“Let Mr. Selincourt keep house while you are so busy, or, better still, get Nellie to do what you want; she will be delighted,” urged Katherine, who was disposed to the belief that Mary’s morbid mood was largely the result of fatigue.

“Oh, Mrs. Burton is more than kind in making bread for me, and all that sort of thing; while, as everyone knows, my father spoils me all the time!  But I like work, and just now I feel as if I could hardly have too much of it; so I don’t mind how long Mr. Ferrars stays away at the fishing at the Twins,” Mary said.  Then, bidding Katherine good night at the foot of the hill, she got into her boat and was rowed across the river.

Katherine shook her head a little doubtfully as she went indoors; for in her heart she did not echo the other’s last words.

CHAPTER XXVI

Fighting the Storm

The summer had been one of such almost unvarying fine weather that the next morning’s outlook came as a disagreeable surprise to Katherine.  The sun shone with a pale, watery gleam, grey clouds were piled along the horizon, and a moaning wind crept through the pine trees, made the birch leaves quiver, and thinned the foliage of the alders at the foot of the rapids.

“Phil, we shall have to be quick this morning, or we shall have to come crawling home round the shore instead of rowing straight across the bay,” Katherine said, as she piled bundles of pelts into the boat, and tied over them a canvas sheet, for security from any chance wave.

“Oh, we can hustle, and very likely the storm won’t break before night!” Phil said easily.

“More likely that it will break before noon,” retorted Miles, who was helping to bring out the pelts from the stockroom.  “Don’t go to-day, Katherine; it is fearful work crossing from Fort Garry when there is a strong north-east wind.  I came across with Father once, when we thought we must have been swamped every minute.”

“Do not worry yourself, my dear boy,” laughed Katherine, “I shall not attempt to cross if the weather is very rough; I shall skirt the shore all the way.  It is miles farther, of course, but it is safe, and that is the main thing.”

“I wish you were not going, or that I could come with you,” Miles said in a worried tone.  “Look here; couldn’t Phil manage the store for one day with Nellie’s help, then we would take an extra pair of oars, and I would help to row?”

Katherine shook her head.  “It is not to be thought of, dear.  I expect some of those Indians from Nackowasset Creek will be over the portage to-day; then Wise Eye is in the neighbourhood, I know, and if he as much as caught a glimpse of both of us going down river in a boat he would fairly haunt the store until we came back, and Phil would have a tottering time of it.”

“That Nackowasset lot are a horrible set of thieves,” said Miles.

“Yes, and neither Phil nor Nellie would be up to all their tricks; so, you see, you will be quite indispensable.  I shall get on very well; don’t worry about me in any case, for if the storm should prove terrifically bad we could even stay at Fort Garry all night,” Katherine replied.