"It isn't fishing at all; it is nothing but killing. Horrid work,
I call it," Katherine cried with a shudder, as, gathering up the
frozen fish, she proceeded to stack them on the sledge in much the
same fashion as she might have stacked billets of firewood.

The dogs had eaten a good meal, and were in fine feather for work;
so, although the load was heavy, they made very good pace, and
Katherine, gliding along now by the side of Miles, told him of how
she had found Jamie M'Kree banging away on one of their stolen lard
buckets. Miles was furiously angry, and wanted to go straight off
to Seal Cove, denouncing Oily Dave as a thief; but Katherine would
not hear of it.

"By precipitating matters we may do a great deal more harm than
good," she said. "We have had to buy our wisdom in rather an
expensive school, but it ought to make us wiser in future. So far
we have only suspicions to go upon, not facts, and it is very
likely that if we accused Oily Dave of stealing our stuff he would
be clever enough to turn the tables on us, and have us prosecuted
for libel, or something of that sort, which would not be
pleasant--nor profitable."

"I can't sit meekly down under things of that sort," retorted the
boy, with the sullen look dropping over his face which Katherine
hated to see there.

"It isn't easy, I know, but very often it pays best in the long
run," she answered earnestly. "Whatever we do, or don't do, we
must take especial care that Father isn't worried just now. He
must be our chief thought for the present, and if our business
pride gets wounded, we must just take the hurt lying down for his
sake."

"Katherine, are you afraid that Father is going to die?" Miles
asked, turning his head quickly to look at her; and there was the
same terrified expression on his face which had been there when he
asked the same question a few weeks before.

"I think his recovery will depend very largely on whether we can
keep him from anxiety for the next two or three months," she
answered; and there was a stab of pain at her heart as she thought
of the gnawing apprehension and worry which were secretly sapping
his strength.

"Then Oily Dave mustn't be meddled with just now, I suppose," Miles
said, with a sigh of renunciation; "but sooner or later he has got
to pay for it, or I will know the reason why."

CHAPTER VIII

The First Rain

The weary weeks of winter passed slowly away. April came in with
long bright days