"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."