“Will you find Oily Dave and tell him to come on after me as fast as he can?  Tell him there is money in the job, then perhaps he will hurry.  If any more men come, send them on after me.  And do have a kettle of water boiling, so that we can give Miss Selincourt a cup of coffee or something when we get her back here,” said Katherine, then hurried away, the coil of rope flung over her arm, the dog following close at her heels.

It was a long way over a rough track to the rocks.  The easier and shorter process would have been to go round by boat, if only there had been quieter water and less wind; but she knew very well that it would take more strength than her one pair of arms possessed to row a boat through such a sea, so she was forced to take the landward route.

When she reached the fish-flakes it was as much as she could do to stand against the wind, and in crossing the headland her pace was of the slowest.  She had expected to find someone up here, the portage men perhaps, or some Indians attending to the hundreds and thousands of fish which were spread out drying in the sun and wind; but there was no one.  She did not know, of course, that Mr. Selincourt had passed that way half an hour before, and had summoned the portage men to help him to search for Mary among the rocks.  Looking back, she could see Oily Dave coming along at a shuffling pace behind her, and with an imperious wave of the hand to hurry his movements she sped onward now at a quicker pace, because the ground was descending, and the hill behind her broke the force of the wind.  At the bottom of the hill there were two tracks, both of which led round among the gulches or tideholes, only by different ways and to different points, and it was here that Katherine knew she would be at fault.

Hero still trotted contentedly just behind, as if perfectly satisfied that she should take the lead.  But a mistake now might be disastrous and waste hours of time; so, calling the dog forward, she began to talk to him in an eager, caressing fashion:  “Good old Hero, clever old dog, go and find Mary!  Mary wants you ever so badly; hurry up, old chappy, hurry up!”

The dog threw up its head with an eager whine, and looked round as if to make certain where Mary was to be found,

“Mary, Mary, find her, go along!” cried Katherine; then with a short bark Hero turned to the track leading seawards, and set off at a trot, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left.

Katherine groaned.  The tideholes nearest the sea naturally filled first, and it could not be very far from high tide already.  Looking back, she saw Oily Dave gaining upon her, and waved to him again to make haste.  It was of no use to shout, because the wind was blowing from him to her, and so her voice would not carry.  Then a dash of cold rain struck her from behind, and thankful she was that it was behind, for if it had struck her in the face she could hardly have stood against it.  Right in front of her Hero was trotting forward with head carried well in the air, and an eager alertness in every limb.  It was clear the creature felt no uncertainty about its movements, and the feeling that she was going right was an unspeakable comfort to Katherine, who toiled along in the rear.