a dictatorial tone; but Katherine only laughed at him, and said that he knew nothing whatever about the red man of the Keewatin wilds, or he would never suggest cash dealings.

"Still it will come, and the red man will be educated to a proper appreciation of his privileges," Jervis maintained, with the quiet obstinacy that Katherine had sometimes noticed in him before.

"I hope I shall be out of the trade before that time comes," she said, as she guided the boat in to the landing place. "As soon as Miles is able to take control of the store I shall return to my proper avocation of school teaching-that is, always providing there are children to be taught."

'Duke Radford sat in a cushioned chair at a sun-shiny window of the kitchen. He looked up with a smile when his daughter entered the room, and when she bent over him to kiss him he murmured: "Pretty Katherine", and stroked her face caressingly; then he turned with the pleased eagerness of a child to greet Jervis, whom he regarded as a very good friend indeed.

Katherine sighed as she went back to help with the unlading of the boat. It was a great comfort to feel that her father suffered nothing either in body or mind, but sometimes she would have been very thankful if she could have gone to him with her business worries, and got his advice on things which perplexed her so much. However, it was something to be thankful for that his burden of apprehension was lifted so completely, and the thought of this banished her tendency to sighing, bringing the smiles back instead. Life might be hard, but while there was hope in it, it could not be unbearable.

CHAPTER XIII

Mary

"Are you ready, Mary?"

"In one minute, Father. Let me see: three bags, a valise, a hold-all, a portmanteau, two hatboxes, a camping sack, a case of books, and a handbag. Oh dear, what a collection of things to look after! How I wish we were like the dogs, dear creatures, which grow their own clothes and have only their tails to hold up, or to wag in sign of amity!"

The speaker was a girl of perhaps twenty, although she had one of those quiet reserved faces which render difficult a correct guessing of the age. She was standing in the porch of the Bellevue Hotel, Temiskaming, and was garbed as if for rough travel, in coat and skirt of heather-brown cloth, faced with brown leather, with a brown hat on her head, and brown boots on her feet which reached well above the ankle. Indeed her attire was so trim, and so exceedingly suitable for rough work, that everyone at the first glance decided she must be English.

"I fancy you would not care to wear the same coat always, nor yet to wag the same tail," laughed her father, a genial-looking man of fifty, who was dressed with equal fitness for rough travel, and was just now intent on hurrying his daughter to the lake boat, which was getting up steam at a little distance.

"Like it or not, I expect it is what I shall be reduced to by the end of the summer," laughed Mary Selincourt, as she watched the various bags and bundles being piled on to a barrow by the hotel porter.

"Well, look your last on civilization and come along, for that boat won't wait much longer," said Mr. Selincourt, adding with a laugh: "unless indeed you are beginning to repent, in which case it is not too late to change your mind and go back to Miss Griffith."

"Thank you! I never change my mind unless it is about the weather, and I wouldn't turn back on this journey on any account whatever."

"Not if I turned back myself?" he enquired, as they went on board the boat.

"No; unless, of course, you were ill, in which case, I suppose, my sense of duty would oblige me to stop, even while my inclination was dragging me, with both hands, as near to the North Pole as a woman may hope to get," she said, with a nervous catching of her breath which showed some agitation behind.

"But James Bay isn't the North Pole," objected Mr. Selincourt.

"It is nearer though than this, I suppose. And this is better than Montreal," she answered, then turned to talk to a gentleman who had come on board before them, and was bound for a fishing camp higher up the lake.

Lake Temiskaming is thirty miles long, and they reached its end in the evening. But, as Mr. Selincourt had made arrangements to keep the boat for use as a floating hotel until the next morning, their first night in the wilds was a very comfortable one.

At dawn next morning everyone was astir. Three river boats were landed; these were made light enough for portage work, and strong enough for weight carrying. With them were landed some men engaged at a point farther down the lake, who had undertaken to work the boats up the Abbitibbi River to Hannah Bay. The men, although there were plenty of them, looked askance at the luggage which had to be unladen from the steamer and packed into the boats. They were thinking of the portages, and the numberless times those bags, bales, bundles, and boxes would have to be carried over miles of portages on their shoulders. But the pay was good, quite twice what they could have earned in any other direction, and as they were too wise to quarrel with their daily bread, which in this case was only biscuit, they accepted the burdens in silence.

Mr. Selincourt and Mary travelled always in the second boat with the personal luggage which had surrounded Mary in the hotel porch, while the boat which went in front and the one which came after were laden with the heavier luggage. For many days after this their journey went on. Sometimes they would make not more than seven or eight miles in a day when the portages were bad, and on one record day the total distance covered was only four miles. The weather was well-behaved as a whole, although occasionally the rain came down at a pour. Being so early in the summer, the rivers were very full, so there was never any danger of running aground, although they had to face many risks in going down the rapids, when they had crossed the height of land on a ten-mile portage, and began to descend the Mattagami River. The longest journey must come to an end at last, however, and one hot afternoon late on in June the three boats skirted the last headland of James Bay, and caught sight of the flag flying from the staff above the fish shed.

"Father, look, there is my flag!" cried Mary, in great excitement.

"Don't you remember I made an especial flag for the fleet, and sent it up by Mr. Ferrars? Why, how nice it looks, and somehow I feel Just as if I were coming home."

"That is how I feel," responded Mr. Selincourt. "It is pretty country too, but it makes me feel downright bad to think of all these square miles of territory going to waste, so to speak, with no one but a few Indians for population, and then to remember the land hunger in England and--"

But Mary had put her hands over her ears, and cried: "Oh, if you love me, spare me hearing any more about that land hunger just now! I am very sorry for all the poor people who want to own three acres and a cow, but can't afford the luxury; only just for a little while I want to forget them, and to enjoy all this beauty without any drawbacks if I can."

"I am afraid you will find the drawbacks, though, in spite of your eagerness to escape them," said Mr. Selincourt, who had been quietly examining Seal Cove through a gla.s.s. Then he handed the gla.s.s to Mary, and said in a tone too low for the boatmen to hear: "If I mistake not, the first drawback is there on the sh.o.r.e, mending a net."

Mary took the gla.s.s and looked through it for a couple of minutes without speaking; then she gave it back, saying, with a shudder: "What a horrid-looking man!"

"Rather a low type by the look of him. But you must not judge all the population by your first glimpse of it. Because one man is a rogue does not prevent all the rest being honest," Mr. Selincourt said, putting the gla.s.s to his eye to get another look at the place they were approaching.

"Will our hut be down here on the sh.o.r.e?" asked Mary, who was straining her eyes for a first glimpse of the house they were to live in.

"No; Graham, who was one of the directors of the old company, you know, told me I should be wise to have it built farther up the river, at Roaring Water Portage, as it is so much more sheltered there than down here on the coast."

"Ah! that was real wisdom, for if we make up our minds to stay the winter, a sheltered position may make a great difference in our comfort," she said quickly, then stretched out her hand for the gla.s.s to have another look.

"You still think you want to spend next winter so far north?" said her father, in a questioning tone.

"Why not?" she replied, with a weary note coming into her voice. "One place is as good as another, only this would be better than some, if only there is work of some sort to do."

"We shall see how we like it," he answered, then was silent, gazing at the scene before him, which was looking its fairest on this June afternoon.

The man mending nets on the sh.o.r.e, who was no other than Oily Dave, had by this time become aware of the approaching boats, and was rushing to and fro in a great state of bustle and excitement. They could hear him calling to someone out of sight, and the sound of his raucous voice only served to deepen the unpleasant impression given by his appearance.

"Father, don't say much to that man, I don't like him," Mary said in a low tone; and Mr. Selincourt nodded in reply, as the boats drew in to the landing by the fish shed, and Oily Dave came hurrying forward to greet them.

"Where is Mr. Ferrars?" asked Mr. Selincourt, and for all that he was a genial, kindly man, thinking evil of none, he could not keep a hard note out of his voice as he gazed at the mean, shifty face of Oily Dave.

"He's away somewhere, over to Fort Garry, or perhaps he's crossed to Akimiski Island. The fleet have been mostly round that way this week past. Shall I show you round a bit, sir? I'm the acting manager, formerly sole manager." Oily Dave contrived to throw a withering emphasis on the latter adjective, and roiled up his eyes in a manner meant to imply injured innocence, which, however, only expressed low-down meanness and cunning.

"Ah, yes, I remember Mr. Graham spoke of you!" replied the new owner, in a strictly non-committal tone. "But why did you say you are acting manager? I only appointed Mr. Ferrars."

Oily Dave contracted his features into an unpleasant grin. "It takes them as knows these waters to understand the fishing of them, sir, and your grand drawing-room, bandbox manager would have been pretty hard put to it many a time to know what to do for the best, if it hadn't been for Oily Dave, which is me."

"I see," remarked Mr. Selincourt in a calm and casual tone, then continued with quiet authority: "Please tell Mr. Ferrars when he comes back that I have arrived, and ask him if he will come up to Roaring Water Portage as soon as it is convenient for him to do so."

"Wouldn't you like me to come and guide you up the river?" demanded Oily Dave, his jaw dropping in a crestfallen manner, for he had thought what a fine chance he would have of getting ahead of Jervis Ferrars.

"No, thank you, we have travelled too many strange waters these last few days to need guidance up the last two miles of our Journey. It is two miles, is it not?"

"Nearer three, sir, but we mostly call it two, because it sounds better," said Oily Dave. Then he took his greasy old hat off with a flourish to Mary, and the boats started on again up the main channel of the river.