well on the still days, when the sun shone with cloudless brilliancy in a clear sky, and the dogs tore along like mad creatures, and the whole of the expedition would seem like a frolic; but there were other days when things were very different.  Sometimes a raging wind would sweep in from the bay, laden with a terrible stinging damp, which kind of cold pierced like daggers.  Or a roaring north wind would howl through the forests, snapping off big trees from their roots as if they were only twigs, while earth, air, and sky were a confusion of whirling snowflakes.  These were the dangerous days, and they never ventured far from home when such blizzards were raging, unless it was for the three miles’ run down to Seal Cove, where the trail had been dug out, and the snow banked, at the beginning of winter.

There were a large number of sealing and walrus boats laid up in ice between Roaring Water Portage and Seal Cove.  Most of these had men living on board, who passed the days in loafing, in setting traps for wolves, or in boring holes through the ice for fishing.  Many of them spent a great portion of their time in the little house at the bend of the river, where Oily Dave dispensed bad whisky and played poker with his customers from morning to night, or, taking a rough average, for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four.  These were the men whom Katherine most dreaded to encounter.  They looked bold admiration, and roared out compliments at the top of husky voices, but they ventured nothing further; her manner was too repressive, and the big dogs which always accompanied her were much too fierce to be trifled with.  Mrs. Burton had left off lamenting the chances of damage to her sister’s complexion from exposure, for she realized that Katherine must be breadwinner now, and the stern necessities of life had to be first consideration for them all.

One day Katherine found to her surprise that some tin buckets of lard were missing from the store.  It was only the day before that, rummaging in the far corner of the cellar, she had unearthed six of these buckets, which had apparently been forgotten, as the date chalked on them was eighteen months old.  With much hard work she hauled four of them to the store above, ripped the cover from one, so that the contents might be retailed at so much per pound, and left the other three standing in a row on a shelf which was remote from the stove.  But now two were gone, and looking at the one which had been opened she saw that it was only half full.  For a moment she supposed that there must have been a considerable run on lard during the previous evening, while she was teaching night school, with Miles on duty in the store.  It had been such a fine clear evening that many people were abroad who would otherwise have been in bed, or at any rate shut up in the stuffy little cabins of the snow-banked sealers.