A Countess from Canada Part 3

A Night of Rough Work

"Phil, where is Katherine?" asked Mrs. Burton, coming out of her father's room about half an hour after the two had started to bring home the stores.

"She has gone to help Miles to do some work outside, though what it can be I'm sure I don't know," grumbled Phil, who was sleepy and wanted to get to bed. He had washed the supper things after a fas.h.i.+on, had cleared up the kitchen for the night, according to his own ideas of tidiness, and now was sitting in the rocking-chair by the stove, trying very hard to keep his eyes open.

"Oh dear, how unwise of her!" exclaimed Mrs. Burton in a plaintive tone. "I am always so afraid for her to go outside at night when it is freezing so sharply, for her face would be quite spoiled if she were to get it frostbitten, and she is so pretty."

"Is she?" Phil's voice had a drowsy drawl, as if the subject of Katherine's looks had very little interest for him, as indeed it had. But an unexpected lurch of the chair, coming at that moment, landed him in a squirming heap on the floor.

"Oh, Phil, I am so sorry that I upset you, dear, but I had to catch at the chair to save myself from falling over the broom! What made you leave it lying on the floor?" asked Mrs. Burton, who had been the innocent cause of his collapse.

Phil rose to his feet and dusted the ashes from the sleeve of his jacket with a rueful air. "Did I leave the broom there? Oh, I suppose I forgot it! I remember I had it to sweep up the fireplace, because I could not find a brush."

"There is the brush hanging close to the stove," remarked Mrs. Burton. Then she broke out again: "I wonder what Katherine can be doing out-of-doors at this time of the night, and Miles too?"

"Perhaps they are gone to a surprise party. Don't you remember there was one at Astor M'Kree's last winter?" suggested Phil, whose tumble had dispelled some of his sleepiness, although he still talked in a drowsy tone, and rumpled his hair wildly all over his head.

"Katherine would not go to a surprise party with Father lying in such a condition," replied Mrs. Burton severely. Then she went on: "Besides, she must be pretty well worn out, poor girl, for she has done thirty miles on snowshoes since the morning, with all the worry and trouble of Father's accident thrown in."

"Perhaps she has gone to help Miles to look after his wolf traps. I wanted to go instead, only she wouldn't let me. I told her that girls ought to stay indoors to wash cups and things, while boys did the outside work," Phil explained, in a rather injured tone.

Mrs. Burton laughed softly. "I'm glad Katherine did not let you turn out to-night, laddie, though I am sorry she had to go herself. Now make haste and get off to bed; I have put everything ready for you. But you must be very quiet, because I think Father is inclined to go to sleep."

"Katherine said I was not to go to bed until she came in, and I'm not so very tired," replied Phil, choking back a yawn with a great effort.

"I am, though. And if you are in Father's room I shall be able to sit down here by the stove and rest without any worry. So run along, laddie, and be sure that you come to rouse me if Father wants me," Mrs. Burton said. Then, drawing a big shawl round her shoulders, she sat down in the rocking-chair vacated by Phil to wait for the return of her sister and brother.

She wondered why they had gone out, but did not worry about it, except on the score of Katherine's complexion. Even that ceased to trouble her, as she swayed gently to and fro in the comfortable warmth flung out by the stove, and very soon she was fast asleep.

'Duke Radford, who lay in restless discomfort from the pain of his hurts, was the first to hear sounds of an arrival, and he tried to rouse Phil to see what all the commotion was about. But the boy always slept so heavily that it was next to impossible to wake him. The dogs were barking. Katherine called out to Miles, who answered back. Then there were other voices and a great banging at the door of the store. That was when Mrs. Burton first became aware that something was going on, and started up out of the rocking-chair under the impression that she had been there the whole night and that morning had come already.

A glance at the clock showed her, however, that it was not so very late yet, and still a long way from midnight. Then, remembering that Katherine and Miles were out, she guessed it was they who were making such a clamour at the door of the store, and hurried to let them in.

"I hope we haven't frightened Father with all the noise we have had to make, but you seemed so dead asleep that we had to make a great riot in order to get in," Katherine said, as she and Miles towed the sledge inside the store to be unloaded at leisure when morning came.

"I will go and see to Father, but Phil is with him now. Where have you been, Katherine? And oh, I do hope you have not frosted your face!" Mrs. Burton said, with sisterly concern.

Katherine laughed, but even Mrs. Burton noticed that the sound was strained and unmirthful. "My complexion has not suffered, I can a.s.sure you. But Nellie, dear, could you get a cup of hot coffee quickly for two men? They have been having a rather terrible time of it, and are a good bit shaken."

"Bring them into the kitchen and I will have the coffee ready directly," Mrs. Burton said promptly. But first of all she just looked into her father's room to tell him there was nothing to worry about. Then she hurried into the kitchen to rouse up the fire and put the coffee pot on to boil.

Oily Dave and Stee Jenkin accepted Katherine's invitation to walk in, following her through the dark store and into the lighted room beyond with a sheepish expression on their faces, which certainly no one had ever seen there before. Stee Jenkin had his outer garments nearly torn off him, there was blood on his face, and he sank on to the nearest bench as if his trembling limbs refused to support him any longer.

"Why, your face is bleeding! What have you been doing-not fighting, I hope?" T here was a touch of severity in Mrs. Burton's tone; for she knew the man did not bear a very good character, and she was not disposed to give herself much trouble on account of anyone who had brought his misfortunes upon his own head.

"Yes, ma'am, I have been fighting, and for my life too, which is a very different thing from a round of fisticuffs with your neighbour," growled Stee Jenkin in a shaken tone, and the hand with which he tried to lift the steaming coffee to his lips shook so violently that he spilled the hot liquid on his clothes.

Katherine and Miles had gone back to the store again, so it was Oily Dave who explained the nature of the fight in which both men had been involved.

"We'd a perticular bit of business on hand to-night," he said, in response to the enquiring look which Mrs. Burton turned upon him, for Stee was plainly too much upset to be coherent. "I'd got a revolver certainly, but Stee had nothing but a knife, for we didn't expect any trouble with wolves so early in the season, though it is a fact we might have done, for everyone knows the place is just about swarming with them this winter."

"Did the wolves attack you? Oh, how truly horrible!" exclaimed Mrs. Burton, with so much genuine sympathy that both men winced under it, hardened offenders though they were; for they knew very well that they deserved the fate which had so nearly fallen upon them.

"About ten of the cowards closed in on us as we were going through a patch of cotton woods, where we couldn't move fast because of catching our snow-shoes," Oily Dave went on, winking and blinking in a nervous fas.h.i.+on. "And we were fairly cornered before we knew where we were. One great brute came at me straight in the face. I knocked him off with my fist and fumbled for my barker, but shot wild and did no more damage than to singe the hair off another brute's back; but I managed to edge a bit closer to Stee, who was getting it rough, and hadn't even a chance to draw his knife. But we should have been down and done for to a dead certainty, if it hadn't been for Miss Radford and Miles. They let the dogs loose from the sledge when they heard the rumpus, and that turned the scale in our favour. That great white dog with the black patch on its back came tearing into the cotton woods roaring like a bull, and then I can tell you there was a stampede among the brutes that were baiting us." Oily Dave drew a long breath as he finished his narration, but the other man groaned.

"Katherine, what were you doing so far away from home at this time of night?" gasped Mrs. Burton, in a shocked tone, as her sister came into the room. "Why, the wolves might have attacked you."

"Not likely; we had the dogs with us, you see. But we had to go about three miles along the trail to bring home the things I had to leave behind when Father had his accident," said Katherine, as she stood beside the stove slowly unwinding her wraps. Now that the strain and excitement were over, she looked white and tired, but her face was set in hard, stern lines, which for the time seemed to add years to her age.

"It is dreadful that you should have to go out at night like that. Wouldn't to-morrow have done as well?" asked Mrs. Burton in a tone of distress.

"No," replied Katherine slowly, as she wrestled with an obstinate fastening of her coat, keeping her gaze carefully on the ground the while. "We were almost too late as it was. A wolf had found out the cache and was beginning to tear the packages to pieces, in spite of my care in turning the hand sledge upside down on the top of them."

Oily Dave rose to his feet with a jerky movement. "I think we had best be moving now," he said gruffly. "Perhaps you'd lend us a couple of the dogs to help us down to Seal Cove; we'll give 'em a good feed when we get there. But neither Stee nor I can face three miles' tramp without something to protect us."

"Yes, you can have two of the dogs on leash; but remember they are dreadfully tired, poor things, for they have had a long, hard day. You had better leave your sledge here to-night, then there will be no temptation for you to let the dogs draw you," Katherine said, in a hard tone.

Mrs. Burton looked at her in surprise, even meditated a word of excuse, because her att.i.tude was so unfriendly towards these neighbours who had been in such direful peril. But the word was not spoken, for Katherine's face was too stern for the elder sister to even suggest any change in her manner. Miles tied two of the dogs on a leash while the men put on their snowshoes, then he carefully drew their sledge inside the door of the store, which was afterwards securely barred.

"Katherine, what is the matter? Why did you and Miles go stealing off in that fas.h.i.+on to bring the stores home without telling me? And why, oh! why, did you treat those men as if they were the dirt beneath your feet?" demanded Mrs. Burton, as she plied her sister and brother with hot coffee and comforting food, to make up to them for all the toil and hards.h.i.+p which had gone before.

"Because I regard them as the sc.u.m of the earth," Katherine answered with a yawn, as she stretched out her feet to the glowing warmth of the fire.

"They are not very n.o.ble characters certainly, but when men have been face to face with such a terrible death, one feels it is a duty to be kind to them," Mrs. Burton said, in gentle reproof.

Miles burst out laughing, but Katherine shook her head at him and proceeded to explain. "It was because I was afraid those two were going to steal our stores that we started off in such a hurry to get the lot home, and we were on our way back when we heard the wolves, then cries and shots. We let the first two dogs go then, and had to hold on to the others with all our might to keep them from going too. I wish you could have seen how silly those men looked, when they discovered to whom they owed their lives. I could have laughed at the spectacle if I had not been so angry."

"It suits you to be angry, I think," broke in Miles. "You ordered those two round just as if you had been a d.u.c.h.ess, and they simply squirmed before you, like the worms that they are."

"Silly boy, you have never seen a d.u.c.h.ess, so you can't know how she would order people about. Indeed she might be mild as milk, which I am not. But I hate to feel as angry as I have been doing to-night, so I am going to creep in and have a look at Father. That will make me feel better and more amiable, I hope."

"Don't disturb him if he is at all sleepy. I am so afraid he will be feverish to-morrow if he does not get a good night," Mrs. Burton said, in a warning tone.

"I shan't disturb him," answered Katherlne; then, taking a lamp, she stole across the dark store to the little room at the other end, where her father was lying.

One look at his face showed her how little chance of sleep there was for him at present; and guessing that it was anxiety as well as pain which kept him awake, she sat down beside him and related again the story of that night's adventures. He laughed, in spite of his pain, at her description of how the precious pair had looked when they found to whom they owed their lives.

"But I don't like you having such hard, rough things to do, Katherine. I wish you and Miles could change places in age," he said, with a sigh.

"I don't," she answered with a shrug. "But you must go to sleep now, Father, or you will be feverish to-morrow. Do the bruises hurt much?" she asked tenderly.

"The bed is full of sore places," he answered, with a whimsical transposition of terms. "But I shall go to sleep presently, I think."

"And wake up in the morning feeling better, I hope," she forced herself to say brightly, though it worried her to see how ill he was looking.

"I don't know about that," he said gravely. "When a man has lived a hard life like mine, a knock-down blow, such as I have had to-day, very often sets a lot of mischief in motion; but there is no need to fear disaster until it actually comes. Get away to your bed now, child. I shan't want anything more until the morning."

Katherine bent and kissed him. With all the strength of her heart she loved her father. In her early girlhood he had been her hero. Since her mother's death he had been her good comrade, and never had there been a shadow between them until that day when they had taken the last mail of the season up to the second portage, and heard the news about the change in the owners.h.i.+p of the fis.h.i.+ng fleet from Astor M'Kree. Perhaps he had been taken with some feeling of illness that day, and this continuing ever since had led to his altered ways and gloomy looks. But even with this idea to comfort her Katherine went to her bed with a heavy heart that night, and a dread of the morning to which before she had been a stranger. Her father had said that it was of no use to fear disaster until it really came, but her heart quailed that night as she lay sleepless, thinking of the days which stretched in front of her. Until her father grew strong again she would have to let the day teaching go, even though it might be possible to keep the night school together. Her days would have to be spent in buying and selling, in bartering barrels of flour and pork for skins of wolf, of ermine, and of beaver. She would have to stand between home and the difficulties that menaced from the outside, and if her heart failed her who could wonder at it?