CHAPTER VI
Business Bothers
For a few days 'Duke Radford appeared to get better withastonishing rapidity. He left his bed, and crept across the store,to sit in the rocking-chair by the kitchen stove, and said he wasnow quite well. But when he had pulled up thus far towardsstrength again, he stopped short, unable to get any farther. Invain Mrs. Burton plied him with every nourishing food she couldthink of: an invalid he remained, weak and depressed, all his oldenergy and enterprise under a cloud, and with a settled melancholywhich nothing could lift.
It was then that the burden of life descended with such crushingforce on Katherine. The work of the store must go on, and it washarder in winter than in summer. She spent long hours burrowingamong the piles of merchandise in the underground chamber beneaththe store, where were kept the goods bought and brought to RoaringWater Portage when the waters were open. Or, with Miles for acompanion, she went long distances across the snowy wastes,delivering stores by dog team and sledge. This was all very wellon the still days, when the sun shone with cloudless brilliancy ina clear sky, and the dogs tore along like mad creatures, and thewhole of the expedition would seem like a frolic; but there wereother days when things were very different. Sometimes a ragingwind would sweep in from the bay, laden with a terrible stingingdamp, which kind of cold pierced like daggers. Or a roaring northwind would howl through the forests, snapping off big trees fromtheir roots as if they were only twigs, while earth, air, and skywere a confusion of whirling snowflakes. These were the dangerousdays, and they never ventured far from home when such blizzardswere raging, unless it was for the three miles' run down to SealCove, where the trail had been dug out, and the snow banked, at thebeginning of winter.
There were a large number of sealing and walrus boats laid up inice between Roaring Water Portage and Seal Cove. Most of these hadmen living on board, who passed the days in loafing, in settingtraps for wolves, or in boring holes through the ice for fishing.Many of them spent a great portion of their time in the littlehouse at the bend of the river, where Oily Dave dispensed badwhisky and played poker with his customers from morning to night,or, taking a rough average, for sixteen hours out of thetwenty-four. These were the men whom Katherine most dreaded toencounter. They looked bold admiration, and roared out complimentsat the top of husky voices, but they ventured nothing further; hermanner was too repressive, and the big dogs which alwaysaccompanied her were much too fierce to be trifled with. Mrs.Burton had left off lamenting the chances of damage to her sister'scomplexion from exposure, for she realized that Katherine must bebreadwinner now, and the stern necessities of life had to be firstconsideration for them all.
One day Katherine found to her surprise that some tin buckets oflard were missing from the store. It was only the day before that,rummaging in the far corner of the cellar, she had unearthed six ofthese buckets, which had apparently been forgotten, as the datechalked on them was eighteen months old. With much hard work shehauled four of them to the store above, ripped the cover from one,so that the contents might be retailed at so much per pound, andleft the other three standing in a row on a shelf which was remotefrom the stove. But now two were gone, and looking at the onewhich had been opened she saw that it was only half full. For amoment she supposed that there must have been a considerable run onlard during the previous evening, while she was teaching nightschool, with Miles on duty in the store. It had been such a fineclear evening that many people were abroad who would otherwise havebeen in bed, or at any rate shut up in the stuffy little cabins ofthe snow-banked sealers.
A minute of thought, however, showed her that such a demand forlard would have been so much out of the common as to have elicitedsome comment from Miles at closing time. Each bucket would containsomething over thirty pounds in weight, so the sale of over sixtypounds' weight of lard in one evening would have been something ofa record for Roaring Water Portage. Miles was busy at the woodpile; she could not leave the store to go and question him then, sohad to wait with what patience she could muster until he cameindoors again. Her father had not left his bed yet; indeed herarely did leave it now until noon or later, when he dressedhimself, walked across the kitchen, and sat in the rocking-chairuntil it was time for bed again.
The life would have seemed dreary and monotonous enough if it hadnot been for the hard and constant work, which made the days ofthat winter fly faster for Katherine than any winter had ever flownbefore. She did not mind the work. Young, strong, and with plentyof energy, the daily toil seemed rather pleasant than otherwise.It was business bothers like this about the missing lard whichtried her patience and temper. Presently Miles came in, his facered and warm from hard work in the open air, but puckered into alook of worry, which found a reflection on the countenance ofKatherine.
"We are running out of fish for the dogs, Katherine. Have we beenusing it too fast, do you think?" he asked.
"Surely not. The poor creatures cannot work unless they are wellfed, and they have never had more than they could eat. How muchlonger will it last?"
"Three days perhaps, not more," Miles answered. "It has seemed togo all at once."
"Just so. I should fancy the fish has suffered in the same way asthe lard. You had better keep the door of the fish-house locked infuture. I wonder where we can get some more fish? People's stocksof dried fish will be getting low now, I expect," Katherine said,wrinkling her brows and trying to think of a likely place where thewant could be supplied.
"I know where we could get fresh fish, pretty nearly any amount ofit, if you didn't mind the bother of catching it. We could freezeit and keep it so. But what about the lard? You meant it to besold, didn't you?"
"Yes, of course; but how much did you sell?" asked Katherine, witha hope that he really had sold it all and merely forgotten tomention it.
"Sixteen pounds, all told. Oily Dave seemed uncommonly pleasedwith it; though, of course, he wanted to beat me down two cents apound, and when he found I would not put up with that, he tried topalm some bad money off on to me. I'm not so sure that he wouldnot have had me there, for I'm not half so sharp about money as Iought 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 madethe old rascal pay up in honest coin."
There was an air of modest swagger about Miles as he spoke, for herather prided himself on his business acumen 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 twiceover, and then winked at the money, than have given him such achance as he must have made for himself last night," she saidbitterly.
"What do you mean?" he demanded, with the offended air he alwaysdisplayed when his pride was wounded.
"I mean that Oily Dave or some of his precious companions walkedoff with two whole buckets of that lard from under your nose lastnight, unless indeed you took the trouble to carry it into thecellar again."
"It would not have been possible for anyone to do that, for I washere all the time," he answered stiffly.
"Quite all the time, or did you have to leave for anything; somesilly little thing, perhaps?" she said in a coaxing tone, anxiousto win him from his show of bad temper, and at the same time getsome clue to the disappearance of the stuff.
"I don't think I went away at all," Miles began, then caughthimself up in a sudden recollection. "Oh yes, I did! I remember Itook a ten-dollar bill, that Jean Doulais brought, indoors forFather to give me change."
"Then while you were indoors the thief stepped into the store andwalked off with our two pails of lard. Well, I hope the stuff willmake him very sick indeed!" exclaimed Katherine, in a tone ofdisgust.
"I wonder who it was? It couldn't possibly have been Jean," saidMiles, "for he was sitting on the counter and banging his heels.When I went into the kitchen I heard him thumping away all the timeI was there, and he was sitting and banging when I came back."
"Was it Jean Doulais w
ho made all that noise?" said Katherine. "Iwas demonstrating on the blackboard, and had to write myexplanations, because I could not make myself heard. One of theboys volunteered to go and punch the noisy one's head, but this Iforbade for prudent reasons."
"Pity you didn't let the fellow come. He might have happened onthe thief," growled Miles. "If Jean didn't take the things, hemust 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 abusiness point of view. Then he would be certain to tell thethief, 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 hadto save the stores from your cache the night Father had hisaccident."
"But we did save them," replied Katherine with a ripple oflaughter. "And incidentally we also saved the lives of a noblepair of men."
Miles gave a grunt of disgust. "A regular pity they didn't getkilled, I think; and I shouldn't wonder if they are at the bottomof this piece of thieving also."
Katherine shook her head. "Oily Dave may be, for pilfering seemsto be second nature with him. But Stee Jenkin is made of betterstuff, and I believe he is really grateful because we saved himthat night. Then remember how kind he and his wife were to us whenFather was so ill. Oh, I've got a better opinion of Stee than tothink he would steal our things now!"
Miles grunted again in a disbelieving fashion, but he did notattempt to upset Katherine's convictions by argument; only theyagreed that for the future a more vigilant watch should be keptboth indoors and out. A padlock and chain were put on the door ofthe fish-house, everything that could be locked up was carefullymade fast; then Katherine and Miles set themselves to the task ofkeeping their eyes open to find out who had stolen the lard.
Later in that same day a miserable-looking Indian came in with alot of dried fish which he wanted to trade off for provisions, and,after a good deal of bargaining, Katherine took the lot in exchangefor a small barrel of flour and a packet of tobacco.
"No need for us to go fishing to-morrow, Miles. I have got enoughfish to last the dogs for a fortnight, if we are careful," she saidto 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 Waywassimo, so I think he musthave been reading Longfellow's Hiawatha, for you know Waywassimowas the lightning, and Annemeekee the thunder," Katherine replied."Only there was nothing grand nor terrible about this Waywassimo.He was simply a miserable-looking Indian with a most dreadfulcough."
Miles began to laugh in a hugely delighted fashion, but it was sometime before Katherine could get from him the cause of his mirth.At length, with many chuckles, he commenced to explain.
"There has been a wretched-looking Indian hanging about Seal Covefor the last two or three days, stealing pretty nearly everythinghe could lay his hands on, and Mrs. Jenkin told me that last nighthe broke into Oily Dave's fish-house and cleared off with every bitof dried fish there was."
"So I have been buying stolen goods. How horrid!" exclaimedKatherine with a frown. "Now I suppose it is my duty to hand atleast a part of that fish back to Oily Dave. Oh dear, I wouldrather it had been anyone else, for I do dislike him so much!"
"Don't fret yourself; wait until you hear the end of my story, andthen you will see that for once the biter has been bitten,"answered Miles, with so much chuckling and gurgling that he seemedto be in a fair way to choke himself. "Mrs. Jenkin says she isquite positive that Oily Dave stole that fish, because hisfish-house was quite empty a week ago, as she saw with her owneyes, but yesterday, when she was cleaning his house for him, shesaw that he had a lot of fish. He told her then that he had boughtit to sell again. She knew how much of that to believe, however,and asked me if we had missed any of our fish."
"What did you say?" asked Katherine, who then began to wonder iftheir fish had really wasted through being stolen, instead ofhaving merely been used too fast.
"Oh, I didn't commit myself! Mrs. Jenkin has a good heart, but herhead is as soft as blubber, so I was pretty careful not to saymuch," Miles answered, with a wag of his own head, which he thumpedwith his fist to show that at least he was not topped with blubber.
"It is maddening whichever way one looks at it!" cried Katherine."If Oily Dave stole our fish, and Waywassimo stole it from himagain, then I have been buying our own property, and paying for itat a rather stiff price. I simply could not beat that poor wretchdown, he looked so sad and hungry. Oh, Miles, what shall we do?If this business leaks out we shall just be the laughing-stock ofthe whole place."
"It is not going to leak out; I'll take good care of that,"retorted the boy, squaring his jaws. "If we say nothing about it,who is to be any the wiser? Was there anyone here when you boughtthe fish?"
"Not a soul. How very fortunate!" cried Katherine, beginning tosmile again. "It is quite bad enough to be taken in by such atrick, but it would be simply intolerable to have other peopleknowing about it and laughing at our misfortunes."
Miles nodded. This was just his own opinion, and he would havesuffered tortures if the wits of Seal Cove had been able to taunthim about his clever sister having bought her own fish. Then hesaid slowly, as if he had been giving the matter profoundconsideration; "There isn't a scrap of doubt in my mind that ifOily Dave took the fish he took the lard as well."
"Then I wish Waywassimo would steal that too!" said Katherine witha laugh.