’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?”