ss 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.

There were lights twinkling in and about the store when they
reached it, and Katherine laughed to see how Phil crept past the
door of the store, making for the entrance to the house instead.

But she did not call him back, being quite willing to shield his
retreat so far as she could possibly do so, for a ducking at that
time in the evening would not be pleasant; moreover, Mrs. Burton
would have his clothes to dry, which was another consideration of
importance just then.

Nick Jones was not in the store when she entered, and she noticed
at once that the crowd of evening loungers was less than usual.
They were busily talking, too, and alth