CHAPTER VII
Another Clue
It was fully a fortnight after this before Katherine and Milesfound any opportunity for going fishing. Then there came a daywhen they had to take a load of stores up beyond the secondportage, to the house of Astor M'Kree, and they decided to bring aload of fish back with them if possible, as the store whichKatherine had bought from Waywassimo was beginning to run low.Their father seemed better that day, and was able to look after thestore with the help of Phil.
Katherine too was bright and lively this morning, as if there wereno dark shadow of trouble in her life. Sometimes she was fearfullysick at heart with the remembrance of her father's confidence, anda dread of what the summer might bring; but at other times, on dayslike this, she took comfort in the ice, the snow, and the searchingcold. Winter was not nearly over yet, a hundred things mighthappen before the summer came, and so her high spirits pushed thedark shadow to one side and for a brief space forgot all about it.She was especially blithe of heart to-day, and so had donned askirt of scarlet blanket cloth, which matched in hue the woollencloud she wrapped about her head. On other days, when her mood wasmore sombre, she wore a dark-blue skirt, like the thick, fur-linedcoat which was put on every time she left the house.
"How gay you look, Katherine!" exclaimed Mrs. Burton, as hersister came dancing into the kitchen, where she was making bread."But what a pity to put on that scarlet skirt if you are going tobring fish home!"
"I shan't spoil it, or if I do I will wear it spoiled until itdrops into rags," replied Katherine. "I call it my happinessskirt, and I wear it only when I feel happy. To-day the winter hassomehow got into my bones or up in my head, and I feel aslight-hearted and reckless as if I had been having oxygen pumpedinto me by a special contrivance; so plainly this is the propertime for my scarlet skirt."
"It is so funny that scarlet suits you so well, for you arecertainly not a brunette," Mrs. Burton said, looking at Katherinein warm sisterly admiration. "But indeed you would look charmingin anything."
Katherine swept her a curtsy. "Now that is a compliment mostflatteringly paid. Really, Nellie, I don't see how you can expectme to be properly humble-minded if you say things of that sort, foryou are such a dear, sincere little person that every word youspeak carries conviction with it. But Miles is waiting and I mustbe off. Don't worry if we are rather late back, for we must bringas much fish as we can."
Mrs. Burton left the bread to take care of itself for a while, and,throwing a thick shawl round her shoulders, came out to see thestart. There was only one sledge to-day, but that was piled highwith stores of various descriptions, from a barrel of flour to aroll of scarlet flannel, and from canned pineapple to a tin ofkerosene. This last was the light _de luxe_ in that part of theworld, fish oil serving for all ordinary purposes of illumination.Miles looked after the dogs, while Katherine sped on in front, anice saw and two fish spears carried across her shoulder. It wasjust the sort of morning when work was absolute joy, and toilbecame nothing but the zest of endeavour. Fresh snow had fallenduring the night, but the sun was so bright and warm that the coldhad no chance against it. The winter was advancing, as wasevidenced by longer hours of daylight and hotter sunshine; but whennight came the frost was more severe than ever, as if loath toloose its grip on the lakes and streams of that wide white land.
Roaring Water Portage had lost all claim to its name for thepresent. The river which rushed in summer with a roar over therocks in rapids was absolutely silent now, and the rocks weremerely snow-covered hummocks. The river above was frozen, therewas no water to run down, and all the resonant echoes were dumb.The silence and the brightness suited Katherine's mood. Shehurried on in front, so that even the shouts of Miles to the dogsbecame faint in the distance. Then her pace decreased as she swungalong with a gentle swaying motion, the big frame of her snowshoenever quite lifted from the ground. When the boatbuilder's housecame in sight she hesitated, wondering if it would not bepleasanter to remain outside in the pure fresh air until Milescame, instead of sitting in the hot, stuffy kitchen talking to Mrs.M'Kree. Then, remembering how solitary was the life of the poorlittle woman, shut up from month's end to month's end with herbabies, Katherine decided to get on as quickly as she could andgive Mrs. M'Kree the benefit of her society.
Mrs. M'Kree received her literally with open arms, and gave her ahug which nearly took her breath away. "Oh, I am glad you've comeyourself! If the weather had been bad I should have been quitesure of seeing you; but as it was so fine I was desperately afraidyou'd send the boys. But where is the sledge?"
"Miles is coming on with the dogs, but I came forward at atremendous pace just because the morning was so beautiful, and Iwanted to be alone," Katherine answered, subsiding into arocking-chair and picking up the M'Kree baby which happened to benearest.
"Wanted to be alone? My dear, that doesn't sound natural in ayoung girl. Oh, I hope you are not getting melancholy from all thetrouble you've had this winter!"
"How can you even think of melancholy and me in the sameconnection!" protested Katherine with a merry laugh. "Why, I am amost cheerful person always, and Nellie complains that I live in aperfect whirlwind of high spirits."
"So you may. But if you want to go mooning off alone, it is a suresign that something is wrong, unless indeed you are in love," andMrs. M'Kree nodded her head in delight at her own shrewdness.
But Katherine only laughed as she asked: "Pray, whom do you think Ishould be likely to fall in love with? There are so few eligiblemen in this part of the world."
"How was I to know but what you left your heart in Montreal lastwinter? At least there are men enough there," Mrs. M'Kree said.Then she asked anxiously: "My dear, what is the matter? You lookquite ill."
Katherine had started to her feet with a look of profound amazementon her face, for at that moment the door of the next room hadopened, and another small M'Kree appeared, dragging after him a tinbucket, on which he was raining a shower of resounding blows.
"Where did you get that thing?" she asked with a gasp, instantlyrecognizing the bucket as identical with the two filled with lardwhich had been stolen.
Mrs. M'Kree appeared slightly confused, and tried to hide herembarrassment by scolding her offspring.
"Jamie, Jamie, why will you make such a fearful riot? Miss Radfordwill run away and never come back if you are not quiet."
"I don't care if she does," replied the juvenile. He had not yetreached the age when pretty girls become interesting, and the noisehe was producing filled him with tremendous satisfaction, so hebanged away with renewed ardour.
Katherine crossed the room with a quick step, and, seizing Jamie,swung him up to the window. "See, here comes Miles," she said,"and he has some toffee in the sledge. Run out and ask him to giveyou some."
One look of beaming satisfaction Jamie flung her, then, wrigglingfrom her grasp, he tore away to the door and was seen no more forsome time. Then Katherine turned to Mrs. M'Kree and saidimploringly: "Please tell me where you got that bucket from, andhow long you have had it?"
"I'll tell you, of course, seeing that you make such a point of it,but I'm not specially proud of the business, I can assure you,"Mrs. M'Kree said, with a touch of irritability very unusual withher. "Oily Dave was up here about a week ago, and he said that hehad some buckets of rough fat that would do for greasing sledgerunners, or to mix with caulking pitch. He told us he bought thestuff from one of the American whalers that were fishing in the baylast summer, and he offered to sell us a bucket at such aridiculously low price that Astor bought one off-hand."
"What happened then?" demanded Katherine, her lips twitching withamusement; for she knew quite enough of Oily Dave and his methodsto be sure that Astor M'Kree had been rather badly duped.
"The stuff was more than half sawdust, but it had been worked in socarefully that you could not tell that until you came to rub thegrease on to runners and that sort of thing; then of course itgritted up directly. But the worst of it was th
at Astor had mixedsome of it with a lot of caulking pitch, which of course is quitespoiled, and he was about the maddest man in Keewatin on the daythat he found it out."
Katherine was laughing; she really could not help it. But Mrs.M'Kree, not understanding where the joke came in, said in areproachful tone: "My dear, it was not a laughing matter to me,either then or now; for when one is married what affects one'shusband affects one's self also, and that sometimes in a verydisagreeable fashion."
"Please forgive me for laughing!" cried Katherine. "But Oily Daveis such a slippery old rogue, and sometimes he overreaches evenhimself." Then she told Mrs. M'Kree about the disappearance of thelard, and how she had recognized the bucket upon which Jamie hadbeen drumming so vigorously.
"What will you do?" asked Mrs. M'Kree.
"I don't see what we can do, except keep a sharper lookout infuture. There is not enough evidence to go and boldly accuse himof having walked off with two buckets of lard for which he had notpaid. There may be a hundred buckets like that in the district,every one of which has contained grease of some description, frombest dairy butter down to train oil mixed with sawdust," Katherinereplied with a laugh, in which the other now joined.
"It is a good thing you can laugh about it; but I am afraid that Ishouldn't have felt like laughing if I had been in your case," saidMrs. M'Kree. Then she cried out in protest: "Must you go so soon,really? Why, you have been here no time at all, and there areheaps of things I wanted to say to you."
"Yes, we must go. We are going to Ochre Lake for fish. Miles saysthere are heaps there to be had for the catching, and the dogs aregetting short of food. We have worked them very hard this winter,so they have needed more to eat, I suppose," Katherine replied.Then she went out to help her brother to bring the stores in, andMrs. M'Kree came to assist also.
"Ochre Lake is a good long way off, so I mustn't keep you if youare going there. A good six miles from here it must be, if youfollow the river," said Mrs. M'Kree; then made a grab at the packetof toffee in Jamie's chubby hand, for he was evidently intent oneating it all himself, and so leaving none for the others.
"We shall not follow the river, but take the short cut through thewoods; and we shall go fast too, for the dogs will travel light,you see," Katherine said. Then picking up the fish spears and theice saw she glided on ahead, while Miles and the dogs went racingafter her.
At first, when they left the boatbuilder's house behind, it waswilderness without a sign of life, but after they had gone two orthree miles, footprints of various sizes appeared on the snow.There were marks of wolf, of wolverine, of fox, with smaller printswhich could only have been made by little creatures like the mink,ermine, and such tiny fry, that, clad in fur white like the snow,scurried hither and thither through the silent wastes hunting forfood, yet finding in many cases swift death through the skill ofthe trapper. At length the lake was reached. In summer it was asheet of muddy yellow water abounding in fish, and many acres inextent. Now it was a wide snowfield, except at one end, where forsome unexplained reason it was open water still. This was the partat which they arrived, and Katherine halted on the bank with anexclamation of surprise. "Why, we shan't need the saw at all; it isopen water!"
"The ice at the edge is too thin to stand upon, and we mustn't takerisks here, for Father says there is a whirlpool at this end, andit is the constant motion of the water that keeps it fromfreezing," Miles answered; and taking the saw from Katherine hecommenced making a hole in the ice a few yards from the open water.
The dogs were lying panting on the bank as if quite exhausted, buttheir ears were perked up, and their eyes were very wide open, forthey quite understood what was going on, and the prospect of fishfreshly caught was very welcome after their months of living on thedried article. When a hole had been cut in the ice, Katherine wentto stand by it and spear the fish which immediately crowded to thesurface as if anxious to be caught. Miles went to a littledistance, where he cut another hole for himself, and for the nexthour the two worked as hard as they could at spearing fish, thenthrowing them on the snow, where they quickly froze stiff. Thewater seemed entirely alive with fish, which could only beaccounted for by the fact that the main part of the lake, which wasshallow, was frozen solid, so that all the fish had been forced tothe end where the moving water did not freeze.
Katherine and Miles spearing for fish.]
"I guess we have got a load now, so we might as well stop," saidKatherine, whose arms were beginning to ache, having already hadmore than enough of slaughter for that day at least.
"You load while I jab at a few more of these big fellows, for theyseem as if they are just yearning to be caught," Miles criedexcitedly. "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 thefrozen fish, she proceeded to stack them on the sledge in much thesame 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, andKatherine, gliding along now by the side of Miles, told him of howshe had found Jamie M'Kree banging away on one of their stolen lardbuckets. Miles was furiously angry, and wanted to go straight offto Seal Cove, denouncing Oily Dave as a thief; but Katherine wouldnot hear of it.
"By precipitating matters we may do a great deal more harm thangood," she said. "We have had to buy our wisdom in rather anexpensive school, but it ought to make us wiser in future. So farwe have only suspicions to go upon, not facts, and it is verylikely that if we accused Oily Dave of stealing our stuff he wouldbe clever enough to turn the tables on us, and have us prosecutedfor libel, or something of that sort, which would not bepleasant--nor profitable."
"I can't sit meekly down under things of that sort," retorted theboy, with the sullen look dropping over his face which Katherinehated to see there.
"It isn't easy, I know, but very often it pays best in the longrun," she answered earnestly. "Whatever we do, or don't do, wemust take especial care that Father isn't worried just now. Hemust be our chief thought for the present, and if our businesspride gets wounded, we must just take the hurt lying down for hissake."
"Katherine, are you afraid that Father is going to die?" Milesasked, turning his head quickly to look at her; and there was thesame terrified expression on his face which had been there when heasked the same question a few weeks before.
"I think his recovery will depend very largely on whether we cankeep him from anxiety for the next two or three months," sheanswered; and there was a stab of pain at her heart as she thoughtof the gnawing apprehension and worry which were secretly sappinghis strength.
"Then Oily Dave mustn't be meddled with just now, I suppose," Milessaid, with a sigh of renunciation; "but sooner or later he has gotto pay for it, or I will know the reason why."