Mr. Selincourt suffered but little ill effects from his accident.  He stayed in bed two days to ward off any danger of swamp fever, but on the third morning got up at his usual hour, and after breakfast had himself rowed across the river, and paid a visit to the store.  Early as it was, Katherine and Phil had already started for an Indian encampment on Ochre Lake, so Mr. Selincourt found only Miles in the store, and he was busy sweeping dead flies from the molasses traps, and spreading fresh molasses for the catching of another batch.

“Hullo, young man! is it you who pulled me out of the mud the other day?” he asked.

“No, sir,” replied Miles promptly; “I’m as heavy as Katherine, so not adapted for walking on soft spots.  It was Phil who put the rope round you, but Katherine pulled you out.”

“A plucky pair they were too, for it must have been difficult work.  Are they at home?” Mr. Selincourt asked, as he gazed round the store, and thought what a bare-looking place it was.

“No, they started for Ochre Lake a good time ago.  Where there is portage work it is easiest to get it done in the morning this hot weather.  Can I have the pleasure of showing you anything this morning, sir?” Miles asked, with his very best business manner, which always had its due effect on the Seal Cove people.

Mr. Selincourt laughed.  “I am afraid my wants would have to be moderate, there is so little left to buy,” he said, wondering if it were poverty on the part of the Radfords which kept the stock so low.

“We are not so nearly cleared out as you would think,” Miles answered, in a confidential tone.  “We always like the shelves to look thin at this time of the year; then when the first shipment comes to hand we bring all our surplus stock out of the cellar, and it sells nearly as fast as we can serve it out.”

“Well, that is one way of doing business; a shrewd way too,” remarked Mr. Selincourt, nodding his head.  “I shouldn’t wonder if you make a pile some day of your own; you look wideawake enough.  What are you going to be when you grow up?”

“A storekeeper; this store keeper, if Katherine can keep the business going until I’m old enough to take the work over,” Miles answered, with the same promptness as had arrested Mr. Selincourt’s attention at the first.

“It is a hard life for a girl, I should think,” he said, as he sat down on a sugar barrel and watched Miles finishing with the traps.

“Yes, it is very hard.  You see, there is so much tramping over portages, rowing up and down river, and all that sort of thing.  I could manage most of it with Phil’s help, only there is pricing the skins, the feathers, and the fish which we take in barter from the Indians.  They wouldn’t accept my prices, but would declare they were being cheated by the papoose;” and the boy threw so much scorn into his tone that Mr. Selincourt laughed aloud.

“How do you manage when the Indians come here to buy and your sister is away?” he asked.