A Countess from Canada Part 7

"I guess we have got a load now, so we might as well stop," said Katherine, whose arms were beginning to ache, having already had more than enough of slaughter for that day at least.

"You load while I jab at a few more of these big fellows, for they seem as if they are just yearning to be caught," Miles cried excitedly. "I never had such fishing as this; it is prime!"

"It isn't fishing at all; it is nothing but killing. Horrid work, I call it," Katherine cried with a shudder, as, gathering up the frozen fish, she proceeded to stack them on the sledge in much the same fashion as she might have stacked billets of firewood.

The dogs had eaten a good meal, and were in fine feather for work; so, although the load was heavy, they made very good pace, and Katherine, gliding along now by the side of Miles, told him of how she had found Jamie M'Kree banging away on one of their stolen lard buckets. Miles was furiously angry, and wanted to go straight off to Seal Cove, denouncing Oily Dave as a thief; but Katherine would not hear of it.

"By precipitating matters we may do a great deal more harm than good," she said. "We have had to buy our wisdom in rather an expensive school, but it ought to make us wiser in future. So far we have only suspicions to go upon, not facts, and it is very likely that if we accused Oily Dave of stealing our stuff he would be clever enough to turn the tables on us, and have us prosecuted for libel, or something of that sort, which would not be pleasant-nor profitable."

"I can't sit meekly down under things of that sort," retorted the boy, with the sullen look dropping over his face which Katherine hated to see there.

"It isn't easy, I know, but very often it pays best in the long run," she answered earnestly. "Whatever we do, or don't do, we must take especial care that Father isn't worried just now. He must be our chief thought for the present, and if our business pride gets wounded, we must just take the hurt lying down for his sake."

"Katherine, are you afraid that Father is going to die?" Miles asked, turning his head quickly to look at her; and there was the same terrified expression on his face which had been there when he asked the same question a few weeks before.

"I think his recovery will depend very largely on whether we can keep him from anxiety for the next two or three months," she answered; and there was a stab of pain at her heart as she thought of the gnawing apprehension and worry which were secretly sapping his strength.

"Then Oily Dave mustn't be meddled with just now, I suppose," Miles said, with a sigh of renunciation; "but sooner or later he has got to pay for it, or I will know the reason why."

CHAPTER VIII

The First Rain

The weary weeks of winter pa.s.sed slowly away. April came in with long bright days and abundant sunshine, but still the frost-king held sway, and all the earth was s...o...b..und, the rivers were mute, and the waterfalls existed only in name. The men in the store were saying one night that some Indians had got through from Thunder Bay by way of the Albany River with mails; but as this meant about four hundred miles on snowshoes, Katherine regarded it only as a piece of winter fiction, and thought no more about it. There were fifty miles of hill and valley between Roaring Water Portage and the Albany River at its nearest point; but this was undoubtedly the nearest trail to civilization and the railway, and when the waters were open it was easier than any other route.

Two days later Katherine was in the cellar overhauling the stores, which were getting so shrunken that she was wondering how they could possibly be made to hold out, when she heard Phil calling, and, going up the ladder, found a tired-looking Indian standing there, who had a bag of mails strapped on to his back.

"Have you really come from Thunder Bay?" she asked in a surprised tone.

"Yah," he responded promptly, and, dislodging the burden from his back, showed her the name Maxokama on the official seals of the bag.

Her father being too unwell to leave his bed that day, Katherine received the mail as his deputy, and, giving the Indian a receipt for it, proceeded to open the bag and sort the letters it contained. There were only a few, and as they were mostly directed to those in authority in the fishing fleet, and to Astor M'Kree, Katherine was quick in coming to the conclusion that it was Mr. Selincourt who had arranged with the post office for the forwarding of this particular mail. A shiver of fear shook her as she thought of him. As a rule she preferred to keep him out of her remembrance as much as possible; but there were times when the fact of his coming was forced upon her. The broad glare of sunlight streaming in through the open door of the store was another reminder that spring was coming with giant strides, and from spring to summer in that land of fervid sunshine was a period so brief as to be almost breathless.

The Indian made some purchases of food and tobacco, but as his conversational powers did not seem to go beyond a sepulchral "Yah", which he used indifferently for yes and no, neither Katherine nor Phil could get much information out of him. When he had gone, Miles came back from wood-cutting on the slopes above the portage, and was immediately started off to deliver the letters at Seal Cove.

A mail that arrives only once in five months or so is bound to be treated as a thing of moment, even when, as in this case, it was limited to half a dozen letters and three or four newspapers. To Katherine's great delight one of the papers was addressed to The Postmaster, Roaring Water Portage, and she carried it in to her father in the dreary little room which was walled off from the store.

"What have you got: a letter?" he asked, turning towards her, his face looking even more thin and drawn than usual.

"No, there were no letters for any of us; ours usually come by way of Montreal and Lake Temiskaming, you know; but this is a sort of special mail, which has been brought by Indians from Maxokama. But there is a newspaper for you, which shows it is a good thing to be postmaster even of a place so remote as this," she said with a laugh.

"A newspaper will be a treat indeed. I think I will get up, Katherine, and sit by the stove in the store; one can't read a newspaper comfortably in bed. Besides, you will be wanting to go out delivering the mail."

"Miles has taken the Seal Cove letters, but there is one for Astor M'Kree that Phil and I will take up this afternoon; the dogs will be glad of a run," she answered, bringing his garments and arranging them near the bed so that he could slip into them easily.

"Fancy a team of four dogs, a sledge, and two people to carry one letter!" he exclaimed.

"Not quite that," she responded with a laugh, glad to see that his mood was so cheerful. "There is a newspaper to go too, and we shall take up a small barrel of flour, with some bacon and sugar."

"That sounds better at any rate, and I shall be delighted for you to have a run in the sunshine," 'Duke Radford said, with that thoughtful consideration for others which made his children love him with such an ardent affection.

Katherine had not gone many yards from the door that afternoon before she noticed a difference in the temperature; it was a soft, clinging warmth, which made her glad to unfasten her scarlet cloud, while the glare of the sunshine was becoming paler, as if a mist were rising.

"Phil, the rain is coming; I can smell it, and the dogs can smell it too. We are in for weather of sorts, I fancy, but Astor M'Kree must get his letter first, even if we have to race for it!" she cried.

"Let's race, then; the dog's are willing, and so am I," replied Phil, who was seated in the sledge among the packages, while Katherine travelled ahead on snowshoes, And race they did; but already the snow was getting wet and soft on the surface, so that the going was heavy, the sledge cut in deeply, and it was a very tired team of dogs which dropped to the ground in front of the boatbuilder's house. Phil set to work hauling out the stores, but Katherine as usual went in to chat with Mrs. M'Kree, who looked upon her visits with the utmost pleasure.

"I expect it is the last time we shall come up by sledge this season," said Katherine. "But in case the ice is troublesome, and we can't get a canoe through for a week or two, we have brought you double stores."

"That is a good thing, for we are all blessed with healthy appet.i.tes up here, and it isn't pleasant to even think of going on short commons," replied Mrs. M'Kree. "But do wait until I've read this letter, for there may be news in it, and there is so little of that sort of thing here that we ought to share any tidings from outside that may happen to get through."

"Perhaps Mr. M'Kree would rather read his letter first himself," suggested Katherine, who would have preferred not to hear about anything that letter might contain. She guessed it was from Mr. Selincourt, and for that reason shunned anything to do with it.

"Astor has gone across to Fort Garry to-day; he started at dawn, and a pretty stiff journey he'll have before he gets back: but I warned him not to go, for I smelled the rain coming when I put my head outside this morning; my nose is worth two of his, for he can't smell weather, and never could," Mrs. M'Kree answered, pulling a hairpin from her head and preparing to slit open the envelope in her hand.

"Still, he might rather that his letter waited for him unopened," murmured Katherine; but Mrs. M'Kree was already deep in her husband's correspondence, and paid no heed at all.

"Oh! oh! what do you think!" she cried a moment later, giving an excited jump, which so startled Katherine that she jumped too.

"How should I know what to think?" she said; then was angry to find that she was trembling violently.

"Mr. Selincourt hopes to arrive in June, and he is going to bring his daughter with him," announced Mrs. M'Kree with a shout, waving the letter in a jubilant fashion.

"Impossible!" remarked Katherine scornfully, the colour dying out of her face. "The first steamers can't get through Hudson Strait until the first week in July."

"They are not coming that way, but straight from Montreal by way of Lake Temiskaming. My word! the young lady will have a chance of roughing it, for the portages on that route are a caution, so Astor says," Mrs. M'Kree answered, then fairly danced round the room. "Just fancy how gay we shall be this summer with a young lady fresh out from England among us! And her father must be just the right sort of moneyed gentleman, for he wants Astor to get a little hut ready for him by the middle of June."

"A what?" Katherine had risen to go, and was b.u.t.toning her coat, but faced round upon the little woman with blank surprise in her face, as if she failed to understand what the other was saying.

"A hut. They will want some sort of a place to live in. There is no hotel here, you see, and they are going to stay all summer. What a pity it is you haven't got room to board them at the store!"

"We don't want them," retorted Katherine quickly. "We have quite enough to do without having to wait on a lot of idle boarders."

"Oh! I don't fancy they will be very idle, for Mr. Selincourt says that he and his daughter intend being out a great deal among the fishers," said Mrs. M'Kree, who still kept dipping into the letter, and besought her visitor to stay until she had read it all.

But Katherine would not wait; she was in a hurry to start on the return journey, for every hour now would make the snow surface more wet and rotten to travel over. She was sick at heart, too, and suffering from the keenest disappointment. Six months ago how she would have rejoiced at the prospect of having Miss Selincourt at Roaring Water Portage for the weeks of the short, busy summer. An educated girl to talk to would make all the difference in the isolation in which they were forced to live. Katherine felt herself thrill and flutter with delight, even while she trembled with dread at the thought of her father having to meet Mr. Selincourt face to face. She wondered if the rich man who was coming would remember her father, and if he knew of the wrong that the latter had done in keeping silent, so that he might prosper by the other's downfall.

Bitter tears smarted in her eyes as she toiled through the melting snow; then a dash of wet struck her in the face, and she realized that the rain had begun, and the long winter was coming to an end at last. The last mile was very hard to traverse, and when at length they went down the hill between the high rocks of the portage trail, Katherine heard a faint rippling sound which warned her that the waters were beginning to flow. The store was crowded with men, as was often the case in the late afternoon, and Katherine's hope of being able to tell her father the news quietly was doomed to disappointment. Her first glance at him told her that he knew all there was to be known, and the look of suffering on his face hurt her all the more because she knew there was no balm for his pain. Miles was doing what was necessary in the store under his father's direction, and, because there seemed no need for her a.s.sistance just then, Katherine went on indoors to get a little rest before it was time for evening school.

"Oh, Katherine, have you heard the news?" cried Mrs. Burton, who was knitting stockings and reciting "Old Mother Hubbard" between whiles to the twins.

"Yes; at least, I have heard about Mr. Selincourt coming, if that is what you mean," Katherine answered, as she unfastened her outer garments.

"That is not the best part of the news by any means," returned Mrs. Burton, giving Lotta a little shake to silence the demand for more of "Mother Hubbard". "What delights me so much is to think that Miss Selincourt is coming too. Just imagine what it will be to have cultured society here at Roaring Water Portage!"

"She will despise us, most likely, and consider us about on a level with Peter M'Crawney's wife, or that poor little Mrs. Jenkin," said Katherine.

"Nonsense!" Mrs. Burton's tone was energetic; her manner one of mild surprise. "No one would despise you. They might look down upon me a little, but you are quite a different matter."