ndian squaw, who demanded bright
calico, 'bacco, and as much of anything else as she could get, for
fourteen beaver skins partly dressed, and as soft as velvet.

Beaver, even in that district, was becoming very scarce. Indeed,
Katherine was sure that these skins must have come a long distance,
probably seventy or eighty miles, from some part of unknown
Keewatin, where no foot of white man ever trod, and where even the
red man only went at trapping time. She bought the skins, of
course, adding to the purchase price a box of chocolates with a
picture on the lid, a treasure which set the red woman in a state
of the most complacent satisfaction.

When the squaw had departed, Katherine carefully locked away the
skins before going in to make tea, for the Indians were adepts at
roguery, and if by any means the woman could have stolen them, she
would probably have returned to the store to offer them in barter
again within the next hour. Katherine had been caught like that
often enough to have become exceedingly careful. She was talking
about the exceeding beauty of the skins as she watched the kettle
beginning to boil, and Mr. Selincourt immediately said that he
should like to see them.

"Will you wait until to-morrow or the next day? Then I will show
you all that we have got. But it is rather dirty work pulling them
out and unrolling them, and I have just put on a clean frock,"
Katherine said, laughing at the idea of putting a possible customer
off in such a fashion.

"I will wait certainly, and if the day after tomorrow will suit
you, I will come then and see if you have anything which Mary might
like me to buy for her. By the way, my men are behind with the
mail this time, a week late, and I am still uncertain whether or no
we shall have to go down to Montreal for the winter," Mr.
Selincourt said, as he helped Katherine to put cups and saucers on
the table.

"If they had come in time, would you have left by this boat?"
Katherine asked. The question of winter quarters had been
constantly talked of during the last week or two, but nothing had
as yet been decided upon, owing to the delay in the coming of the
two men with the expected mail.

"No, this boat will go straight to Liverpool. The next will come
round from Quebec, and return there before going to England; and
that must be our way south, I think, unless we decide to return as
we came, by river and trail."

"We shall all miss you very much," Katherine