Father's accident thrown in."

"Perhaps she has gone to help Miles to look after his wolf traps. I wanted to go instead, only she wouldn't let me. I told her that girls ought to stay indoors to wash cups and things, while boys did the outside work," Phil explained, in a rather injured tone.

Mrs. Burton laughed softly. "I'm glad Katherine did not let you turn out to-night, laddie, though I am sorry she had to go herself. Now make haste and get off to bed; I have put everything ready for you. But you must be very quiet, because I think Father is inclined to go to sleep."

"Katherine said I was not to go to bed until she came in, and I'm not so very tired," replied Phil, choking back a yawn with a great effort.

"I am, though. And if you are in Father's room I shall be able to sit down here by the stove and rest without any worry. So run along, laddie, and be sure that you come to rouse me if Father wants me," Mrs. Burton said. Then, drawing a big shawl round her shoulders, she sat down in the rocking-chair vacated by Phil to wait for the return of her sister and brother.

She wondered why they had gone out, but did not worry about it, except on the score of Katherine's complexion. Even that ceased to trouble her, as she swayed gently to and fro in the comfortable warmth flung out by the stove, and very soon she was fast asleep.

'Duke Radford, who lay in restless discomfort from the pain of his hurts, was the first to hear sounds of an arrival, and he tried to rouse Phil to see what all the commotion was about. But the boy always slept so heavily that it was next to impossible to wake him. The dogs were barking. Katherine called out to Miles, who answered back. Then there were other voices and a great banging at the door of the store. That was when Mrs. Burton first became aware that something was going on, and started up out of the rocking-chair under the impression that she had been there the whole night and that morning had come already.

A glance at the clock showed her, however, that it was not so very late yet, and still a long way from midnight. Then, remembering that Katherine and Miles were out, she guessed it was they who were making such a clamour at the door of the store, and hurried to let them in.

"I hope we haven't frightened Father with all the noise we have had to make, but you seemed so dead asleep that we had to make a great riot in order to get in," Katherine said, as she and Miles towed the sledge inside the store to be unloaded at leisure when morning came.

"I will go and see to Father, but Phil is with him now. Where have you been, Katherine? And oh, I do hope you have not frosted your face!" Mrs. Burton said, with sisterly concern.

Katherine laughed, but even Mrs. Burton noticed that the sound was strained and unmirthful. "My complexion has not suffered, I can assure you. But Nellie, dear, could you get a cup of hot coffee quickly for two men? They have been having a rather terrible time of it, and are a good bit shaken."

"Bring them into the kitchen and I will have the coffee ready directly," Mrs. Burton said promptly. But first of all she just looked into her father's room to tell him there was nothing to worry about. Then she hurried into the kitchen to rouse up the fire and put the coffee pot on to boil.

Oily Dave and Stee Jenkin accepted Katherine's invitation to walk in, following her through the dark store and into the lighted room beyond with a sheepish expression on their faces, which certainly no one had ever seen there before. Stee Jenkin had his outer garments nearly torn off him, there was blood on his face, and he sank on to the nearest bench as if his trembling limbs refused to support him any longer.

"Why, your face is bleeding! What have you been doing—not fighting, I hope?" There was a touch of severity in Mrs. Burton's tone; for she knew the man did not bear a very good character, and she was not disposed to give herself much trouble on account of anyone who had brought his misfortunes upon his own head.

"Yes, ma'am, I have been fighting, and for my life too, which is a very different thing from a round of fisticuffs with your neighbour," growled Stee Jenkin in a shaken tone, and the hand with which he tried to lift the steaming coffee to his lips shook so violently that he spilled the hot liquid on his clothes.

Katherine and Miles had gone back to the store again, so it was Oily Dave who explained the nature of the fight in which both men had been involved.

"We'd a perticular bit of business on hand to-night," he said, in response to the enquiring look which Mrs. Burton turned upon him, for Stee was plainly too much upset to be coherent. "I'd got a revolver certainly, but Stee had nothing but a knife, for we didn't expect any trouble with wolves so early in the season, though it is a fact we might have done, for everyone knows the place is just about swarming with them this winter."

"Did the wolves attack you? Oh, how truly horrible!" exclaimed Mrs. Burton, with so much genuine sympathy that both men winced under it, hardened offenders though they were; for they knew very well that they deserved the fate which had so nearly fallen upon them.

"About ten of the cowards closed in on us as we were going through a patch of cotton woods, where we couldn't move fast because of catching our snow-shoes," Oily Dave went on, winking and blinking in a nervous fashion. "And we were fairly cornered before we knew where we were. One great brute came at me straight in the face. I knocked him off with my fist and fumbled for my barker, but shot wild and did no more damage than to singe the hair off another brute's back; but I managed to edge a bit closer to Stee, who was getting it rough, and hadn't even a chance to draw his knife. But we should have been down and done for to a dead certainty, if it hadn't been for Miss Radford and Miles. They let the dogs loose from the sledge when they heard the rumpus, and that turned the scale in our favour. That great white dog with the black patch on its back came tearing into the cotton woods roaring like a bull, and then I can tell you there was a stampede among the brutes that were baiting us." Oily Dave drew a long breath as he finished his narration, but the other man groaned.

"Katherine, what were you doing so far away from home at this time of night?" gasped Mrs. Burton, in a shocked tone, as her sister came into the room. "Why, the wolves might have attacked you."

"Not likely; we had the dogs with us, you see. But we had to go about three miles along the trail to bring home the things I had to leave behind when Father had his accident," said Katherine, as she stood beside the stove slowly unwinding her wraps. Now that the strain and excitement were over, she looked white and tired, but her face was set in hard, stern lines, which for the time seemed to add years to her age.

"It is dreadful that you should have to go out at night like that. Wouldn't to-morrow have done as well?" asked Mrs. Burton in a tone of distress.

"No," replied Katherine slowly, as she wrestled with an obstinate fastening of her coat, keeping her gaze carefully on the ground the while. "We were almost too late as it was. A wolf had found out the cache and was beginning to tear the packages to pieces, in spite of my care in turning the hand sledge upside down on the top of them."

Oily Dave rose to his feet with a jerky movement. "I think we had best be moving now," he said gruffly. "Perhaps you'd lend us a couple of the dogs to help us down to Seal Cove; we'll give 'em a good feed when we get there. But neither Stee nor I can face three miles' tramp without something to protect us."