A Countess from Canada Part 5

"Yes," said Katherine, as she followed Mrs. Burton into the store to look after the fire. "I think he will get better now," but her tone was so dull and lacking in spirit that her sister faced round upon her in quick consternation.

"What is the matter? Do you feel ill? Why, you are white as chalk, and you look as if you had seen a ghost!"

"I don't think there are any ghosts to see in this part of the world," Katherine replied, with a brave attempt at a laugh, "unless, indeed, the unquiet spirit of some Hudson's Bay Company's agent, done to death by treacherous Indians, haunts these sh.o.r.es."

"Or some poor sealer caught in the ice and frozen to death," murmured Mrs. Burton, with a sobbing catch in her breath.

Katherine, who was putting wood in the stove, turned suddenly, catching her sister in a warm, impulsive hug. "There are no ghosts nor unquiet spirits among those brave men who meet death while doing their daily work, darling!" she said earnestly. "But I fancy some of those old H.B.C. agents were fearful rogues, and well deserved the fate they met at the hands of the outraged red men."

"Perhaps so; I don't know. But I don't like seeing you look so pale, Katherine. Come and have your tea, and I will send one of the boys to look after Father for a little while."

Katherine followed her sister from the store into the kitchen, wondering as she went if tea, however hot, would have the power to drive away the creeping chill at her heart. Miles went off to take charge of the sickroom, while Phil set tea, chattering all the time concerning the gossip of the store which had come to his ears during the last few days.

"The men are saying that most likely, if Mr. Selincourt is such a rich man, he will be sure to have a steamer run up through the Strait two or three times during the summer with provisions, and so it will be bad for Father and the store," he said, carefully setting the cracked cup for Miles, although by rights it was his own turn to have it.

"What nonsense people talk!" exclaimed Mrs. Burton, with a scornful laugh. "Mr. Selincourt will have his hands full with managing the fishing fleet, and if he is so unwise as to turn general trader, I dare say we can find some way of underselling him or enticing his customers away."

Katherine put down her cup of tea with an unsteady movement which spilled some of the contents over the tablecloth. Here was a view of the situation which she had not thought to be compelled to face. If Mr. Selincourt did anything which took their trade away, and left them face to face with starvation, would it be their duty to sit down meekly and bear such an injustice, without attempting a blow in self-defence, and all because of that evil from the past which, although so long buried, had suddenly come to life again?

"Katherine, how frightened you look! You surely are not worrying about a bit of store gossip, which has probably not the slightest foundation in fact?" Mrs. Burton said in remonstrance.

"It is of no use to worry about anything so remote as Mr.

Selincourt and the fishing fleet," Katherine answered languidly.

"But I am so tired that bed for a few hours seems the most desirable thing on earth."

"Then go, dear, and get a good rest," said her sister.

But, although Katherine lay down and covered herself with the bedclothes, sleep was long in coming, while the burden she had taken made her heart heavy as lead.

CHAPTER VI

Business Bothers

For a few days 'Duke Radford appeared to get better with astonishing rapidity. He left his bed, and crept across the store, to sit in the rocking-chair by the kitchen stove, and said he was now quite well. But when he had pulled up thus far towards strength again, he stopped short, unable to get any farther. In vain Mrs. Burton plied him with every nourishing food she could think of: an invalid he remained, weak and depressed, all his old energy and enterprise under a cloud, and with a settled melancholy which nothing could lift.

It was then that the burden of life descended with such crushing force on Katherine. The work of the store must go on, and it was harder in winter than in summer. She spent long hours burrowing among the piles of merchandise in the underground chamber beneath the store, where were kept the goods bought and brought to Roaring Water Portage when the waters were open. Or, with Miles for a companion, she went long distances across the snowy wastes, delivering stores by dog team and sledge. This was all very well on the still days, when the sun shone with cloudless brilliancy in a clear sky, and the dogs tore along like mad creatures, and the whole of the expedition would seem like a frolic; but there were other days when things were very different. Sometimes a raging wind would sweep in from the bay, laden with a terrible stinging damp, which kind of cold pierced like daggers. Or a roaring north wind would howl through the forests, snapping off big trees from their roots as if they were only twigs, while earth, air, and sky were a confusion of whirling snowflakes. These were the dangerous days, and they never ventured far from home when such blizzards were raging, unless it was for the three miles' run down to Seal Cove, where the trail had been dug out, and the snow banked, at the beginning of winter.

There were a large number of sealing and walrus boats laid up in ice between Roaring Water Portage and Seal Cove. Most of these had men living on board, who pa.s.sed the days in loafing, in setting traps for wolves, or in boring holes through the ice for fishing. Many of them spent a great portion of their time in the little house at the bend of the river, where Oily Dave dispensed bad whisky and played poker with his customers from morning to night, or, taking a rough average, for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. These were the men whom Katherine most dreaded to encounter. They looked bold admiration, and roared out compliments at the top of husky voices, but they ventured nothing further; her manner was too repressive, and the big dogs which always accompanied her were much too fierce to be trifled with. Mrs. Burton had left off lamenting the chances of damage to her sister's complexion from exposure, for she realized that Katherine must be breadwinner now, and the stern necessities of life had to be first consideration for them all.

One day Katherine found to her surprise that some tin buckets of lard were missing from the store. It was only the day before that, rummaging in the far corner of the cellar, she had unearthed six of these buckets, which had apparently been forgotten, as the date chalked on them was eighteen months old. With much hard work she hauled four of them to the store above, ripped the cover from one, so that the contents might be retailed at so much per pound, and left the other three standing in a row on a shelf which was remote from the stove. But now two were gone, and looking at the one which had been opened she saw that it was only half full. For a moment she supposed that there must have been a considerable run on lard during the previous evening, while she was teaching night school, with Miles on duty in the store. It had been such a fine clear evening that many people were abroad who would otherwise have been in bed, or at any rate shut up in the stuffy little cabins of the snow-banked sealers.

A minute of thought, however, showed her that such a demand for lard would have been so much out of the common as to have elicited some comment from Miles at closing time. Each bucket would contain something over thirty pounds in weight, so the sale of over sixty pounds' weight of lard in one evening would have been something of a record for Roaring Water Portage. Miles was busy at the wood pile; she could not leave the store to go and question him then, so had to wait with what patience she could muster until he came indoors again. Her father had not left his bed yet; indeed he rarely did leave it now until noon or later, when he dressed himself, walked across the kitchen, and sat in the rocking-chair until it was time for bed again.

The life would have seemed dreary and monotonous enough if it had not been for the hard and constant work, which made the days of that winter fly faster for Katherine than any winter had ever flown before. She did not mind the work. Young, strong, and with plenty of energy, the daily toil seemed rather pleasant than otherwise. It was business bothers like this about the missing lard which tried her patience and temper. Presently Miles came in, his face red and warm from hard work in the open air, but puckered into a look of worry, which found a reflection on the countenance of Katherine.

"We are running out of fish for the dogs, Katherine. Have we been using it too fast, do you think?" he asked.

"Surely not. The poor creatures cannot work unless they are well fed, and they have never had more than they could eat. How much longer will it last?"

"Three days perhaps, not more," Miles answered. "It has seemed to go all at once."

"Just so. I should fancy the fish has suffered in the same way as the lard. You had better keep the door of the fish-house locked in future. I wonder where we can get some more fish? People's stocks of dried fish will be getting low now, I expect," Katherine said, wrinkling her brows and trying to think of a likely place where the want could be supplied.

"I know where we could get fresh fish, pretty nearly any amount of it, if you didn't mind the bother of catching it. We could freeze it and keep it so. But what about the lard? You meant it to be sold, didn't you?"

"Yes, of course; but how much did you sell?" asked Katherine, with a hope that he really had sold it all and merely forgotten to mention it.

"Sixteen pounds, all told. Oily Dave seemed uncommonly pleased with it; though, of course, he wanted to beat me down two cents a pound, and when he found I would not put up with that, he tried to palm some bad money off on to me. I'm not so sure that he would not have had me there, for I'm not half so sharp about money as I ought to be, but Stee Jenkin called out to me to keep my eyes open, and then I soon found out there was something on hand, so I made the old rascal pay up in honest coin."

There was an air of modest swagger about Miles as he spoke, for he rather prided himself on his business ac.u.men and general smartness, so Katherine's next words were a terrible blow to his pride.

"My dear boy, you had better have let him have his two cents twice over, and then winked at the money, than have given him such a chance as he must have made for himself last night," she said bitterly.

"What do you mean?" he demanded, with the offended air he always displayed when his pride was wounded.

"I mean that Oily Dave or some of his precious companions walked off with two whole buckets of that lard from under your nose last night, unless indeed you took the trouble to carry it into the cellar again."

"It would not have been possible for anyone to do that, for I was here all the time," he answered stiffly.

"Quite all the time, or did you have to leave for anything; some silly little thing, perhaps?" she said in a coaxing tone, anxious to win him from his show of bad temper, and at the same time get some clue to the disappearance of the stuff.

"I don't think I went away at all," Miles began, then caught himself up in a sudden recollection. "Oh yes, I did! I remember I took a ten-dollar bill, that Jean Doulais brought, indoors for Father to give me change."

"Then while you were indoors the thief stepped into the store and walked off with our two pails of lard. Well, I hope the stuff will make him very sick indeed!" exclaimed Katherine, in a tone of disgust.

"I wonder who it was? It couldn't possibly have been Jean," said Miles, "for he was sitting on the counter and banging his heels.

When I went into the kitchen I heard him thumping away all the time I was there, and he was sitting and banging when I came back."

"Was it Jean Doulais who made all that noise?" said Katherine. "I was demonstrating on the blackboard, and had to write my explanations, because I could not make myself heard. One of the boys volunteered to go and punch the noisy one's head, but this I forbade for prudent reasons."

"Pity you didn't let the fellow come. He might have happened on the thief," growled Miles. "If Jean didn't take the things, he must know pretty well who did. Will you tackle him about it?"

"I think not," replied Katherine, after a pause for consideration. "He might think we suspected him, which would be bad from a business point of view. Then he would be certain to tell the thief, and that would lessen our chances of detecting him."

"What a desperately light-fingered lot they are here this winter!" Miles exclaimed in a petulant tone. "Just see what a rush we had to save the stores from your cache the night Father had his accident."

"But we did save them," replied Katherine with a ripple of laughter. "And incidentally we also saved the lives of a n.o.ble pair of men."

Miles gave a grunt of disgust. "A regular pity they didn't get killed, I think; and I shouldn't wonder if they are at the bottom of this piece of thieving also."

Katherine shook her head. "Oily Dave may be, for pilfering seems to be second nature with him. But Stee Jenkin is made of better stuff, and I believe he is really grateful because we saved him that night. Then remember how kind he and his wife were to us when Father was so ill. Oh, I've got a better opinion of Stee than to think he would steal our things now!"

Miles grunted again in a disbelieving fashion, but he did not attempt to upset Katherine's convictions by argument; only they agreed that for the future a more vigilant watch should be kept both indoors and out. A padlock and chain were put on the door of the fish-house, everything that could be locked up was carefully made fast; then Katherine and Miles set themselves to the task of keeping their eyes open to find out who had stolen the lard.

Later in that same day a miserable-looking Indian came in with a lot of dried fish which he wanted to trade off for provisions, and, after a good deal of bargaining, Katherine took the lot in exchange for a small barrel of flour and a packet of tobacco.

"No need for us to go fishing to-morrow, Miles. I have got enough fish to last the dogs for a fortnight, if we are careful," she said to her brother, when he came back from a journey down to Seal Cove.

"Where did you get it from?" he asked.

"From an Indian who called himself Waywa.s.simo, so I think he must have been reading Longfellow's Hiawatha, for you know Waywa.s.simo was the lightning, and Annemeekee the thunder," Katherine replied. "Only there was nothing grand nor terrible about this Waywa.s.simo. He was simply a miserable-looking Indian with a most dreadful cough."