aring 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 stuf