"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 assure 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?" There 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 fashion. "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 attitude 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 fashion 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 hardship which had gone before.
"Because I regard them as the scum 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 noble 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 duchess, and they simply squirmed before you, like the worms that they are."
"Silly boy, you have never seen a duchess, 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 Katherine; 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