“How did you know?” he asked, trying to understand how she chanced to be on hand at the critical moment with a rope.

“Mary had written a note and tied it round the dog’s neck, then sent the creature for help.  I found it howling on the other bank of the river, and went over to fetch the poor thing home; then I found the note, and came as quickly as I could,” she answered.

“You came just in time for me,” he said in a shaken voice.  “I don’t think that I could possibly have held out five minutes longer, because of cramp, and I could not lift Miss Selincourt out of the water.”

“I don’t think I could have done it either if it had not been for Oily Dave,” Katherine answered, a quiver of mirth stirring her tones.  “Fancy Oily Dave as a rescuer of people in direful straits!  We shall have him posing as a public benefactor soon!”

“He has long been a private benefactor, or at least I have regarded him as such,” Jervis said slowly.

“What do you mean?” she asked, looking at him in surprise, and wondering if he had forgotten the grim incident of the flood.

“I feel grateful to him, and always shall, because he left me in the lurch that day when the water came in.  I had to owe my life to you that day; and but for you and your rope I must have perished to-day, Katherine.  I am really very much in your debt.  Do you think I shall ever be able to repay you?”

“Of course; if not me, then someone else.  Such things are always passed on,” she said lightly.

“Of choice I would rather pay my debt in this case, if indeed it can be paid, to the person to whom I owe it,” he said, with a slow emphasis which made her heart beat tumultuously.  Then she remembered that it was her duty to stand aside for Mary’s sake, and that she must not let this man love her if Mary had set her own affections upon him, as Nellie had more than hinted.

A cold shiver shook Katherine then, for now the chill came from within as well as without, and the dreary day wrapped her exhausted body in its dismal discomfort.

“Don’t talk,” she said with a touch of authority in her tone.  “Save your strength for enduring.  See, here comes a man running down from the fish-flakes; he has come to help us, and now we shall get on faster, you will find.”

CHAPTER XXI

Matter for Heartache

Three days had passed away, and life had dropped into its accustomed monotony again.  Mrs. Burton said there never was anything to vary the sameness of existence at Roaring Water Portage unless someone was in danger of his or her life, and really events had a way of proving her to be right.  When Katherine had rushed off in such a hurry that day, to help Mary Selincourt out of her fix, Mrs. Burton had left her sewing, and, taking her sister’s work in hand, had finished cleaning the shelves, then restored to them the various canisters and boxes according to her own ideas of neatness, instead of with any remembrance as to how they had been arranged previously.