The “back-ache” portage was worthy of its name that day, and it was considerably past noon before they arrived at the Indian village to which they were bound.  At first they could not find anyone at home, the whole community being away in the forest peeling bark from the birch trees for the making of canoes.  But the same kind of thing had happened before, so Katherine was not at a loss.  Picking up a tin pan, she commenced beating a military tattoo upon it with a thick stick; while Phil, with a trumpet improvised from a roll of birchbark, produced an ear-splitting din which must have carried far through the quiet woods.  It was not long before their customers arrived on the scene, and then the business of barter began.  A very long business it proved to-day, for, the weather being warm and comfortable, the red men and women seemed to thoroughly enjoy sitting round at their ease and taking time to consider whether they wished to be purchasers or not.

[Illustration:  Bartering with the Indians]

But Katherine was patient and tactful too.  After all, the training of a teacher is not lost in the buying and selling of a backwoods store.  The same gifts of persuasion are needful in both cases, and the same gentle firmness is useful in settling the bargain which has come to completion.  It was four o’clock before Katherine was able to turn her back on the Indian village, but by then she had sold every article which had been brought up river, and was laden with a currency of valuable furs and some specimens of narwhal ivory, very beautiful, but apparently of great age.  The same kind of thing had happened before, and she could never quite make out where it had come from, for the narwhal was so rarely met with in the Hudson Bay waters now, and was a creature so fierce, that it was puzzling to know how people in birchbark canoes, armed only with spears, could ever manage to secure it.  A theory held by her father in his days of health was, that in places along those little-known shores the tusks of narwhals dead centuries before might be found by the Indians buried in the sands, and it was finds of this sort which they dug up and offered for sale.

Their stay at Mrs. M’Kree’s house was very short after all, though Katherine was thankful indeed for the cup of tea awaiting her there, and much too grateful for the kindness to be fastidious about its overdrawn condition.  As a matter of fact, the tea had been gently on the boil for more than two hours, but this was a minor detail in the comfort of people who had an outdoor life and worked hard from dawn to dark.

It was pleasant to slip down on the swift current of the river when the cool of the evening came on.  Katherine was almost sorry when the home portage was reached, for it was like taking up the burden of life again, and she was tired enough to feel that rest was a luxury indeed.  The dogs were soon over at the boathouse to help with the parcels, and then Katherine and Phil, both heavily laden, passed up the portage path, and night came down.