Roaring Water Portage, but there were two or three customers in the store, and Katherine went to help her father with them, while Miles unharnessed and fed the four dogs. Oily Dave was one of the people gathered round the stove waiting to be served with flour and bacon, and it was his voice raised in eager talk which Katherine heard when she came back from the sitting-room into the store.

"If it's true what they are saying, that Barton, Skinner, & Co. are in liquidation, then things is going to look queer for some of us when the spring comes, and the question will be as to who can claim the boats, though some of them ain't much good."

"I suppose that you'll stick to your'n, seeing that it is by far the best in the fleet," said another man, who had a deep, rumbling laugh.

Katherine looked at her father in dumb surprise. She had been expecting him to announce the news of the fishing boats having been bought by the Englishman with the remarkable name, instead of which he was just going on with his work, and looking as if he had no more information than the others.

Lifting his head at that moment he caught his daughter's perplexed glance, and, after a moment, said hastily: "I wouldn't be in too much hurry about appropriating the boats if I were you."

"Why not?" chorused the listeners.

"Barton & Skinner have been bought out, and the new owner might not approve of his property being made off with in that fashion," 'Duke Radford replied.

"Who's bought it? Who told you? Look here, we want to know," one man burst out impatiently.

"Then you had better go up to the second portage and ask Astor M'Kree," rejoined 'Duke Radford slowly. "It was he who told me about it, and he has got the order to build four more boats."

"Now that looks like business, anyhow. Who is the man?" demanded Rick Portus, who was younger than the others, and meant "to make things hum" when he got a chance.

'Duke Radford fumbled with the head of a flour barrel, and for a moment did not answer. It was an agonizing moment for Katherine, who was entering items in the ledger, and had to be blind and deaf to what was passing round her, yet all the time was acutely conscious that something was wrong somewhere.

The head of the barrel came off with a jerk, and then 'Duke answered with an air of studied indifference: "An Englishman, Astor M'Kree said he was; Selincourt or some such name, I think."

A burst of eager talk followed this announcement, but, her entries made in the ledger, Katherine slipped away from it all and hurried into the sitting-room, where supper was already beginning. But the food had lost its flavour for her, and she might have been feeding on the sawdust and pine cones of which Mrs. M'Kree had spoken for all the taste her supper possessed. She had to talk, however, and to seem cheerful, yet all the time she was shrinking and shivering because of this mysterious mood displayed by her father at the mention of a strange man's name.

'Duke Radford did not come in from the store until it was nearly time for night school, so Katherine saw very little more of him, except at a distance, for that evening; but he was so quiet and absorbed that Mrs. Burton asked more than once if he were feeling unwell. She even insisted on his taking a basin of onion gruel before he went to bed, because she thought he had caught a chill. He swallowed the gruel obediently enough, yet knew all the time that the chill was at his heart, where no comforting food nor drink could relieve him.

CHAPTER II

A Curious Accident

The nearest Hudson's Bay store to Roaring Water Portage was fifteen miles away by land, but only five by boat, as it stood on an angle of land jutting into the water, three miles from the mouth of the river. 'Duke Radford's business took him over to this place, which was called Fort Garry, always once a week, and sometimes oftener. Usually either Miles or Phil went with him, although on rare occasions Katherine took the place of the boys and helped to row the boat across the inlet to the grim old blockhouse crowning the height.

It was a week after the trip to the house of Astor M'Kree that the storekeeper announced his intention of going to Fort Garry, and said that he should need Miles to help him.

"I must go by land to-day, which is a nuisance, for it takes so much longer," he declared, as he sat down to breakfast, which at this time of the year had always to be taken by lamplight.

"Shall I come instead?" asked Katherine, who was frying potatoes at the stove. "I am quicker on snowshoes than Miles, and he has got such a bad cold."

"You can if you like, though it isn't work for a girl," he answered in a dispirited tone.

"It is work for a girl if a girl has got it to do," she rejoined, with a merry laugh; "and I shall just love to come with you, Father. When will you start?"

"At dawn," he replied brusquely; and, finishing his meal in silence, he went into the store.

"Katherine, what is the matter with Father? Do you think he is ill?" Mrs. Burton asked in a troubled tone. "He has been so quiet and gloomy for the last few days; he does not eat well, and he does not seem to care to talk to any of us."

Katherine shivered and hesitated. She knew the moment from which the change in her father's manner dated, but she could not speak of it even to her sister. "Perhaps the cold weather tries him a great deal just at first; it has come so suddenly, and we are not seasoned to it yet, you know," she answered evasively.

"I hope it is only that," answered Mrs. Burton, brightening up at the suggestion. "And really the cold has been terribly trying for the last week, though it won't seem so bad when we get used to it. I am glad you are going with Father, though, for Miles has such a dreadful cold, poor boy."

"His own fault," laughed Katherine. "If he will go and sit in a tub half the day, in the hope of shooting swans, he must expect to get a cold."

"Boys will do unwise things, I fancy. They can't help it, so it is of no use to blame them," Mrs. Burton said with a sigh.

Katherine laughed again. Mrs. Burton had a way of never blaming anyone, and slipped through life always thinking the very best of the people with whom she came in contact, crediting them with good intentions however far short they might prove of good in reality. The sisters were alike in features and in their dainty, womanly ways, but in character they were a wide contrast. Katherine, under her girlish softness and pretty winning manner, had hidden a firm will and purpose, a sound judgment, and a resourcefulness which would stand her in good stead in the emergencies of life. She liked to decide things for herself, and choose what she would do; but Mrs. Burton always needed someone to lean upon and to settle momentous questions for her.

'Duke Radford was ready to start by the time dawn arrived, and Katherine was ready too. It was so very cold that she had twisted a cloud of brilliant scarlet wool all over her head and ears, in addition to her other wrappings. There were some stores to take to Fort Garry, and there would be others to bring back, as considerable trading was done between the fort and the settlement. Very often when 'Duke Radford ran out of some easy-to-sell commodity he was able to replenish his stock from the fort, while he in his turn accepted furs in barter from his customers, which he disposed of to the agent when next he visited the fort. As on the journey to the second portage, 'Duke Radford went first, drawing a laden sledge, followed by Katherine, who looked