“Good-bye!  We shall get home all right; don’t worry about us,” Katherine answered bravely.

“There is one comfort:  we shan’t need to wash our faces any more to-day, though we may need a little drying,” remarked Phil, as they rounded an angle of the coast and caught the full force of the wind.

“It might be worse, for we are being blown along,” Katherine replied, as she tugged at her oars and faced the driving rain.

For three hours they toiled on, working their way from point to point, skirting the swamps, and keeping in close under the alders.

There was never real actual danger close inshore for anyone who understood the management of a boat, but the work was fearful, and Katherine was so near to exhaustion when she at last pulled round past the shut-up house of Oily Dave, that she was thankful to let Phil take the oars and pull up the quieter waters of the river to Roaring Water Portage.

“I wonder how Oily Dave likes being at the fishing to-day?” said Phil, swaying himself to and fro and jerking the boat fearfully with his short, uneven strokes.

But Katherine, sitting in a huddled, wet heap on the opposite seat, did not answer.  She was thinking of someone else who was at the fishing, and praying that he might be kept in safety and brought back unharmed.

CHAPTER XXVII

A Bearer of Evil Tidings

In was a very tired Katherine who awoke to face the work of the next day.  It was storming still, with a driving rain, so journeys of any kind were out of the question; and, yielding to the wisdom of Mrs. Burton, she remained in bed until nearly noon.  Her arms ached so badly that she could scarcely move them, her body was weary in every part, and the long night had been hideous for her by reason of the nightmare dreams which broke her rest.  Always it seemed when she fell asleep that she was tormented with visions of Jervis Ferrars struggling for his life in deep waters, falling from beetling cliffs on to rugged rocks below, or being pursued by enraged and vindictive walruses across slippery places, where no one on two feet could hope to stand without falling.

Even when she awoke the dreams haunted her still, and it was not until the new day came, and the rest of the household had gone to their usual avocations, that any real sleep came to her.  The twins were singing when she awoke at noon; indeed, they almost always were singing:  but this morning it was a lilting baby song about “The sun is always shining, somewhere, somewhere”, and Katherine took heart as she listened, then rose and dressed in great haste, for it was years since she had remained in bed so late in the day, and she was wondering what the others were doing without her to help them.

Miles was standing at the store door looking out across the river when she entered by the other door from the living-room, and he was so absorbed that he did not hear her come up behind him, and only started when she put her hand on his arm to shake him into attention.