"From an Indian who called himself Waywassimo, so I think he must have been reading Longfellow's Hiawatha, for you know Waywassimo was the lightning, and Annemeekee the thunder," Katherine replied. "Only there was nothing grand nor terrible about this Waywassimo. He was simply a miserable-looking Indian with a most dreadful cough."
Miles began to laugh in a hugely delighted fashion, but it was some time before Katherine could get from him the cause of his mirth. At length, with many chuckles, he commenced to explain.
"There has been a wretched-looking Indian hanging about Seal Cove for the last two or three days, stealing pretty nearly everything he could lay his hands on, and Mrs. Jenkin told me that last night he broke into Oily Dave's fish-house and cleared off with every bit of dried fish there was."
"So I have been buying stolen goods. How horrid!" exclaimed Katherine with a frown. "Now I suppose it is my duty to hand at least a part of that fish back to Oily Dave. Oh dear, I would rather it had been anyone else, for I do dislike him so much!"
"Don't fret yourself; wait until you hear the end of my story, and then you will see that for once the biter has been bitten," answered Miles, with so much chuckling and gurgling that he seemed to be in a fair way to choke himself. "Mrs. Jenkin says she is quite positive that Oily Dave stole that fish, because his fish-house was quite empty a week ago, as she saw with her own eyes, but yesterday, when she was cleaning his house for him, she saw that he had a lot of fish. He told her then that he had bought it to sell again. She knew how much of that to believe, however, and asked me if we had missed any of our fish."
"What did you say?" asked Katherine, who then began to wonder if their fish had really wasted through being stolen, instead of having merely been used too fast.
"Oh, I didn't commit myself! Mrs. Jenkin has a good heart, but her head is as soft as blubber, so I was pretty careful not to say much," Miles answered, with a wag of his own head, which he thumped with his fist to show that at least he was not topped with blubber.
"It is maddening whichever way one looks at it!" cried Katherine. "If Oily Dave stole our fish, and Waywassimo stole it from him again, then I have been buying our own property, and paying for it at a rather stiff price. I simply could not beat that poor wretch down, he looked so sad and hungry. Oh, Miles, what shall we do? If this business leaks out we shall just be the laughing-stock of the whole place."
"It is not going to leak out; I'll take good care of that," retorted the boy, squaring his jaws. "If we say nothing about it, who is to be any the wiser? Was there anyone here when you bought the fish?"
"Not a soul. How very fortunate!" cried Katherine, beginning to smile again. "It is quite bad enough to be taken in by such a trick, but it would be simply intolerable to have other people knowing about it and laughing at our misfortunes."