Part 25 (1/2)
”With great pleasure Please go in and talk to Father; I shall be free in a few minutes, and then I will co open the door between house and store, while she smiled upon the visitor, asan Indian squaho de else as she could get, for fourteen beaver skins partly dressed, and as soft as velvet
Beaver, even in that district, was beco very scarce Indeed, Katherine was sure that these skins hty miles, from some part of unknown Keewatin, where no foot of white man ever trod, and where even the red ht the skins, of course, adding to the purchase price a box of chocolates with a picture on the lid, a treasure which set the red woman in a state of the most complacent satisfaction
When the squaw had departed, Katherine carefully locked away the skins before going in to uery, and if by any means the woman could have stolen them, she would probably have returned to the store to offer theain within the next hour Katherine had been caught like that often enough to have beco beauty of the skins as she watched the kettle beginning to boil, and Mr Selincourt immediately said that he should like to see them
”Will you wait until to-morrow or the next day? Then I will show you all that we have got But it is rather dirty work pulling the thehing at the idea of putting a possible customer off in such a fashi+on
”I ait certainly, and if the day after tomorroill suit you, I will coht like me to buy for her By the way, my men are behind with the mail this time, a week late, and I ao down to Montreal for the winter,” Mr Selincourt said, as he helped Katherine to put cups and saucers on the table
”If they had come in time, would you have left by this boat?” Katherine asked The question of winter quarters had been constantly talked of during the last week or two, but nothing had as yet been decided upon, owing to the delay in the co of the two o straight to Liverpool The next will coland; and that must be our way south, I think, unless we decide to return as we came, by river and trail”
”We shall all retfully; for the pleasant, kindly ood neighbour that his absence would be keenly felt
”I should not like it if I were not , reain, to settle for good, I hope England is a fine country to be born in, but Canada is the land of my choice, and I have never yet seen a part of it that I like better than these Keewatin wilds; it is unspoiled nature here,” Mr Selincourt said, rubbing his hands with great enthusiasm
”Wait until you have tried a winter here, before speaking too positively about it; you may find the isolation too dreadful to be borne We who are used to it do not mind so much, but a person accustomed to daily papers and frequent posts would see, long nights, when the wolves howled in the woods, and the silent weeks when the falls were frozen; and she wondered how this ht up in cities, could bear to think of such a life
He laughed in a cheery, unconvinced fashi+on ”I have thought of all that: but I can live without daily papers, or letters either, if need be; although, if Roaring Water Portage develops as I believe it is going to do, without doubt we shall get a regular postal service of a sort If it can't be done any other way, I will do it er house, for in winter we should be very much cramped in that little hut over the river”
Katherine nodded thoughtfully ”Yes, you would want a big roo parties and entertainments Mary would make a lovely hostess, and the fisher folk would feel as if they were living in a neorld Oily Dave's dreadful whisky would have no chance at all against the attractions offered by your big house”
Mr Selincourt frowned ”That drink-selling of his is the thorn a my roses of content, and I don't see how to put it down just at present I can't, fro, just after he has helped to save hter from a dreadful death Of course I know that he only helped, and that you could and would have done it without him if he had not been there, still, he was there, and I ed pretty heavily for his services”
”That is y ”But I knohat Oily Dave is, and that the one thing to move him is money; so when Mrs Jenkin told me he was the only man about, I told her to say to him he must come at once, for there was ht, and if you had promised him a hundred dollars I would cheerfully have paid it,” Mr Selincourt replied; and then he turned to talk to 'Duke Radford, who had been sitting all this ti no notice at all of what the others were talking about
But when the tea-things were cleared away, and Katherine had gone back to the store again, Mr Selincourt followed her and co afresh of what he meant and hoped to make of that particular part of the world in the course of the next two or three years He had a special purpose in co up river that afternoon, for he wanted to consult Katherine on a business point, and did not feel very sure of his ground
Being a straightforward s, however, he stated bluntly what he had to say ”I want to buy your land, if I can, Miss Katherine, and I am prepared to pay you any price in reason that you like to ask me for it I understand that your father owns the river frontage for about a mile on this side of the water, which is practically from here to the swamps, and it is land that I should very much like to possess”
”But it is not mine to sell,” she said blankly, too much taken by surprise to knohether she felt pleased or offended by the suggestion
”I know it is not But your father cannot be approached on any question of buying or selling, so I had to come to you to see how you felt about it, and I want you to think thein the world cannot alter the position so far as I aesture of weariness ”Our father is apparently a hopeless invalid, afflicted more in mind than in body, yet no really qualified doctor has seen hi his own affairs We, his children, are all under age, except Nellie By the hy did you not go to her?-she is the eldest Though, even if you had, she could only have spoken as I have done”
”I ca on business in his name,” Mr Selincourt said quietly ”And if you felt that it would be for the good of yourself and the others to have some easier life than this, it would be veryyour wishes”
”But how?” asked Katherine, who failed to see how her father's property could be disposed of without consulting him, while he was in life, and they, his children, were all under age save one
Mr Selincourt sed when one wants them to be done If you and the others believed it would be for the good of the fa a doctor up here to certify to his unfitness for business Your sister would have to bewould be done”
Katherine shook her head in a dubious fashi+on, saying: ”I will talk to the others about it if you wish, but I do not think it will , and s as they are Of course I don't know much about business, except what I have picked up anyhow, for ; but we have done very well since the work has been dumped into our hands, and our profits this year are in excess of any preceding one's”
”That is very encouraging But then you would succeed in anything you undertook, because you put your whole heart into it, and that is the secret of success,” Mr Selincourt said warmly After a momentary hesitation he went on: ”Mind you, this is a business offer that I aive you double or treble what your land would fetch in the open et a fifty-per-cent return on h I suppose it is very unbusinesslike of me to tell you so”