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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Northern Diamonds, by Frank Lillie Pollock
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Northern Diamonds
+
+Author: Frank Lillie Pollock
+
+Release Date: October 8, 2010 [EBook #32323]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHERN DIAMONDS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: LOWERED THE CAN CAUTIOUSLY BY A STRING]
+
+
+
+
+
+NORTHERN DIAMONDS
+
+
+BY
+
+FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK
+
+
+
+_With Illustrations_
+
+
+
+
+BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+
+The Riverside Press Cambridge
+
+1917
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1914 AND 1915, BY PERRY MASON COMPANY
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK
+
+
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+_Published September 1917_
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+This book has appeared in the _Youth's Companion_ in the form of a
+serial and sequel, and my thanks are due to the proprietors of that
+periodical for permission to reprint.
+
+FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+LOWERED THE CAN CAUTIOUSLY BY A STRING . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+THE OTHER BOYS HAD BEEN BUSY
+
+"THAT IS OUR CABIN.  LET US COME IN, I SAY"
+
+DRAGGED HIM UP, PROTESTING, AND RUBBED SNOW ON HIS EARS
+
+FLUNG THE SACK INTO THE MAN'S LAP
+
+
+_From drawings by Harry C. Edwards_
+
+
+
+
+NORTHERN DIAMONDS
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock at night when some one knocked at the door
+of Fred Osborne's room.  He was not in the least expecting any caller
+at that hour, and had paid no attention when he had heard the doorbell
+of the boarding-house ring downstairs, and the sound of feet ascending
+the steps.  He hastened to open the door, however, and in the dim
+hallway he recognized the dark, handsome face of Maurice Stark, and
+behind it the tall, raw-boned form of Peter Macgregor.
+
+Both of them uttered an exclamation of satisfaction at seeing him.
+They were both in fur caps and overcoats, for it was a sharp Canadian
+December night, and at the first glance Fred observed that their faces
+wore an expression of excitement.
+
+"Come in, boys!" he said.  "I wasn't going to bed.  Here, take your
+coats off.  What's up?  You look as if something was the matter."
+
+"Is Horace in town?" demanded Peter.
+
+Fred shook his head.  Horace was his elder brother, a mining engineer
+mostly employed in the North Country.
+
+"He's still somewhere in the North Woods.  I haven't heard from him
+since October, but I'm expecting him to turn up almost any day now.
+Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"The matter?  Something pretty big," returned Maurice.
+
+Maurice Stark was Fred's most intimate friend in Toronto University,
+from which he had himself graduated the summer before.  He knew
+Macgregor less well, for the big Scotch-Canadian was in the medical
+school.  His home place was somewhere far up in the North Woods, but he
+had a great intercollegiate reputation as a long-distance runner.  It
+was, in fact, chiefly in a sporting way that Fred had come to know him,
+for Fred held an amateur skating championship, and was even then
+training for the ice tournament to be held in Toronto in a few weeks.
+
+"It's something big!" Maurice repeated.  "I wish Horace were here,
+but--could you get a holiday from your office for a week or ten days?"
+
+"I've got it already," said Fred.  "I reserved my holidays last summer,
+and things aren't busy in a real estate office at this time of year.  I
+guess I could get two weeks if I wanted it.  I'm spending most of my
+time now training for the five and ten miles."
+
+"Could you skate a hundred and fifty miles in two days?" demanded
+Macgregor.
+
+"I might if I had to--if it was a case of life and death."
+
+"That's just what it is--a case of life and death, and possibly a
+fortune into the bargain!" cried Maurice.  "You see--but Mac has the
+whole story."
+
+The Scottish medical student went to the window, raised the blind and
+peered out at the wintry sky.
+
+"No sign of snow yet," he said in a tone of satisfaction.
+
+"What's that got to do with it?" demanded Fred, who was burning with
+curiosity by this time.  "What's going on, anyway?  Hurry up."
+
+"Spoil the skating," said Macgregor briefly.  "Well," he went on after
+a moment, "this is how I had the story.
+
+"I live away up north of North Bay, you know, at a little place called
+Muirhead.  I went home for a little visit last week, and the second day
+I was there they brought in a sick Indian from Hickson, a little
+farther north--sick with smallpox.  The Hickson authorities wouldn't
+have him at any price, and they had just passed him on to us.  The
+people at Muirhead didn't want him either.  It wasn't such a very bad
+case of smallpox, but the poor wretch had suffered a good deal of
+exposure, and he was pretty shaky.  Everybody was in a panic about him;
+they wanted to ship him straight down to North Bay; but finally I got
+him fixed up in a sort of isolation camp and looked after him myself."
+
+"Good for you, Mac!" Fred ejaculated.
+
+"Oh, it was good hospital training, and I'd been recently vaccinated,
+so I didn't run any danger.  It paid me, though, for when I'd pulled
+him around a bit he told me the story, and a queer tale it was."
+
+Macgregor paused and went to look out of the window again with anxiety.
+Fred was listening breathlessly.
+
+"It seems that last September this Indian, along with a couple of
+half-breeds, went up into the woods for the winter trapping, and built
+a cabin on one of the branches of the Abitibi River, away up northeast
+of Lake Timagami.  I know about where it was.  I suppose you've never
+been up in that country, Osborne?"
+
+"Never quite as far as that.  Last summer I was nearly up to Timagami
+with Horace."
+
+Fred had made a good many canoeing trips into the Northern wilderness
+with his brother, and Horace himself, as mining engineer, surveyor, and
+free-lance prospector, had spent most of the last five years in that
+region.  At irregular and generally unexpected times he would turn up
+in Toronto with a bale of furs, a sack of mineralogical specimens, and
+a book of geological notes, which would presently appear in the
+"University Science Quarterly," or even in more important publications.
+He was an Associate of the Canadian Geographical Society, and always
+expected to hit on a vein of mineral that would make his whole family
+millionaires.
+
+"Well, I've been up and down the Abitibi in a canoe," Macgregor went
+on, "and I think I know almost the exact spot where they must have
+built the cabin.  Anyhow, I'm certain I could find it, for the Indian
+described it as accurately as he could.
+
+"It seems that the three men trapped there till the end of October, and
+then a white man came into their camp.  He was all alone, and
+complained of feeling sick.  They were kind enough to him; he stayed
+with them, but in a few days they found out what the matter was.  He
+had smallpox.
+
+"Now, you know how the Indians and half-breeds dread smallpox.  They
+fear it like death itself, but these fellows seem to have behaved
+pretty well at first.  They did what they could for the sick man, but
+pretty soon one of the trappers came down with the disease.  It took a
+violent form, and he was dead in a few days.
+
+"That was too much for the nerve of the Indian, and he slipped away and
+started for the settlements south.  But he had waited too long.  He had
+the germs in him.  He sickened in the woods, but had strength enough to
+keep going till he came to the first clearings.  Somebody rushed him in
+to Hickson, and so he was passed on to my hands."
+
+"And what became of the white man and the other trapper?" demanded Fred.
+
+"Ah, that's what nobody knows.  The Indian said that the remaining
+half-breed was falling sick when he left.  The white man may be dead by
+this time, or perhaps still living but deserted, or he may be well on
+the road to recovery.  But I left out the sensational feature of the
+whole thing.  My Indian said that the white man had a buckskin sack on
+him full of little stones that shone like fire.  He seemed to set great
+store by them, and threatened to blow the head off anybody who touched
+the bag."
+
+"Shining stones?  Perhaps they were diamonds!" ejaculated Fred.
+
+"It looks almost as if he might have found the diamond fields, for a
+fact," said Peter, with sparkling eyes.
+
+Canada was full of rumors of diamond discoveries just then.  Every
+Canadian must remember the intense excitement created by the report
+that diamonds had been found in the mining regions of northern Ontario.
+Several stones had actually been brought down to Toronto and Montreal,
+where tests showed them to be real diamonds, though they were mostly
+small, flawed, and valueless.  One, however, was said to have brought
+nine hundred dollars, and the news set many parties outfitting to
+prospect for the blue-clay beds.  But they met with no success.  In
+every case the stones had either been picked up in river drift or
+obtained from Indians who could give no definite account of where they
+had been found.
+
+Could it be that this strange white man had actually stumbled on the
+diamond fields--only to fall sick and perhaps to die with the secret of
+his discoveries untold?  Fred gazed from Peter to Maurice, almost
+speechless.
+
+"Naturally, my first idea was to get up a rescue party to bring out the
+sick prospector," Maurice went on.  "But the woods are in the worst
+kind of shape for traveling.  The streams are all frozen hard, but
+there has been remarkably little snow yet--not near enough for
+snowshoes or sledges.  It would be impossible to tramp that distance
+and pack the supplies.  Besides, when I came to think it over it struck
+me that the thing was too valuable to share with a lot of guides and
+backwoodsmen.  If we find that fellow alive, and he has really
+discovered anything, it would be strange if he wouldn't give us a
+chance to stake out a few claims that might be worth thousands--maybe
+millions.  And it struck me that there was a quicker way to get to him
+than by snowshoes or dogs.  The streams are frozen, the ice is clear,
+and the skating was fine at Muirhead."
+
+"An expedition on skates?" cried Fred.
+
+"Why not?  There's a clear canoe way, barring a few portages, and that
+means a clear ice road till it snows.  But it might do that at any
+moment."
+
+"A hundred and fifty miles in two days?" said Fred.  "Sure, we can do
+it.  I'll set the pace, if you fellows can keep up."
+
+"Anyhow, I came straight down to the city and saw Maurice about it.  He
+said you'd be the best third man we could get.  But I had hoped we
+could get Horace, so as to have his expert opinion on what that man may
+have found."
+
+"The last time I heard from Horace he was at Red Lake," said Fred, "but
+I wouldn't have any idea where to find him now.  He always comes back
+to Toronto for the winter, and he can't be much later than this."
+
+"Well, we can't wait for him," said Maurice regretfully.  "I'm sorry,
+but maybe next spring will do as well, when we go to prospect our
+diamond claims."
+
+"Yes, but we've got to get them first," said Peter, "and there's a
+man's life to be saved--and it might snow to-night and block the whole
+expedition."
+
+"Then we'd get dogs and snowshoes," Maurice remarked, "but it would be
+far slower traveling than on skates."
+
+"We must rush things.  Could we get away to-morrow?" Fred cried.
+
+"We must--by the evening train.  Maurice and I have been making out a
+list of the things we need to buy.  Have you a gun?  Well, we have two
+rifles anyway, and that'll be more than enough, for we want to go as
+light as possible.  You'll need a sleeping-bag, of course, and your
+roughest, warmest woolen clothes, and a couple of heavy sweaters.
+We'll carry snowshoes and moccasins with us, in case of a snowfall.
+I'll bring a medicine case and disinfectants."
+
+"Will we have to pack all that outfit on our shoulders?" Fred asked.
+
+"No, of course not.  I have a six-foot toboggan, which I'll have fitted
+with detachable steel runners to-morrow, good for either ice or snow.
+We'll haul it by a rope.  But here's the main thing--the grub list."
+
+Fred glanced over the scribbled rows of the carefully considered
+items,--bacon, condensed milk, powdered eggs, beans, dehydrated
+vegetables, meal, tea, bread,--and he was astonished.
+
+"Surely we won't need all this for a week or ten days?"
+
+"That's a man-killing country in the winter," responded the Scotchman
+grimly.  "I know it.  You have to go well prepared, and you never can
+depend on getting game after snow falls.  Besides, we'll have no time
+for hunting.  Yes, we'll need every ounce of that, and it'll all have
+to be bought to-morrow.  And now I suppose we'd better improve the last
+chance of sleeping in a bed that we'll have for some time."
+
+He went to the window and again observed the sky, which remained clear
+and starry, snapping with frost.
+
+"No sign of snow, certainly.  We can count on you, then, Osborne?  Of
+course it's understood that we share expenses equally--they won't be
+heavy--and share anything that we may get out of it."
+
+"Count on me?  I should rather think so!" cried Fred fervently.  "Why,
+I'd never have forgiven you if you hadn't let me in on this.  But we'll
+have to do a lot of quick shopping to-morrow, won't we?  Where do we
+meet?"
+
+"At my rooms, as soon after breakfast as possible," replied Mac.  "And
+breakfast early, and make all the preparations you can before that."
+
+At this they went away, leaving Fred alone, but far too full of
+excitement to sleep.  He sorted out his warmest clothing, carefully
+examined and oiled his hockey skates and boots, wrote a necessary
+letter or two, and did such other things as occurred to him.  It was
+long past one o'clock when he did go to bed, and even then he could not
+sleep.  His mind was full of the dangerous expedition that he had
+plunged into within the last hours.  His imagination saw vividly the
+picture of the long ice road through the wilderness, a hundred and
+fifty miles to the lonely trappers' shack, where a white man lay sick
+with a bag of diamonds on his breast--or perhaps by this time lay dead
+with the secret of immense riches lost with him.  And the ice road
+might close to-morrow.  Fred tossed and turned in bed, and more than
+once got up to look out the window for signs of a snowstorm.
+
+But he went to sleep at last, and slept soundly till awakened by the
+rattle of his alarm-clock, set for half-past six.  He had an early
+breakfast and packed his clothes.  At nine o'clock he telephoned the
+real estate office where he was employed, and had no difficulty in
+getting his holidays extended another week.  Business was dull just
+then.
+
+At half-past nine he met Maurice and Peter, who were waiting for him
+with impatience.  Macgregor had already left his toboggan at a
+sporting-goods store to be equipped with runners for use on ice.  But
+there remained an immense amount of shopping to do, and all the things
+had to be purchased at half a dozen different places.  Together they
+went the rounds of the shops with a list from which they checked off
+article after article,--ammunition, sleeping-bags, moccasins, food,
+camp outfit,--and they ordered them all sent to Macgregor's rooms by
+special delivery.
+
+At four o'clock in the afternoon the boys went back, and found the room
+littered with innumerable parcels of every shape and size.  Only the
+toboggan had not arrived, though it had been promised for the middle of
+the afternoon.
+
+"Gracious!  It looks like a lot!" exclaimed Maurice, gazing about at
+the packages.
+
+"It won't look like so much when they're stowed away," replied Peter.
+"Let's get them unwrapped, and, Fred, you'd better go down and hurry up
+that toboggan.  Stand over them till it's done, for we must have it
+before six o'clock."
+
+Fred hurried downtown again.  The toboggan was not finished, but the
+work was under way.  By dint of furious entreaties and representations
+of the emergency Fred induced them to hurry it up.  It was not a long
+job, and by a quarter after five Fred was back at Mac's room,
+accompanied by a messenger with the remodeled toboggan.
+
+The toboggan was of the usual pattern and shape, but the cushions had
+been removed, and a thirty-foot moose-hide thong attached for hauling.
+It was fitted with four short steel runners, only four inches high,
+which could be removed in a few minutes by unscrewing the nuts, so that
+it could be used as a sledge on ice or as a toboggan on deep snow.
+
+During Fred's absence the other boys had been busy.  All the kit was
+out of the wrappers, and the room was a wilderness of brown paper.
+Everything had been packed into four canvas dunnage sacks, and now
+these were firmly strapped on the toboggan.  The rifles and the
+snowshoes were similarly attached, so that the whole outfit was in one
+secure package.  They hauled this down to the railway station
+themselves to make sure that there would be no delay, and dispatched it
+by express to Waverley, where they intended to leave the train.  It was
+then a few minutes after six.
+
+[Illustration: THE OTHER BOYS HAD BEEN BUSY]
+
+"Well, we're as good as off now," remarked Maurice, with a long breath.
+"Our train goes at eight.  We've got two hours, and now I guess I'll go
+home and have supper with my folks and say good-bye.  We'll all meet at
+the depot."
+
+Neither Fred nor Macgregor had any relatives in the city and no
+necessary farewells to make.  They had supper together at a downtown
+restaurant, and afterwards met Maurice at the Union Depot, where they
+took the north-bound express.
+
+Next morning they awoke from uneasy slumbers to find the train rushing
+through a desolate landscape of snowy spruces.  Through the frosted
+double glass of the windows the morning looked clear and cold, but they
+were relieved to see that there was only a little snow on the ground,
+and glimpses of rivers and lakes showed clear, shining ice.  Evidently
+the road was still open.
+
+It was half-past ten that forenoon when they reached Waverley, and they
+found that it was indeed cold.  The thermometer stood at five above
+zero; the snow was dry as powder underfoot, and the little backwoods
+village looked frozen up.  But it was sunny, and the biting air was
+full of the freshness of the woods, and the spirits of all the boys
+rose jubilantly.
+
+The laden toboggan had come up on the same train with them, and they
+saw it taken out of the express car.  Leaving it at the station, they
+went to the village hotel, where they ate an early dinner, and changed
+from their civilized clothes to the caps, sweaters, and Hudson Bay
+"duffel" trousers that they had brought in their suit-cases.
+
+They had been the only passengers to leave the train, and their arrival
+produced quite a stir in Waverley.  It was not the season for camping
+parties, nor for hunting, and no one went into the woods for pleasure
+in the winter.  The toboggan with its steel runners drew a curious
+group at the station.
+
+"Goin' in after moose?" inquired an old woodsman while they were at
+dinner.
+
+"No," replied Peter.
+
+"Goin' up to the pulpwood camps, mebbe?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What might ye be goin' into the woods fer?" he persisted, after some
+moments.
+
+"We might be going in after gold," answered Maurice gravely.
+
+He did not mean it to be taken seriously, but he forgot that gold is
+mined in several parts of northern Ontario.  Before many hours the word
+spread that a big winter gold strike had been made up north, and a
+party from the city was already going to the spot, so that for several
+weeks the village was in a state of excitement.
+
+The boys suspected nothing of this, but the public curiosity began to
+be annoying.
+
+"Can't we start at once?" Fred suggested.
+
+"Yes; there's no use in stopping here another hour," Peter agreed.  "We
+ought to catch the fine weather while it lasts, and we can make a good
+many miles in the rest of this day."
+
+So they left their baggage at the hotel, with instructions to have it
+kept till their return, secured their toboggan at the depot, and went
+down to the river.  The stream was a belt of clear, bluish ice, free
+from snow except for a little drift here and there.
+
+Half a dozen curious idlers had followed them.  Paying no attention,
+the boys took off their moccasins and put on the hockey boots with
+skates attached.  They slid out upon the ice and dragged the toboggan
+after them.
+
+The spectators raised a cheer, which the three boys answered with a
+yell as they struck out.  The ice was good; the toboggan ran smoothly
+after them, so that they scarcely noticed its weight.  In a moment the
+snowy roofs of the little village had passed out of sight around a bend
+of the river, and black spruce and hemlock woods were on either side.
+The great adventure had begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"Don't force the pace at first, boys," Fred warned his companions.
+"Remember, we've a long way to go."
+
+As the expert skater, he had taken the leading end of the drag-rope.
+His advice was hard to follow.  The ice was in perfect condition; the
+toboggan ran almost without friction on its steel shoes, and in that
+sparkling air it seemed that it would be easy to skate a hundred miles
+without ever once resting.
+
+For a little way the river was bordered with stumpy clearings; then the
+dark hemlock and jack-pine woods closed down on the shores.  The
+skaters had reached the frontier; it might well be that there were not
+a dozen cultivated fields between them and the North Pole.
+
+Here the river was about a hundred feet wide, the long ice road that
+Fred had imagined.  Comparatively little snow had yet fallen, and that
+little seemed to have come with high winds, which had swept the ice
+clear.  More, however, might be looked for any day.
+
+But for that day they were safe.  They rushed ahead, forcing the pace a
+little, after all, in a swinging single file, with the toboggan gliding
+behind.  In great curves the river wound through the woods and frozen
+swamps, and only twice that day had they to go ashore to get round
+roaring, unfrozen rapids.  Each of those obstructions cost the boys
+half an hour of labor before they could get the toboggan through the
+dense underbrush that choked the portage.  But they had counted on such
+delays.
+
+Not a breath of wind stirred, and the forest was profoundly still.
+Full of wild life though it undoubtedly was, not a sign of it was
+visible, except now and then a chain of delicate tracks along the shore.
+
+Evening comes early in that latitude and season.  At sunset Macgregor
+estimated that they had covered thirty miles.
+
+"Time to camp, boys!" he shouted from the rear.  "Look out for a good
+place--shelter and lots of dry wood."
+
+Two or three miles farther on they found it--a spot where several large
+spruce trees had fallen together, and lay dry and dead near the shore.
+They drew up the toboggan and exchanged their skating-boots for
+moccasins.  Maurice began to cut up wood with a small axe; the others
+trampled down the snow in a circle.
+
+Dusk was already falling when the fire blazed up, making all at once a
+spot of almost home-like cheerfulness.  Fred chopped a hole in the ice
+in order to fill the kettle, and while it was boiling, they cut down a
+number of small saplings, and placed them in lean-to fashion against a
+ridgepole.  The balsam twigs that they trimmed off they threw inside,
+until the snow was covered with a great heap of fragrant boughs.  On it
+they spread the sleeping-bags to face the fire.
+
+They supped that night on fried bacon, dried eggs, oatmeal cakes, and
+tea--real _voyageur's_ tea, hot and strong, flavored with brown sugar
+and wood smoke, and drunk out of tin cups.
+
+Leaning back on the balsam couch, they made merry over their meal,
+while the stars came out white and clear over the dark woods.  There
+was every prospect now of their reaching the trappers' cabin in two
+days more, at most.  There were only the two serious dangers--a
+snowstorm might spoil the ice, and Macgregor might not be able to hit
+upon the right place.
+
+The boys were tired enough to be drowsy as soon as they had finished
+supper.  Little by little their conversation flagged; the chance of
+finding diamonds ceased to interest them, and presently they built up
+the fire and crawled into their sleeping-bags.  It was a cold night,
+and except for the occasional cry of a hunting owl or lynx, the
+wilderness was silent as death.
+
+The boys were up early the next morning; smoke was rising from their
+fire before the sun was well off the horizon.  The weather seemed
+slightly warmer, and a wind was rising from the west, but it was not
+strong enough to impede them.
+
+After breakfast, they repacked the kit on the toboggan.  The spot had
+been home for a night; now nothing was left except a pile of crushed
+twigs and a few black brands on the trampled snow.
+
+The travelers were fresh again; now they settled down to a long, steady
+stroke that carried them on rapidly.  Three times they had to land to
+pass round open rapids or dangerous ice, but about eleven o'clock
+Macgregor saw what he had been looking for.  It was a spot where
+several trees had been cut down on the shore.  A rather faint trail
+showed through the cedar thickets.  It was the beginning of the main
+portage that ran three miles northwest, straight across country to the
+Abitibi River.  They had been mortally afraid of overrunning the spot.
+
+They boiled the noon kettle of tea to fortify themselves for the long
+crossing.  Then they unshipped the runners from the toboggan, put on
+their moccasins and snowshoes, and started ashore across a range of
+low, densely wooded hills.
+
+The trail was blazed at long intervals, but not cleared, and it was
+hard, exasperating work to get the toboggan through the snowy tangle.
+After two hours they came out on the crest of a hill overlooking a
+great river that ran like a gleaming steel-blue ribbon far into the
+north.
+
+"The Abitibi!" cried Macgregor.
+
+They had come a good seventy miles from Waverley.  At that rate, they
+might expect to reach their destination the next day; and, greatly
+encouraged, they coasted on the toboggan down to the ice, and set out
+again on skates.
+
+During the tramp the sky had grown hazy, and the northwest wind was
+blowing stronger.  For some time it was not troublesome, for it came
+from the left, but it continued to freshen, and the clouds darkened
+ominously.
+
+Late in the afternoon the travelers came suddenly upon the second of
+the known landmarks.  From the west a smaller river, nameless, as far
+as they knew, poured past a bluff of black granite into the Abitibi,
+making a fifty-yard stretch of open water that tumbled and foamed with
+a hoarse uproar among ice-bound boulders.  Here they had to change
+their course, for according to Macgregor's calculation, it was about
+fifty miles up this river that the cabin stood.
+
+Again they went ashore, and after struggling through two hundred yards
+of dense thickets reached the little nameless river from the west.
+
+The change in their course brought them squarely into the eye of the
+wind, and they felt the difference instantly.  The breeze had risen to
+half a gale; the whole sky had clouded.  It was only an hour from
+sunset, but no one mentioned camping; they were resolved to go on while
+the light lasted.  And suddenly Fred, struggling on with bent head
+against the wind, saw that the front of his blue sweater was growing
+powdered with white grains.
+
+"We're caught, boys!" he exclaimed; and they stopped to look at the
+menacing sky.
+
+Snow was drifting down in fine powder, and glancing over the ice past
+their feet.  Straight down from the great Hudson Bay barrens the storm
+was coming, and the roar of the forest, now that they stopped to
+listen, was like that of the tempestuous sea.
+
+"'Snow meal, snow a great deal,'" Macgregor quoted, with forced
+cheerfulness.
+
+"Let's hope not!" exclaimed Maurice.
+
+And Fred added: "Anyhow, let's get on while we can."
+
+On they went, skating fast.  As yet the snow was no hindrance, for it
+spun off the smooth ice as fast as it fell.  It was the wind that
+troubled them, for it roared down the river channel with disheartening
+force.
+
+It was especially discouraging to be checked thus on the last lap, but
+none of them thought of giving up.  They settled doggedly to the task,
+although it took all their strength and wind to keep going.  But all
+three were in pretty good training, and they stuck to it for more than
+an hour.  The forest was growing dark, and the snow was coming faster.
+Then Maurice, rather dubiously, suggested a halt.
+
+"Nonsense!  We're good for another ten miles, at least!" cried Peter,
+who seemed tireless.
+
+They shot ahead again.  Evening settled early, with the snow falling
+thick.  The ice was white now; skates and toboggan left black streaks,
+immediately obliterated by fresh flakes.  Just before complete darkness
+fell, the boys made a short halt, built a fire, and boiled tea.  No
+more was said of camping.  They had tacitly resolved to struggle on as
+long as they could keep going, for they knew that they would have no
+chance to use their skates after that night.
+
+It grew dark, but never pitch dark, for the reflection from the snow
+gave light enough for them to see the road.  Even yet the snow lay so
+light that the blades cut it without an effort.
+
+The wind, however, was hard to fight against.  In spite of his amateur
+championship, Fred was the first to give out.  For some time he had
+felt himself flagging, dropping behind, and then recovering; but all at
+once his legs gave way, and he collapsed in a heap on the ice, half
+unconscious from fatigue.
+
+Macgregor and Stark bent over him.
+
+"Got to put him on the toboggan," declared the Scotchman.
+
+Maurice felt that it was madness for two of them to try to haul the
+greater load, but without protest he helped to roll the dazed youngster
+in the blankets, and to strap him on the sledge.  The next stage always
+seemed to him a sort of waking nightmare; he never quite knew how long
+it lasted.  The wind bore against him like a wall; the drag of the
+toboggan seemed intolerable.  Half dead with exhaustion and fatigue, he
+fixed his eyes on Macgregor's broad back, and went on with short,
+forced strokes, with the feeling that each marked the extreme limit of
+his strength.
+
+Suddenly his leader stopped.  A great black space seemed to have opened
+in the white road ahead.
+
+"Another portage!" Macgregor shouted in Maurice's ear.
+
+A long, unfrozen rapid was thundering in the gloom.  With maddening
+difficulty, Maurice and Macgregor hacked a road through willow thickets
+and got the toboggan past.
+
+Again they were on the ice, with the rapid behind them.  It seemed to
+Maurice that the horror of that exertion would never end; then suddenly
+the night seemed to turn pitch black, and he felt himself shaken by the
+shoulder.
+
+"Get on the toboggan, Maurice!  Come, wake up!" Macgregor was saying.
+"Wake up!"
+
+Dimly he realized that he was sitting on the ice--that they had
+stopped--that Fred was up again.  Too stupefied to question anything,
+he rolled into the blanket out of which Fred had crawled, and instantly
+went sound asleep.
+
+It seemed only a moment until he was roused again.  Drunk with sleep,
+he clutched the towrope blindly, while Fred, who was completely done
+this time, again took his place on the sledge.  Only Macgregor seemed
+proof against fatigue.  Bent against the gale, he skated vigorously at
+the forward end of the line, and his strong voice shouted back
+encouragements that Maurice hardly heard.
+
+The snow was now growing so deep on the ice that the skates ploughed
+through it with difficulty.  Still the boys labored on, minute after
+minute, mile after mile.  Maurice felt numb with fatigue and half
+asleep as he skated blindly, and suddenly he ran sharply into
+Macgregor, who had stopped short.  There was another break just
+ahead--a long cascade this time, where snowy pocks showed like white
+blurs on the black water.
+
+"Going to portage?" mumbled Maurice.
+
+"No use trying to go any farther," replied the medical student, and his
+voice was hoarse.  "Fred's played out.  Snow's getting too deep,
+anyway.  Better camp here."
+
+Maurice would have been glad to drop where he stood.  But they dragged
+the toboggan ashore somehow, caring little where they landed it.  Peter
+rolled Fred off into the snow.  The boy groaned, but did not waken, and
+they began to unpack the supplies with stiffened hands.
+
+"Got to get something hot into us quick," said Peter thickly.  "Help me
+make a fire."
+
+Probably they were all nearer death than they realized.  Maurice wanted
+only to sleep.  However, in a sort of daze, he broke off branches,
+peeled bark, and they had a fire blazing up in the falling snowflakes.
+The wind whirled and scattered it, but they piled on larger sticks, and
+Macgregor filled the kettle from the river.  When the water was hot he
+poured in a whole tin of condensed milk, added a cake of chocolate, a
+handful of sugar and another of oatmeal, too stiffened to measure out
+anything.
+
+Maurice had collapsed into a dead sleep in the snow.  Peter shook him
+awake, and between them they managed to arouse Fred with great
+difficulty.  Still half asleep they swallowed the rich, steaming mess
+from the kettle.  It set their blood moving again, but they were too
+thoroughly worn out to think of building a camp.  They crept into their
+sleeping-bags, buttoned the naps down over their heads and went to
+sleep regardless of consequences.
+
+Fred awoke to find himself almost steaming hot, and in utter darkness
+and silence.  All his muscles ached, and he could not imagine where he
+was.  A weight held him down when he tried to move, but he turned over
+at last and sat up with an effort.  A glare of white light made him
+blink.  He had been buried under more than two feet of snow.
+
+It was broad daylight.  All the world was white, and a raging snowstorm
+was driving through the forest.  The tree-tops creaked and roared, and
+the powdery snow whirled like smoke.  Fred felt utterly bewildered.
+There was no sign of the camp-fire, nor of the toboggan, nor of any of
+his companions, nothing but a few mounds on the drifted white surface.
+
+Finally he crawled out of his sleeping-outfit and dug into one of these
+mounds.  Two feet down he came upon the surface of a sleeping-bag, and
+punched it vigorously.  It stirred; the flap opened, and Macgregor
+thrust his face out, blinking, red and dazed.
+
+"Time to get up!" Fred shouted.
+
+Mac crawled out and shook off the snow, looking disconcerted.
+
+"Snowed in, with a vengeance!" he remarked.  "Where's the camp--and
+where's Maurice?"
+
+After prodding about they located the third member of their party at
+last, and dug him out.  As for the camp, there was none, and they could
+only guess at where the toboggan with their stores might be buried.
+
+"This ends our skating," said Maurice.  "It'll have to be snowshoes
+after this.  Good thing we got so far last night."
+
+"No thanks to me!" Fred remarked.  "I was the expert skater; I believe
+I said I'd set the pace, and I was the first to cave in.  I hope I do
+better with the snowshoes."
+
+"Neither snowshoes nor skates to-day," said Peter.  "We can't travel
+till this storm blows over.  Nothing for it but to build a camp and sit
+tight."
+
+After groping about for some time they found the toboggan, unstrapped
+the snowshoes, and used them as shovels to clear away a circular place.
+In doing so they came upon the black brands of last night's fire, with
+the camp kettle upon them where they had left it.  Fred ploughed
+through the snow and collected wood for a fresh fire, while Peter and
+Maurice set up stakes and poles and built a roof of hemlock branches to
+afford shelter from the storm.  It was only a rude shed with one side
+open to face the fire, but it kept off the snow and wind and proved
+fairly comfortable.  Fred had coffee made by this time, and it did not
+take long to fry a pan of bacon.  They seated themselves on a heap of
+boughs at the edge of the shelter and ate and drank.  They all were
+stiff and sore, but the hot food and coffee made a decided improvement.
+
+"What surprises me," remarked Maurice, "is that we didn't freeze last
+night, sleeping under the snow.  But I never felt warmer in bed."
+
+"It was the snow that did it.  Snow makes a splendid nonconductor of
+heat," replied Macgregor.  "Better than blankets.  I remember hearing
+of a man who was caught by a blizzard crossing a big barren up north
+with a train of dogs.  The dogs wouldn't face the storm; he lost his
+directions; and finally he turned the sledge over and got under it with
+the dogs around him, and let it snow.  He stayed there a day and a
+half, asleep most of the time, and wouldn't have known when the storm
+was over, only that a pack of timber wolves smelt him and tried to dig
+him out.  They ran when they found out what was there, but he bagged
+two of them with his rifle."
+
+"I don't believe even timber wolves would have wakened me this morning.
+I never was so stiff and used up in my life," Maurice commented on this
+tale of adventure.
+
+"Yes, we need the rest," said Mac.  "We overdid it yesterday, and we
+couldn't have gone far to-day in any case."
+
+"But meanwhile that man at the cabin may be dying," exclaimed Fred.
+
+"If he's dead it can't be helped," responded the Scotchman.  "We're
+doing all that's humanly possible.  But if he's alive, don't forget
+that he can't get away while this storm lasts, any more than we can."
+
+"Well, it looks as if the storm would last all day," said Fred, gazing
+upwards.
+
+The blizzard did last all that day, reaching its height toward the
+middle of the afternoon, but it was not extremely cold, and the boys
+were fairly comfortable.  They lounged on the blankets in the shelter
+of the camp, and recuperated from their fatigue, discussing their
+chances of still reaching the cabin in time to do any good.  None of
+them could guess accurately how far they had come in that terrible
+night, but at the worst they could not think the cabin more than forty
+miles farther.  This distance would have to be traveled on snowshoes,
+however, not skates, and none of the boys were very expert snowshoers.
+It would be certainly more than one day's tramp.
+
+Toward night the wind lessened, though it was still snowing fast.  The
+boys piled on logs enough to keep the fire smouldering all night in
+spite of the snowflakes, and went to sleep under cover of the hemlock
+roof.  Maurice awoke toward the middle of the night, and noticed
+drowsily that it had stopped snowing, and that a star or two was
+visible overhead.
+
+Next morning dawned sparkling clear and very cold, with not a breath of
+wind.  Everything was deep and fluffy with the fresh snow, and when the
+sun came up the glare was almost blinding.  It would be good weather
+for snowshoe travel, and the boys all felt fit again for another hard
+day.
+
+After breakfast, therefore, they packed the supplies upon the toboggan,
+unscrewed the steel runners, and put on the new snowshoes.
+
+"We'd better stick to the river," Peter remarked.  "It may make it a
+little farther, but it gives us a clear road, and if we follow the
+river we can't miss the cabin."
+
+"No danger of going through air-holes in the ice?" queried Fred.
+
+"Not much.  An air-hole isn't generally big enough to let a snowshoe go
+through.  We'll pull you out if you do.  Come along."
+
+Off they went again.  But they had not gone far before discovering that
+travel was going to be less easy than they had thought.  The snow was
+light and the snowshoes sank deep.  They moved in a cloud of puffing
+white powder, and the heavy toboggan went down so that it was difficult
+to draw it.  Without the smooth, level road of the river they could
+hardly have progressed at all.
+
+They braced themselves to the work and plodded on, taking turns at
+going first to break the road.  The sun shone down in a white dazzle.
+There was no heat in it, but the glare was so strong that they had to
+pull their caps low over their eyes for fear of snow-blindness--the
+most deadly enemy of the winter traveler in the North.  During the
+forenoon they thought they made hardly more than ten miles, and at noon
+they halted, made a fire and boiled tea.
+
+The hot drink and an hour's rest made them ready for the road again.
+Twice that afternoon they had to make a long détour through the woods
+to avoid unfrozen rapids, and once the brush was so dense that they had
+to cut a way for the toboggan with the axe.  Once, too, the ice
+suddenly cracked under Fred's foot, and he flung himself forward just
+in time to avoid the black water gushing up through the snowed-over
+air-hole.
+
+The life of the wilderness was beginning to emerge after the storm.
+Along the shores they saw the tracks of mink.  Once they encountered a
+plunging trail across the river where several timber wolves must have
+crossed the night before, and late in the afternoon Maurice shot a
+couple of spruce grouse in a thicket.  He flung them on the toboggan,
+and they arrived at camp that night frozen into solid lumps.
+
+It was plainly impossible to reach the cabin that day.  Peter, who was
+keenly on the lookout, failed to recognize any of the landmarks.
+
+"We'd better camp early, boys," he said.  "We can't make it to-day, and
+there's no use in getting snowshoe cramp and being tied up for a week."
+
+They kept on, however, till the sun was almost down.  A faint but
+piercing northwest breeze had arisen, and they halted in the lee of a
+dense cedar thicket close to the river.  A huge log had fallen down the
+shore, and this would make an excellent backing for the fire during the
+night.
+
+Drawing up the toboggan, the boys took off their snowshoes and began to
+shovel out a circular pit for the camp.  The snow had drifted deep in
+that spot.  Before they came to the bottom the snow was heaped so high
+that the pit was shoulder-deep.  It was all the better for shelter, and
+they cut cedar poles and roofed one side of it, producing a most cozy
+and sheltered nook.
+
+Fred continued to pull cedar twigs for bedding, while Peter and Maurice
+unpacked the toboggan and lighted the fire against the big log.  Now
+that it was laid bare this log proved to be indeed a monster.  It must
+have been nearly three feet in diameter, and was probably hollow, but
+would keep the fire smouldering indefinitely.  Fred plucked the frozen
+grouse with some difficulty, cut them up and put them into the kettle
+to thaw out and stew.
+
+This consumed some time, and it was rather late when supper was ready.
+A bitterly cold night was setting in.  The icy breeze whined through
+the trees, but the sheltered pit of the camp was a warm and cozy place,
+casting its firelight high into the branches overhead.
+
+Snowshoe cramp had attacked none of the boys, but the unaccustomed
+muscles were growing stiff and sore.  By Macgregor's advice they all
+took off moccasins and stockings and massaged their calves and ankles
+thoroughly, afterwards roasting them well before the fire.  One side of
+the big log was a glowing red ember now, and they piled fresh wood
+beside it, laid the rifles ready, and crept into their sleeping-bags
+under the shelter.
+
+Fred did not know how long he had slept when he was awakened by a sort
+of nervous shock.  He raised his head and glanced about.  All was still
+in the camp.  His companions lay motionless in their bags.  The fire
+had burned low, and the air of the zero night cut his face like a
+knife.  He could not imagine what had awakened him, but he felt that he
+ought to get up and replenish the fire and he was trying to make up his
+mind to crawl out of his warm nest when he was startled by a sort of
+dull, jarring rumble.
+
+It seemed to come from the fire itself.  Fred uttered a scared cry that
+woke both the other boys instantly.
+
+"What's the matter?  What is it?" they both exclaimed.
+
+Before Fred could answer, there was a sort of upheaval.  The fire was
+dashed aside.  Smoke and ashes flew in every direction, and they had a
+cloudy glimpse of something charging out through the smoke--something
+huge and black and lightning quick.
+
+"Jump!  Run!" yelled Peter, scrambling to get out of his sleeping-bag.
+
+At the shout and scramble the animal wheeled like a flash and plunged
+at the side of the pit, trying to reach the top with a single leap.  It
+fell short, and came down in a cloud of snow.
+
+Fred had got clear from the encumbering bag by this time, and
+floundered out of the pit without knowing exactly how he did it.  He
+found Maurice close behind him.  Peter missed his footing and tumbled
+back with a horrified yell, and Maurice seized him by the leg as he
+went down and dragged him back bodily.
+
+Before they recovered from their panic they bolted several yards away,
+plunging knee-deep in the drifts, and then Peter stopped.
+
+"Hold on!" he exclaimed.  "It isn't after us!"
+
+"But what was it?" stammered Maurice, out of breath.
+
+Looking back, they could see nothing but the faint glow from the
+scattered brands.  But they could not overlook the whole interior of
+the camp, where the intruder must be now lying quiet.
+
+Trying to collect himself, Fred told how he had been awakened.
+
+"It came straight out of the fire!" he declared.
+
+"Out of the log, I guess," said Peter.  "Here, I know what it must be.
+It's simply a bear!"
+
+"A bear!" ejaculated Fred.
+
+"Yes, a bear, that must have had his winter den in that big log.  He
+was hibernating there, and our fire burned into his den and roused him
+out.  That's all."
+
+"Quite enough, I should think," said Maurice.  "Bears are ugly-tempered
+when they're disturbed from their winter dens, I've heard.  He's got
+possession of our camp, now.  What'll we do?"
+
+"We'll freeze if we don't do something pretty quick," Fred added.
+
+In fact the boys were standing in stockinged feet in the snow, and the
+night was bitterly cold.  All looked quiet in what they could see of
+the camp.
+
+"I don't see why one of us hadn't the wit to grab a gun!" said Peter
+bitterly.
+
+He turned and began to wade back cautiously toward the camp.  The other
+boys followed him, till they were close enough to look into the pit.
+No animal was in sight.
+
+"Perhaps he's bolted out the other side," muttered Peter.  "Who's going
+to go down there and find out?"
+
+Nobody volunteered.  If the bear was still in the camp he must be under
+the roofed-over shelter, and, in fact, as they stood shivering and
+listening they heard a sound of stirring about under the cedar poles of
+the roof.
+
+"He's there!" exclaimed Fred.
+
+"And eating up our stores, as like as not!" cried Maurice.
+
+This made the case considerably more serious.
+
+"We must get him out of that!" Macgregor exclaimed.
+
+How to do it was the difficulty, and, still more, how to do it with
+safety.  Both the rifles were still lying loaded under the shelter,
+probably under the very feet of the bear.
+
+"Well, we've got to take a chance!" declared Macgregor at last.  "Talk
+about cold feet!  We'll certainly have them frozen if we stand here
+much longer.  Scatter out, boys, all around the camp.  Then we'll
+snowball the brute out.  Likely he's too scared to want to fight.
+Anyhow, if he jumps out on one side, the man on the opposite side must
+jump into the camp and grab a rifle."
+
+It looked risky, to provoke a charge from the animal in that deep snow,
+where they could hardly move, but they waded around the camp till they
+stood at equal distances apart, surrounding the hollowed space.
+
+"Now let him have it!" cried Peter.
+
+Immediately they began to throw snowballs into the camp, aiming at that
+dark hole under the cedar roof where the animal was hidden.  But the
+snow was too dry to pack into lumps, and the light masses they flung
+produced no effect.  Peter broke off branches from a dead tree and
+threw them into the shelter, without causing the bear to come out.
+Finally Fred, who happened to be standing beside a birch tree, peeled
+off a great strip of bark and lighted it with a match.
+
+"Hold on!  Don't throw that!" yelled Peter.
+
+He was too late.  Fred had already cast the flaming mass into the camp,
+too close to the piles of cedar twigs.  The resinous leaves caught and
+flashed up.  There was a glare of smoky flame--a wild scramble and
+scurry under the shelter, and the bear burst out, and plunged at the
+snowy sides of the pit on the side opposite Fred's position.
+
+He fell back as he had done before, but floundered up with a second
+leap.  Maurice, who was nearest, gave a shrill yell and tried to dash
+aside, but he stumbled and went head-long in the deep snow.
+
+Fred instantly leaped into the camp.  The shelter was full of smoke and
+light flame, but he knew where the rifles lay, and snatched one.
+Straightening up, he was just in time to see the bear vanishing with
+long leaps into the darkness, ploughing up clouds of snow.
+
+He fired one shot wildly, then another, but there was no sign of the
+animal's being stopped, and the next instant it was out of sight.
+
+"Quick!  Stamp out this fire!" exclaimed Peter at his shoulder.
+
+They tore down the flaming branches and beat them out in the snow.  The
+light flame was easily put out, but it left the camp a chaos of
+blackened twigs and ashes.
+
+"Well, we turned him out," said Maurice, who had hastened in to help.
+"Did you hit him, do you think?"
+
+"I wish I'd killed him!" said Fred.  "He's ruined our camp.  But I
+don't believe I touched him.  He was going too fast."
+
+Peter had raked the camp-fire together and thrown on fresh wood.  A
+bright blaze sprang up, and by its light they took off their stockings
+and looked for the dead white of frozen toes.  But it was only Maurice
+who had suffered the least frost-bite, and this yielded to a little
+snow-rubbing.  The heavy woolen stockings, and perhaps the depth of the
+snow itself had protected the rest of them.
+
+Putting on his moccasins Fred then went to look for results from his
+shots, but came back reporting not a drop of blood on the snow.  The
+bullets had missed cleanly, and the animal was probably miles away by
+that time.
+
+"What do you suppose he'll do for the rest of the winter?" Maurice
+asked.
+
+"Oh, he'll find some hole to crawl into, or perhaps he'll just creep
+under a log and let the snow bury him," said Peter.  "He'll have to
+look a long time to find another snug nest like this one, though."
+
+The big log was hollow, as they had thought, and the fire had burned
+well into the cavity.  They could see the nest where the bear had lain,
+soft with rotted wood and strewn with black hairs.  It seemed a pity to
+have turned him out of so cozy a sleeping-place.
+
+The boys' own sleeping-place was in a complete state of wreck.  The
+cedar roofing had fallen in, and everything was littered with snow and
+burned brush.  The fire had been too light and too quickly extinguished
+to do any damage to the stores, however, and they were relieved to find
+that the bear had eaten none of the bacon or bread.  Probably the
+animal had been merely cowering there for shelter, afraid to come out.
+
+They did not attempt to rebuild the shelter roof, but cleared away the
+snow and ashes, and sat in their sleeping-bags by the fire.  After all
+the excitement none of them felt like sleeping.  They were hungry,
+though, and finally they boiled tea and cooked a pan of bacon and dried
+eggs.  Even after this they lay talking for a long time, and it was
+between midnight and dawn when they finally fell asleep.
+
+This was the reason why it was long after sunrise when they awoke,
+feeling rather as if they had had a bad night.  It was another clear,
+bright day, though still very cold, and they felt it imperative that
+they should reach the cabin before nightfall.
+
+That forenoon they made all the speed they could, halted for only a
+brief rest at noon, and pushed on energetically through the afternoon.
+The cabin could not be far, unless Macgregor had mistaken the way.
+Look as he would, he could not make out any landmarks that he could
+remember; but he had been through only by canoe in the summer, and the
+woods have a very different appearance in the winter.
+
+As the afternoon wore on they began to grow anxious.  At every turning
+they looked eagerly ahead, but they saw nothing except the unbroken
+forest.  It was nearly sunset when Maurice suddenly pointed forward
+with a shout of excitement.
+
+They had just rounded a bend of the river.  A hundred yards away,
+nestling in a hemlock thicket, stood a squat log hut.  But no trail led
+to its door, no smoke rose from its chimney, the snow had drifted
+almost to its eaves, and it looked gloomy and desolate as the darkening
+wilderness itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+There was so grim an air of desolation about the hut that the boys
+stopped short with a sense of dread.
+
+"Can this really be it?" Maurice muttered.
+
+The hut and its surroundings were exactly as the Indian had described
+them.  They ventured forward hesitatingly, reconnoitered, and
+approached the door.  It stood ajar two or three inches; a heavy drift
+of snow lay against it.  Clearly no living man was in the cabin.
+
+"We've come too late, boys," said Macgregor.  "However, let's have a
+look."
+
+Using one of his snowshoes as a shovel, he began to clear the doorway.
+Fred helped him.  They scraped away the snow, and forced the door open.
+
+For fear of infection, they contented themselves with peeping in from
+the entrance; a glance showed them that no man was in that dim
+interior, dead or alive.
+
+The cabin was a mere hut, built of small logs, chinked with moss and
+mud, and was less than five feet high at the eaves.  The floor was of
+clay; the roof appeared to be of bark and moss thatch, supported on
+poles.  A small window of some skin or membrane let in a faint light,
+and the rough fireplace was full of snow that had blown down the
+chimney.
+
+No one was there, but some one had left in haste.  The whole interior
+was in the wildest confusion, littered with all sorts of articles of
+forest housekeeping flung about pell-mell--cooking-utensils, scraps of
+clothing, blankets, furs, traps; they could not make out all the
+articles that encumbered the floor.
+
+"The fellow must have simply got well and gone away with the other
+half-breed," said Macgregor, after they had surveyed the place in
+silence.  "Well, that ends our hope of being millionaires next year.
+We've come on a fool's errand."
+
+"Nothing for it now but to go home again, is there?" said Fred, in
+disgust.
+
+"We've come one hundred and fifty miles to see this camp, and we ought
+to look through it," said Maurice.
+
+"We must disinfect the place before we can go in.  And there's no
+chance of our finding any diamonds here," Fred remarked.
+
+"I want to have a look through, anyway.  Let's get out the fumigating
+machine."
+
+It was a formaldehyde outfit, consisting simply of a can of the
+disinfectant with a bracket attached underneath to hold a small spirit
+lamp.  By the heat of the flame, formalin gas, one of the deadliest
+germ-killers known, was given off.
+
+Macgregor opened the can, lighted the pale spirit flame, and set the
+apparatus on a rude shelf that happened to be just inside the hut.
+They forced the door shut again, and sealed it by throwing water
+against it, for the water promptly froze.  It was not necessary to
+close the chimney, for the germicidal gas is heavier than air, and
+fills a room exactly as water fills a tank.
+
+As it would take the disinfectant ten or twelve hours to do its work,
+they hastened to construct a camp, for it was growing dark.  It was a
+rather melancholy evening.  The nearness of the cabin, with its
+sinister associations, affected them disagreeably; and, moreover, they
+were all tired with the day's tramp, and chagrined and mortified at
+having come, as Peter said, "on a fool's errand."  After all their
+glittering hopes, there was nothing now for them except a week's
+snowshoe tramp back to Waverley, with barely enough provisions to see
+them through.
+
+Still they were curious about the cabin, and before breakfast the next
+morning they burst open the ice-sealed door.  A suffocating odor issued
+forth, so powerful that they staggered back.
+
+"Good gracious!" gasped Fred, after a spasm of coughing.  "It must
+certainly be safe after that!"
+
+They found it impossible to go in until the gas had cleared away, and
+so, leaving the door wide open, they returned to breakfast.  Afterward
+they idled about, trying to kill time; it was afternoon before they
+could venture inside the cabin for more than a moment.
+
+It was disagreeable even then, for the whole interior was filled with
+the heavy, suffocating odor.  They coughed, and their eyes watered, but
+they managed to endure it.
+
+As they had seen, the contents of the place were all topsy-turvy.  The
+furniture consisted solely of a rough table of split planks, and a
+couple of rough seats.  A heap of rusty, brown _sapin_ in a corner,
+covered with a torn blanket, represented a bed--possibly the one in
+which the trapper had died.
+
+In one corner stood a double-barreled shotgun, still loaded.  Three
+pairs of snowshoes were thrust under the rafters; several worn
+moccasins lay on the floor, along with nearly a dozen steel traps, a
+bundle of furs, some of which were valuable, a camp kettle, an axe,
+strips of hide, dry bones, a blanket, fishing-tackle--an unspeakable
+litter of things, some worthless, some to men in a wilderness precious
+as gold.
+
+The last occupants had plainly left in such a desperate hurry that they
+had abandoned most of their possessions.  Why had they done it?  The
+boys could not guess.
+
+The heavy formalin fumes rose and choked them as they poked over the
+rubbish.  But they found nothing to show the fate of the prospector and
+the surviving half-breed, or even to tell them whether this was really
+the cabin they were seeking.
+
+"Throw this rubbish into the fireplace," said Macgregor.  "Burning is
+the best thing for it, and the fire will ventilate the place.  There's
+no danger of germs on the metal things."
+
+"These furs are worth something," said Fred, who had been looking them
+over.  "There are a dozen or so of mink and marten--enough to pay the
+expenses of the trip."
+
+They laid the furs aside, and cramming the rest of the litter into the
+snowy fireplace, with the dead balsam boughs, set it afire.  In the red
+blaze the hut assumed an unexpectedly homelike aspect.
+
+"Not such a bad place for the winter, after all," Maurice remarked,
+casting his eye about.  "I shouldn't mind spending a month trapping
+here myself.  What if we did, fellows, eh?  Here are plenty of traps,
+and we might clear three or four hundred dollars, with a little luck."
+
+"Here's something new," interrupted Peter, who had been grubbing about
+in a corner.
+
+He came forward with a woodsman's "turkey" in his hands--a heavy canvas
+knapsack, much stained and battered, and rather heavy.
+
+"Something in this," he continued, trying the rusty buckles.  "Why,
+what's the matter, Fred?"
+
+For Fred had uttered a sudden cry, and they saw his face turn deathly
+white.  He snatched the sack, tore it open, and shook it out.
+
+A number of pieces of rock fell to the floor, a couple of geologist's
+hammers, a pair of socks, and a couple of small, oilcloth-covered
+notebooks.
+
+On these Fred pounced, and opened them.  They were full of penciled
+notes.
+
+"They're his!" the boy exclaimed wildly.  "They're Horace's notebooks!
+I knew his turkey.  Horace was here.  Don't you see?  _He_ was the sick
+man!"
+
+For a minute his companions, hardly comprehending, looked on in
+amazement.  Then Macgregor took one of the books from his hand.  On the
+inside of the cover was plainly written, "Horace Osborne, Toronto."
+
+"It's true!" he muttered.  "It must really have been Horace."  Then,
+collecting his wits, he added, "But he must be all right, since he's
+gone away."
+
+"No!" Fred cried.  "He'd never have gone away leaving his notes and
+specimens.  It was his whole summer's work.  He'd have thrown away
+anything else.  He must be dead."
+
+"He was vaccinated.  He's sure not to have died of smallpox," Peter
+urged.
+
+Fred had collapsed on the mud floor, holding the "turkey," and fairly
+crying.
+
+"He had the diamonds on him.  That half-breed may have murdered him,
+and then fled in a hurry.  Things look like it," said Maurice aside to
+Peter.
+
+"Yes, but then Horace's body would be here," the Scotchman returned.
+"I don't understand it."
+
+"They can't have both died, either, or they'd both be here.  So they
+must both have gone.  But no trapper would have left these valuable
+pelts, any more than Horace would have left his notes."
+
+"There's something mysterious here," said Fred, getting up resolutely,
+and wiping the tears from his eyes.  "Horace has been here.
+Something's happened to him, and we've got to find out what it is."
+
+"And we'll find out--if it takes all winter!" Macgregor assured him.
+
+They searched the hut afresh, but found no clues.  They now regretted
+having burned the heap of rubbish, which perhaps had contained
+something to throw light on the problem.
+
+During the rest of that afternoon they searched and searched again
+throughout the cabin, and prowled about its neighborhood.  They dug
+into the snowdrifts, poked into the brushwood, scouted into the forest
+in the faint hope of finding something that would cast light on
+Horace's fate.  All they found was the trapper's birch canoe, laid up
+ashore, and buried in snow.
+
+At dusk they got supper, and ate it in a rather gloomy silence.
+
+"We've nothing to go on," said Macgregor.  "I can't believe that Horace
+is dead, though, and we must stay on the spot till we know something
+more definite."
+
+"Of course we must," Maurice agreed.
+
+"I shouldn't have asked it of you, boys," said Fred.  "I'd made up my
+mind to stay, though, till I found out something certain--and it would
+have been mighty lonely."
+
+"Nonsense!  Do you think we'd have left you?" Maurice exclaimed.
+"Aren't we all Horace's friends?  The only thing I'm thinking of is the
+grub.  We have barely enough for a week more."
+
+"What of that?" said Peter.  "We have rifles, haven't we?  The woods
+ought to be full of deer--plenty of partridges and small game, anyway.
+We must make a regular business of hunting till we get enough meat for
+a week, and we must economize, of course, on our bread and canned
+stuff.  Then there are sure to be whitefish or trout in the nearest
+lake, and we can fish through the ice.  Lucky the Indians left their
+hooks and lines.  And we can trap, too."
+
+"Boys," cried Fred, "you're both bricks.  You're solid gold--"  A choke
+in his voice stopped him.
+
+"A pair of gold bricks!" laughed Maurice, with a suspicious huskiness
+in his own tones.
+
+But the thing was settled.
+
+It turned colder that night, and the next day dawned with blustering
+snow flurries.  Their open camp was far from comfortable, and with some
+reluctance they moved into the cabin.
+
+A good deal of fresh snow had drifted in, but they swept it out,
+brought in fresh balsam twigs for couches, and lighted a roaring fire.
+
+The hut was decidedly homelike and cozy, and a vast improvement on the
+open camp.  The smell of formaldehyde had gone entirely.  The light
+from the skin-covered window was poor, but that seemed to be the only
+drawback, until, as the temperature rose, the roof showed a leak near
+the door.  Snow water dripped in freely, in spite of their efforts to
+stop it, until Maurice finally clambered to the roof, cleared away the
+snow, tore up the thatch, and covered the defective spot with a large
+piece of old deer-hide.
+
+In the afternoon it stopped snowing; Macgregor and Fred, with the two
+rifles, made a wide circuit round the cabin, but killed no game except
+half a dozen spruce grouse.  Not a deer trail did they see; probably
+the animals were yarded for the winter.
+
+Without being discouraged, however, Peter set out again the next
+morning, this time with Maurice.  Fred, left alone, spent most of the
+day in cutting wood and storing it by the cabin door, and the hunters
+did not return until just after sunset.  They were empty-handed, but in
+high spirits, and had a great tale to tell.
+
+Five miles from camp, Maurice and Peter had come upon the fresh trail
+of a moose, and had followed it nearly all day.  Toward the middle of
+the afternoon, however, they were obliged to give up the chase and turn
+back, for they were fully fifteen miles from home.
+
+On the way to the cabin they chanced upon a well-beaten deer trail that
+they felt certain must lead to a "yard."  It was too late to follow it
+that day, but they determined to have a great hunt on the morrow.
+
+Killing yarded deer is not exactly sportsmanlike, and is unlawful
+besides; but law is understood to yield to the necessities of the
+frontier, and the boys needed the meat badly.
+
+The next morning they were off early.  It was clear and cold.  A little
+wind blew the powdery snow like puffs of smoke from the trees, and the
+biting air was full of life.  It was impossible to be anything but gay
+in that atmosphere; even Fred, oppressed with anxiety as he was, felt
+its effect.
+
+The fresh snow was criss-crossed here and there with the tracks of
+small animals,--rabbits, foxes, and squirrels,--and now and again a
+spruce partridge rose with a roar.  These birds were plentiful, and the
+boys might have made a full bag if they had ventured to shoot.
+
+It was nearly noon before they reached the deer trail.  They followed
+it back for some twenty minutes, and came down into a low bottom, grown
+up with small birch and poplar.  Fred had only the vaguest idea what a
+deer yard was like; he half expected a dense huddle of deer in a small,
+beaten space, and he was consequently much startled when he suddenly
+heard a sound of crashing and running in the thickets.
+
+Macgregor's rifle banged almost in his ear.  Maurice fired at the same
+instant.  Something large and grayish had shot up into view behind a
+thicket, and had departed with the speed of an arrow.  Peter fired
+again at the flying target, and Fred caught a single glimpse of a buck,
+with antlered head carried high, vanishing through a screen of birches.
+
+"Hit!" shouted Macgregor, and he ran forward, clicking another
+cartridge into his rifle.
+
+They had walked right into the "yard."  All round them the snow was
+trampled into narrow trails where the herd had moved about, feeding on
+the shrubbery.  With a little more caution they might have got three or
+four of the animals.
+
+They found the buck a hundred yards away, dead in the snow.  It was no
+small task to get him back to the cabin, for he was too fat and heavy
+to carry, even if they had cut him up.  They had to haul the carcass
+with a thong, like a toboggan, over the snow.  The weather changed, and
+it was beginning to bluster again when they arrived, dead tired, to
+find the fire gone out and the cabin cold.  But they rejoiced at being
+supplied with meat enough to last them for perhaps a month.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+That night they heard the timber wolves for the first time, howling
+mournfully a little way back in the woods.  No doubt they had scented
+the fresh carcass of the deer, and probably there would have been no
+venison in the morning if they had not had the wisdom to carry the
+carcass into the cabin.  Peter opened the door quietly and slipped out
+with a cocked rifle, but the wolves were too wary for him.  Not one was
+in sight, and the howling receded and grew fainter.  But they heard it
+at intervals again during the night--a dismal and savage note, that
+made them feel like making the fire burn brighter.
+
+"They must have followed the trail where we dragged the buck home,"
+said Maurice.  "Good thing they didn't happen to strike it before we
+got back."
+
+"Oh, they'd hardly venture to attack three of us," replied Peter.  "I
+almost wish they would.  We could mow them down with our repeaters, and
+you know there's a Government bounty of ten dollars a head on dead
+timber wolves.  We might make quite a pile, and besides the skins must
+be worth something."
+
+"Might set some traps," Fred suggested.
+
+"No use.  The timber wolf is far too wise to get into any steel trap.
+That's why so few of them are killed.  But say, boys, why couldn't we
+manage to ambush 'em?"
+
+"How?" Maurice demanded.
+
+"Well, suppose I shot a couple of rabbits to-morrow night and went
+through the woods dragging them after me, so as to make a blood trail.
+Any wolves that happened to cross it would certainly follow, and I'd
+lead them past a spot where you fellows would be ambushed, ready to
+pump lead into them."
+
+"Sounds all right," said Fred, "but suppose they overtook you before
+you got to the ambush?"
+
+"Oh, they wouldn't dare to attack me.  They'd keep me in sight, stop if
+I stopped, and turn if I turned, waiting for a chance to take me at a
+disadvantage.  A shot would scatter them, anyway.  The only trouble
+would be that they'd scatter so quick when you opened fire that you
+wouldn't be able to bag more than one or two.  And I don't suppose the
+same trick could be worked twice."
+
+They discussed the matter all that evening and grew so enthusiastic
+over it that they determined to try it the next night.  There was no
+hope now of diamonds, and the expedition had cost them nearly two
+hundred dollars.  A few wolf bounties and pelts, together with the furs
+found in the cabin, would cover this and perhaps leave a little profit.
+
+It was cold and cloudy the next day, and they waited impatiently for
+evening.  The moon would not rise till nearly midnight, and it was
+necessary to wait in order to have light enough for the proposed
+ambush.  They sallied out toward eleven o'clock, and shot three
+rabbits, which Peter attached to a deerskin thong.  Selecting an open
+glade, Maurice and Fred established themselves in ambush under the
+thickets, while Peter started on a wide circle through the woods,
+trailing his bait, in the hope of attracting the wolves.
+
+Fred and Maurice waited for more than two hours, nearly frozen,
+stamping and beating their arms, listening for the hunting cry of the
+wolf pack.  At the end of that time Peter reappeared, tired and
+disgusted.  The wolves had failed to do their part, and had not picked
+up the trail.
+
+Still he was not discouraged, and insisted on trying it again the next
+evening.  This time Fred and Maurice stayed in the cabin to keep warm,
+listening intently.  At the first, distant howl they were to rush out
+and ensconce themselves in a prearranged spot, a quarter of a mile up
+the river, which Peter was to pass.  They kept the two repeating
+rifles, while Mac carried the double-barreled gun, loaded with
+buckshot, which they had found in the cabin.
+
+Half a mile from the shanty Peter shot a swamp hare that was nibbling a
+spruce trunk, and a little way farther he secured another.  These
+carcasses he tied together with a deerskin thong as before, and trailed
+them in the wake of his snowshoes.  This time he intended to make a
+longer circuit than on the preceding night.
+
+He dragged this bait across a hardwood ridge and down into a great
+cedar swamp on the other side.  In hard weather all the wild life of
+the woods resorts to such places for shelter, and here the wolves would
+be hunting if there was a pack in the neighborhood.  But he found few
+tracks and no sign at all of wolves.
+
+After traveling slowly for two or three miles, Mac sat down on a log to
+rest, and as the warmth of exercise died out, the cold nipped him to
+the bone through the "four-point" blanket coat.  He got up and moved
+on, intending to return in a long curve toward the cabin.  He did not
+much care, after all, whether he started any wolves.  It was too cold
+for hunting that night.
+
+The dry snow swished round his ankles at the fall of the long racquets.
+He still dragged the dead hares, which were now frozen almost as hard
+as wood, but not too hard to leave a scent.
+
+He had reached the other side of the swamp when his ears caught
+suddenly a high-pitched, mournful howl, ending in a sort of yelp,
+sounding indefinitely far away, yet clearly heard through the tense
+air.  He knew well what it was.  The pack had struck a trail--possibly
+his own, possibly that of a deer.  He would very soon learn which.
+
+Thrilling with excitement, he walked on slowly, turning his head to
+listen.  Again and again he caught the hunting chorus of the wolf pack,
+far away, but still perceptibly nearer.  He was just then in the midst
+of a tangled stretch of second-growth timber, and he hurried on to
+reach more open ground.  As soon as he felt convinced that the pack was
+following him he intended to turn back toward the river.
+
+He kept moving on, however, and at last came to the river before he
+expected it.  He was still more than a mile above the point where the
+ambush was to be set, and he paused on the shore and hearkened.  Far
+away through the moonlit woods he heard the savage, triumphant yell,
+much nearer now--so much so that he felt that he might as well make for
+the ambush at once.  He felt suddenly alone and in peril; he longed
+earnestly to see his companions.
+
+He started down the river at a swinging trot, still listening over his
+shoulder, when the ice suddenly gave way under his feet, and he went
+down with so swift a plunge that he had time for only a shuddering gasp.
+
+He had stepped on an airhole lightly crusted over with snow.  He went
+down to his neck without touching bottom, and the black water surged up
+to his face.  It was the gun that saved him; it caught across the hole,
+and he clung to it fiercely.  As the current fortunately was not rapid,
+he was able to draw himself up and out upon the ice.
+
+But he found himself unable to extricate his feet.  The long-tailed
+snowshoes had gone down point foremost, and now were crossed under the
+ice, and refused to come up.  He dared not cut them loose, for in the
+deep snow he would have been helpless.  Growing fainter at every
+moment, he struggled in the deadly chill of the water for four or five
+minutes before at last he succeeded in bringing them up end first, as
+they had gone down.
+
+When he staggered back stiffly upon the snow the very life seemed
+withdrawn from his bones.  His heavy clothing had frozen into a coat of
+mail almost as hard as iron plate.  There was no sensation left in his
+limbs, and he trembled with a numb shuddering.
+
+Long forest training told him what must be done.  He must have a fire
+at once.  He would have to find a dry birch tree, or a splintered pine
+that would light easily.
+
+His benumbed brain clung to this idea, and he began to stumble toward
+shore, his snowshoes sheets of ice, and his clothes rattling as he
+went.  But with a hunter's instinct he stuck to his gun, tucking it
+under his icy arm.
+
+He could see no birch tree, and the bank was bordered with an
+impenetrable growth of alders.  He dragged himself up the river, and
+each step seemed to require a more and more intolerable exertion.
+
+He could not feel his feet as he lifted and put them down; when he saw
+them moving they looked like things independent of himself.  He had
+ceased to feel cold.  He no longer felt anything, except a deadly
+weariness that was crushing him into the snow.
+
+He went on, however, driven by the fighting instinct, till of a sudden
+he saw it--the birch tree he was seeking, shining spectrally among the
+black spruces by the river.
+
+It was an old, half-dead tree, covered with great curls of bark that
+would flare up at the touch of a match.  He had matches in a
+water-proof box, and he contrived to get them out of his frozen pocket.
+He dropped the box half a dozen times in trying to open it, opened it
+at last with his teeth, and dropped it again, spilling the matches into
+the snow.
+
+Snow is as dry as sand at that temperature, however, and he scraped
+them up, and tried to strike one on the gun barrel.  But he was unable
+to hold the bit of wood in his numbed fingers; there was absolutely no
+feeling in his hands, and the match fell from his grasp at every
+attempt.  This is a familiar peril in the North Woods, where dozens of
+men have frozen to death with firewood and matches beside them, from
+sheer inability to strike a light.
+
+Mac beat his hands together without effect.  He began to grow
+indifferent; and as he fumbled again for the dropped match he fell at
+full length into the snow.
+
+A sense of pleasant relief overcame him, and he decided to rest there
+for a few minutes.  The snow was soft, and he had never before realized
+how warm it was.  His shoulders were propped against the roots of the
+birch, and with a hazy consciousness that game might be expected, he
+dragged his gun across his knees and cocked it.  Then, with a
+comfortable sense of duty done, he closed his eyes.
+
+Curious and delightful fancies began at once to flood his brain,
+fancies so vivid that he seemed not to lose consciousness at all.  How
+long he lay there he never knew.  But he grew alive at last to a
+vise-like pressure on his left arm that seemed to have lasted for
+years, and which was growing to excruciating pain.
+
+He opened his eyes with a great effort.  There were savage, hairy faces
+close to his own, pouring out clouds of steaming breath into the frosty
+air.  Something had him by the arm with such force that he almost felt
+the bones cracking, and something was tugging at his leg.
+
+The nervous shock aroused him as nothing else on earth could have done.
+A tingle of horrified animation rushed through his body.  He was on the
+point of being torn to pieces by the wolf pack that had trailed him,
+and the powerful stimulus of the new peril called out the last reserves
+of strength.
+
+He made a convulsive start.  His frozen hand was on the trigger of the
+shotgun, and both barrels went off.  At the sudden flash and report the
+half-dozen wolves bolted incontinently--all but one gray monster that
+got the full force of the buckshot and dropped in its tracks.
+
+Macgregor staggered to his feet, full of terrible cramps and pains in
+every muscle.  But his head had cleared somewhat.  He saw the dry birch
+tree and again tried to fumble for a match.  Almost by sheer luck he
+succeeded in striking it.  The birch bark caught fire and flamed
+crackling up the trunk.  The dry trunk itself caught and burned like a
+torch.
+
+Macgregor rubbed his face and hands savagely with snow.  They hurt
+intensely, but he welcomed the pain, for it showed that they were not
+frozen.  He was beginning to feel a little more life when he heard the
+creak and flap of snowshoes, and saw Fred and Maurice hurrying up the
+river toward him.
+
+"What's the matter?" they shouted, as soon as within hearing distance.
+"We heard the shot.  See any wolves?"
+
+Mac tried to shout something in answer, but found that he could not
+speak distinctly.
+
+"I see you've bagged one," cried Fred, rushing up.  "Why, man, you're
+covered with ice!  What's happened to you?"
+
+"Been in the river," Peter managed to ejaculate.  "Get my moccasins
+off, boys--rub feet with snow.  Afraid--I'm going--to lose toes!"
+
+With exclamations of sympathy the boys got his frozen outer clothing
+off,--broke it off, in fact, from the caked ice,--removed his moccasins
+and socks, and rubbed his feet with snow.  Several of the toes had
+whitened, but they regained color after some minutes' rubbing, and
+began to hurt excruciatingly.  Peter squirmed with the pain.
+
+"But I don't mind it," he said.  "Rub away, boys.  I certainly thought
+I was going to lose part of my feet."
+
+Perhaps the solid cake of ice that had instantly formed over his heavy
+socks and moccasins had actually protected them from freezing.  At any
+rate, he got off much more easily than he would have thought possible.
+The attack of the wolves had left little mark on him, either.  He had a
+few light lacerations on his hands and face, but for the most part the
+beasts seemed to have laid hold on him where the thick, ice-caked cloth
+was almost like armor plate.  And no doubt the arrival of the pack had
+saved him from death by freezing.
+
+Fred dragged up the carcass of the fallen wolf and skinned its head and
+ears for the Government bounty.  The rest of the pelt was so terribly
+torn with buckshot as to be worthless.
+
+"Your scheme didn't work, Mac," he remarked.
+
+"It did work.  It worked only too well," Macgregor protested.  "It's
+the best scheme for catching wolves I ever heard of."
+
+"You don't want to try it again, do you?"
+
+"Well--that's a different thing!" he admitted.  "No, I don't know that
+I do.  But if I hadn't gone through the ice we would probably have
+bagged nearly the whole pack."
+
+After thorough snow friction Mac considered it safe to approach the
+fire by degrees.  The ice thawed off his clothing, but left him wet to
+the skin.  It was certain that he ought to get back to the cabin and
+dry clothing as soon as possible, and he thought he would be able now
+to travel.  It was less than two miles.
+
+It proved a painful two miles, but he reached the cabin at last, where
+his companions put him to bed in one of the bunks, covered him warmly,
+and dosed him with boiling tea.  It was then growing close to three
+o'clock in the morning.
+
+Naturally they did not get up as early as usual for breakfast.
+Macgregor's feet were sore and somewhat swollen, but there was no
+longer any danger of serious trouble.  He had to remain in the cabin
+that day and was unable to put on his moccasins, but he was much elated
+at his luck in getting off so lightly.  It was snowing and stormy,
+besides; none of the boys went out much, except for the endless task of
+cutting firewood.  They lounged about the cabin and discussed the
+problems that perplexed them so much--whether Horace had really
+discovered any diamonds, and what had become of him, and how and
+why--until the subject was utterly worn out.  Maurice then made a
+checkerboard, and they played matches till they wearied of this
+amusement also.
+
+The next day they had to fall back on it again, however, for the
+weather was still stormy.  During the afternoon it snowed heavily.
+Mac's feet were much better, and he wore his moccasins, but judged it
+unsafe to go out into the snow for another day.  In the midst of the
+storm Fred and Maurice cut down a couple of dead hemlocks, and chopped
+part of them up for fuel.  It was amazing to see what a quantity of
+wood the rough fireplace consumed.
+
+"If we had acres of diamond beds we couldn't afford such fires in
+town," Maurice remarked.
+
+The next day the weather cleared, but turned bitterly cold.  In the
+afternoon Maurice ventured out to look for game, and came back about
+four o'clock with three spruce grouse and a frost-bitten nose.  The
+boys were all standing outside the cabin door, when Fred suddenly
+started.
+
+Round the bend a sledge had just appeared on the river.  It was drawn
+by six dogs, coming at a flagging trot through the deep snow; four men
+on snowshoes ran behind and beside it.  For a moment the men seemed to
+hesitate as they caught sight of the hut.  But they came on, turned up
+the shore, and drove straight to the cabin at a gallop.
+
+Three of the _voyageurs_ were plainly French Canadians, or possibly
+French half-breeds, wiry, weather-beaten men, dark almost as Indians;
+the fourth was big and heavily built, and wore a red beard that was now
+a mass of ice.  All of them wore cartridge belts, and four rifles lay
+on the packed sledge.
+
+"_Bo' jou'_!" cried the dark-faced men, as they came within hailing
+distance.
+
+"_Bon jour_!" Maurice shouted back.  He was the only one who knew any
+French, and he knew but little.  He was searching his memory for a few
+more words, when the red-bearded man came forward and nodded.
+
+"Didn't know any one was living here this winter," he said.  "Trapping?"
+
+"Hunting a little," said Macgregor.  "Unharness your dogs and come
+inside.  It's a cold day for the trail."
+
+"You bet!" said one of the French, and they made no difficulty about
+accepting the invitation.  They rapidly unhitched the dogs, which had
+sat down, snarling and snapping in their traces; then they unpacked the
+sledge and carried the dunnage inside the cabin.
+
+They were a wild-looking set.  The French Canadians were probably
+woodsmen, shanty-men or hunters, apparently good-natured and jovial,
+but rough and uncivilized.  The Anglo-Saxon, who seemed to be their
+leader, was more repellent, and when he took off his _capote_, he
+revealed a countenance of savage brutality, with small eyes, a cruel
+mouth, and a protuberant jaw, framed in masses of bricky red hair and
+beard.
+
+"I don't much like the looks of this crowd!" Maurice whispered in
+Macgregor's ear.
+
+"Rough lot, but they'll be away in the morning," answered Peter.
+
+In the North it is obligatory to be hospitable, and the boys prepared
+to feed and entertain the party as if they were the most welcome
+guests.  At the usual time they prepared supper.  The four newcomers
+ate enormously.  During the meal the red-bearded man explained that his
+name was Mitchell, that he was "going north with these breeds," as he
+rather vaguely put it, and that they had run somewhat short of
+provisions.
+
+Luckily, they had food for the dogs; one of the "breeds" presently
+produced six frozen whitefish and carried them outside, where he gave
+one to each dog with much dexterity.  The fish were bolted in a
+twinkling, and the unhappy brutes began to look for a sheltered spot
+where they could sleep through the sub-Arctic night.
+
+After supper the French, stuffed to repletion, lay back and engaged in
+an animated conversation in a dialect that seemed to be a mixture of
+French, English, and Ojibwa.  They laughed uproariously, and seemed
+thoroughly happy.  But Mitchell said little, and continually examined
+the interior of the hut with keen, restless eyes.
+
+The next morning the visitors showed no anxiety to be off.  They fed
+the dogs, lounged about, smoked, and stayed until dinner time.  After
+dinner Mitchell announced that the dogs were tired, and would have to
+rest that day.
+
+It is very unusual to take a day off the trail for the sake of the
+dogs, but the boys made no objection, although secretly much annoyed.
+The presence of the strangers inspired them all with uneasiness.
+Besides, they could not continue their search or speak freely of it.
+
+The next morning the strangers said nothing about moving on.  They sat
+about the fire, and evading a suggestion that they help to cut wood,
+played cards nearly all day.
+
+"What's the matter with them?  Are they going to stay here all winter?"
+said Fred, in great irritation.
+
+Certainly the dogs needed no more rest.  They pervaded the place,
+trying to bolt into the warm cabin whenever the door was opened, and
+spending much time in leaping vainly but hopefully at the frozen
+carcass of the deer, swung high on a bough in the open air.
+
+The prodigious appetites of the newcomers had not diminished in the
+least, and the carcass was rapidly growing less.  The boys thought that
+at the least their guests might help replenish the larder, and the next
+morning Macgregor proposed that they all go after deer.
+
+"No good to-day," said Mitchell gruffly.  "Snow's coming.  You boys go
+if you want to.  We'll mind camp."
+
+That was the last straw; there was no sign whatever of storm.  Peter
+went out of the cabin to consult with his friends.
+
+"They think we're greenhorns from the city, and they're trying to
+impose on us!" he said angrily.  "If they don't make a move by
+to-morrow morning, I'll give them a pretty strong hint."
+
+All the same, fresh meat had to be procured, and after dinner Macgregor
+and Maurice took the two rifles and went back to the deer yard to see
+if the herd might not have returned.  Fred stayed to watch, for the
+boys disliked to leave their guests alone.
+
+The quartette were playing cards as usual, and Fred presently began to
+feel lonely.  After hanging about the hut for a time, he went out to
+pass the time in cutting wood.
+
+It was very cold, but he much preferred the outer air to the smoky
+atmosphere of the shack, and he soon grew warm in handling the axe.  He
+spent nearly the whole afternoon at this exercise, and it was after
+four o'clock when he finally reëntered the cabin.
+
+He opened the door rather quietly, and was astounded at what he saw.
+
+The card game had been abandoned.  The shanty was in a state of
+confusion and disorder.  Blankets and bedding were strewn pell-mell;
+the contents of the dunnage sacks were tossed upon the floor.
+Everything movable in the place seemed to have been moved, and a great
+part of the moss chinking had been torn from one of the walls, as if a
+hurried and desperate search had been made for something.
+
+And the object of the search had been found.  The four men were bent
+together over the table, watching intently, while Mitchell took
+something from a small leather sack.  They were all so feverishly
+intent that Fred tiptoed up close behind them unobserved.
+
+Mitchell was shaking out little lumps from the sack; each was wrapped
+in paper, and each, when he unwrapped it, was a small pebble that
+flashed fire.
+
+Fred's heart jumped, and he gasped.  The diamonds!  Horace had really
+found them, then!  The sack seemed to contain a large handful--it was
+appalling to think what they might be worth!  And then it flashed upon
+the boy with increased certainty that his brother must be dead, for
+otherwise he would never have left them there.
+
+Mitchell looked up and round at that instant.  At his explosive oath,
+the Frenchmen wheeled like a flash.  For a moment there was a deathly
+silence, while the four men glared at the boy with scowling faces.
+Fred realized that not only the possession of the stones, but probably
+his life, hung on his presence of mind.
+
+"Those things are my brother's, Mr. Mitchell," he said, with an outward
+coolness that astonished himself.  "He hid them in this cabin.  I don't
+know how you came to find them, but I'll ask you to hand them back."
+
+His voice broke the spell of silence.  One of the French said something
+in the ear of another, and then dropped quietly back toward the corner
+where the men's four rifles stood together.
+
+But Mitchell swept the pebbles together back into the bag.  "Your
+brother's?" he said.  "Why, I bought 'em myself from a gang of Ojibwas
+down on Timagami.  Rock crystals they call 'em, and I reckon to get ten
+or twelve dollars for 'em at Cochrane."
+
+He spoke with such assurance that Fred was taken aback, and did not
+know what to say.  Then his eye fell on one of the scraps of paper in
+which a stone had been wrapped.  He leaned forward and picked it up.
+
+"Did you put this on it?" he exclaimed indignantly.  "Look!  It's my
+brother's handwriting.  'October second, Nottaway River, near Burnt
+Lake,' it says.  That's where he found it.  And look at that!"  He
+swept his hand round the devastated cabin.  "What did you tear the
+place to pieces for if you weren't hunting for something?"
+
+"They're mine, anyway," retorted the woodsman, slipping the precious
+bag into his pocket.  "Them papers was wrapped round 'em when I got
+'em."
+
+"Impossible!" said Fred.  "I tell you--"
+
+"Shut up!" said Mitchell suddenly, with a snarl.
+
+A sense of his peril cooled Fred's anger like an icy douche, and he was
+silent.  There was death in the four grim faces that regarded him.  He
+had no doubt that the men would murder for a far less sum than the
+value of that sackful of precious stones.
+
+For an instant he thought hard.  He was entirely unarmed, and the men's
+rifles stood just behind them.  He would have to wait for
+reinforcements.  It was surely almost time for Maurice and Peter to be
+back, and they must be warned of the danger before they entered the
+cabin.
+
+"All right," he said, with sudden mildness.  "If you can prove that the
+stones are really yours, I'm satisfied.  The sack looked like my
+brother's, that's all."
+
+Mitchell gave a contemptuous grin.  The Canadians lighted their pipes
+again.
+
+Fred felt that they watched him closely, however.  He lounged about the
+cabin with assumed nonchalance for a quarter of an hour, and then
+ventured to go out on the pretext of bringing in a fresh log for the
+fire.  But once outdoors, he put on his snowshoes and rushed down the
+trail to intercept his friends.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+In deadly fear of hearing a shot or a shout from behind, Fred did not
+stop running until he was out of sight of the cabin.  He knew the
+direction from which the hunters would be sure to return, and he posted
+himself in ambush, in a spot whence he could keep watch in front and
+rear.
+
+Fortunately, he was not pursued.  Fortunately, too, he had not very
+long to wait there, for it was bitter cold.  In the course of half an
+hour, he discerned two black specks crossing a strip of barrens to the
+north.
+
+Fred ran to meet them.  The hunters had no deer, but each of them
+carried a great bunch of partridges.
+
+"What's the matter?  Is the camp on fire?" shouted Macgregor, as Fred
+dashed up.
+
+He had to stop to regain breath before he could gasp out an account of
+what had happened.
+
+"The diamonds!" Maurice exclaimed.
+
+"But, don't you see, this makes it certain that Horace never left that
+cabin alive!" Fred said heavily.
+
+It looked like it, indeed, and no one found anything to say.
+Macgregor's face had grown very grim.
+
+"Anyhow, Horace risked his life for those stones,--perhaps lost
+it,--and we 're not going to let those wretches carry them off," he
+said.  "Besides, the diamonds are the least important thing.  Those
+fellows have got our cabin, grub, ammunition, everything.  We're
+stranded if we don't get them back."
+
+"We must take them by surprise," said Fred.  "I'd been thinking that we
+might come up to the cabin quietly, throw the door open suddenly, and
+hold them up."
+
+"They have four rifles," suggested Maurice.
+
+"Yes, but they won't be ready to use them," said the Scotchman.  "It's
+the only way."
+
+He threw open the chamber of his rifle, glanced in, then fumbled in his
+pockets.
+
+"Lend me a couple of cartridges, Maurice."
+
+"Don't say you haven't any!  I used the last of mine on those
+partridges."
+
+"Then we're done!" Peter exclaimed, and he struck his hand furiously on
+the breech of the empty repeater.  "Not a shot between us."
+
+They looked at one another hopelessly.
+
+"Come, we've got to do something--or starve in the snow," said Peter,
+at last.  "We'll hold them up, anyhow--with empty guns."
+
+"But suppose they fire on us?" Fred asked.
+
+"At the first move any one makes toward a gun, we'll jump for him.  The
+cabin's too small to use rifles in, and if it comes to a
+rough-and-tumble, why, we'll just have to keep our end up.  But I don't
+think it will come to that.  We'll have them bluffed."
+
+Certainly it seemed a long chance to take, but, as Peter said, it was
+better than starving in the snow.  They laid down the partridges, and
+began to move toward the cabin.
+
+"Take the axe, if it's by the door, Fred," Macgregor advised.  "You'll
+go first, and open the door.  We'll aim over your shoulders.  And
+remember, at the first hostile movement, jump for them with clubbed
+rifles and the axe."
+
+They went on, rather slowly.  The cabin came in view, with no one in
+sight, and they made a détour through the hemlocks so as to get as
+close to the door as possible without showing themselves.
+
+"Now for it!" muttered Macgregor.
+
+With hearts beating tumultuously, they burst out from the evergreen
+screen.  But they had taken only two or three steps, when the cabin
+door opened a few inches, and four black rifle barrels were thrust out.
+
+"_Halte-là_!" shouted one of the Canadians.
+
+The boys stopped in their tracks.  They could see nothing of the men
+within, nothing except those four ominous muzzles in the streak of
+firelight that shone through the crack.
+
+"What do you mean?" cried Macgregor boldly.  "Don't you know who we
+are?  Put those guns away, and let us in!"
+
+He ventured another step, but a second voice roared from the doorway,
+"Stop!"
+
+It was Mitchell.  Peter stopped suddenly.  The hoarse voice bellowed
+again, "Git!"
+
+"What's the matter with you?" Peter persisted.  "That is our cabin.
+Let us come in, I say."
+
+[Illustration: "THAT IS OUR CABIN.  LET US COME IN, I SAY"]
+
+"Git, _I_ say!" Mitchell repeated.  "After this, we'll shoot on sight.
+I give ye till I count three.  One--two--"
+
+"Back off.  We 're caught!" Peter muttered.
+
+They backed away slowly.  When they were at the edge of the thickets,
+Mitchell shouted again:--
+
+"When we're gone, you can come back!  Now keep away for your own good!"
+
+The cabin door closed as they stepped back into the undergrowth.
+Macgregor's face was black as he tucked the useless rifle under his
+arm.  They were all boiling with rage and mortification.
+
+"If we'd only turned those scoundrels out yesterday!" Peter muttered.
+
+"We couldn't foresee this," said Maurice.  "Those fellows evidently
+knew that the diamonds were here--or strongly suspected it.  They must
+have heard of it from your sick Indian, or from the third trapper.
+They must have been astonished to find us on the spot."
+
+"Very likely," said Fred, "but the present question is what we're going
+to do to-night."
+
+"We must make the best camp we can in the snow," remarked Maurice.
+
+"I don't see how we'll cut wood without an axe," said Peter.  "It's
+going to be a savage cold night.  We have no blankets, either.  Lucky
+we shot those partridges."
+
+But when they came to the spot where they had dropped the partridges, a
+fresh disappointment awaited them.  The famished sledge dogs had found
+them.  There was nothing left of the fourteen grouse except a litter of
+feathers and a few blood-stains on the snow.
+
+Their night was to be supperless as well as cold, it seemed.  Darkness
+was already falling, with the weird desolation that the winter night
+always brings down on the wilderness.  It had been always impressive,
+but now, as they faced the night without food or shelter, it was
+appalling.
+
+Destitute of an axe, they would have to make a camp where they could
+find fuel, and they scattered to look for it.  It was rapidly growing
+too dark to search, but Fred presently came upon a large, dead spruce,
+lying half buried in snow, but spiked thickly with dry branches.  He
+was breaking these off by the armfuls when the other boys came up in
+answer to his calls.
+
+They trampled down the snow, gathered birch bark and spruce splinters,
+and laid the kindling against the big back log.  Maurice set about
+pulling twigs for a couch, in case the temperature permitted them to
+sleep.
+
+"How about matches?  I haven't one on me," said Fred, in sudden anxiety.
+
+Macgregor discovered four rather damp ones in his pockets; Maurice had
+a dozen or more, but the snow had got into his pocket, and wet them.
+
+They used up five matches in lighting the fire, but finally the birch
+bark flared up, curling, and the spruce twigs began to crackle.
+
+They were sure, at any rate, of a fire, and this little success raised
+their spirits wonderfully.  They started at once to bring in all the
+loose wood they could find; but it proved to be little, for snow
+covered everything except the largest logs.  However, they counted on
+the big spruce trunk to burn all night.
+
+Without an axe, it was impossible to build any sort of shelter; so they
+sat down close beside the fire, and huddled together to escape the
+cold, which was growing hourly more piercing.
+
+In spite of all their efforts, the fire was a poor one.  The spruce
+trunk proved rotten and damp, and merely smouldered and smoked.  The
+dead branches went off in a rapid flame, and they had to economize them
+to make them last the night out.
+
+That was a terrible night.  The temperature must have gone far below
+zero.  A foot away from the fire, they could hardly feel its warmth;
+their backs and feet were numb, and their faces smoked and scorching.
+
+Two of the boys were tired with a long snowshoe tramp, and all of them
+were hungry.  Macgregor's feet were still far from being in a condition
+to stand further exposure; they would have frozen again easily, and he
+kept them as close to the wretched fire as possible.  Sleep was out of
+the question, for they would have frozen to death at six feet away from
+the fire.  They sat with their arms round each other, as close to the
+blaze as possible, and turned now their faces and now their backs to
+the warmth.
+
+Fortunately, there was no wind.  About midnight a pallid moon came up
+behind light clouds.  Far in the woods they heard strange, lugubrious
+noises, moans, hootings, and once a shrill, savage scream.
+
+Now and then they talked, but they were too miserable from the cold to
+say much.  In spite of the cold, they grew drowsy.  Fred could have
+gone dead asleep if he had allowed himself to.  He got up, stamped, and
+engaged in a rather spiritless bout of wrestling with Peter.  Then they
+all straggled off to try to find more wood.
+
+Finally, that night of horror wore itself away.  The light of a pale,
+cold dawn began to show.
+
+Feeling twenty years older, they scattered to bring wood again.  They
+built up the fire to a roaring blaze that gave some real warmth.
+
+"Aren't those fellows likely to make off the first thing this morning,
+and take all our outfit with them?" said Maurice.
+
+"They're almost certain to.  We must keep watch on the cabin," said
+Fred.
+
+"We must hope they don't," added Peter.  "We'd have to follow
+them--follow them till we dropped or captured them.  For they'd be
+taking away our lives with them."
+
+In view of this danger, they sent Maurice at once to reconnoiter the
+place, which was not more than a quarter of a mile distant.  He was
+gone nearly half an hour, and on his return reported that smoke was
+rising from the cabin, but that there were no signs that the men
+intended to depart.
+
+And he had had a stroke of luck.  A couple of partridges had flown up
+and perched stupidly on a log, so close to him that he had been able to
+knock one of them over with a cleverly thrown club.
+
+In less than a minute that partridge's feathers were scattered on the
+snow, and it was cut up and roasting on sharp sticks before the fire.
+Too ravenous to wait until it was thoroughly cooked, the boys began to
+eat it, but Maurice made a wry face at his second mouthful.
+
+"No salt!" he remarked.
+
+The half-cooked flesh was nauseous without salt, and hungry though they
+were, they got it down with difficulty.  It did them good, however, and
+they all felt more capable of facing the situation.
+
+"The first thing we must do," said Peter, "is to find a better
+camping-place, put up some sort of shelter, and gather plenty of wood."
+
+"Why, you don't expect to live like this long?" cried Fred, looking
+startled.
+
+"It's hard to say.  You know we're fearfully handicapped.  Our only
+chance is to get those fellows off their guard, for if we strike once
+and fail, we'll probably never get another chance.  We must lie low,
+and make them think that we've gone away, or that we're dead.  We'll
+put our new camp half a mile away, or more, and one of us must keep
+watch near the cabin from sunrise to sunset."
+
+It sounded disheartening, but they could think of no other plan.
+Eventually, Maurice went to stand guard, while Fred and Macgregor
+searched for a camp-site.
+
+They could not find what they wanted.  Dead timber in any quantity was
+scarce.  At the end of a couple of hours Fred went to relieve Maurice,
+and found him walking round and round a tree in order to keep from
+freezing.
+
+"I thought I might get a chance to collar the axe," said Maurice, with
+chattering teeth.  "But they've carried it inside.  They've taken in
+the rest of the venison, too, and they've even got the dogs inside the
+shanty.  Afraid we'd shoot them, I suppose."
+
+Maurice tramped off to aid Peter in his search, while Fred stamped
+about in the trees.  No one was in sight about the hut, but after a
+long time one of the French Canadians came out and went down to the
+river with a pail for water.
+
+It made Fred's blood boil to think of the warmth and comfort in that
+cabin, from which they had been so treacherously turned out.  He
+puzzled his brain to devise some plan of retaliation, but he could
+think of nothing except setting fire to the place, and that would
+destroy the supplies of friend and foe alike.
+
+His feet grew numb, and he adopted Maurice's plan of running round in a
+circle.  He fancied that his ears and nose were frosted, and he rubbed
+them with snow.  A long time passed; he wondered what had become of his
+companions.  It was nearly noon when Maurice hurried up with his face
+full of consternation.  "The fire is out," he said, "and we've used the
+last match!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+At this crushing news, Fred left his post and went back with Maurice,
+who explained what had happened.
+
+They had found a good camping-ground, where wood was abundant, and had
+tried to light a fire.  But the remaining matches proved to have been
+badly dampened; the heads were pasty or entirely soaked off.  One by
+one they fizzled and went out.  As a last hope, Maurice had hurried
+back to their night camp for fire, only to find that the wet log had
+smouldered down and gone dead out.
+
+The spot was about two thirds of a mile away, south from the river.  A
+great windrow of hemlocks and jack-pines had fallen together, and
+afforded plenty of wood.  On one of the logs sat Macgregor, with his
+elbows on his knees, and his chin in his hands, the picture of despair;
+and at his feet was a litter of bark and kindling, and a dozen burnt
+matches.
+
+They all sat down together in silence, and nobody found a word of
+comfort.
+
+It was a brilliantly clear day, but the temperature had certainly not
+risen to zero, and a slight, cutting wind blew from the west.  The sun
+shone in an icy blue sky, but there was no heat in its rays.
+
+"If we only had a cartridge," said Fred, "we might make a fire with the
+gun flash."
+
+They all made another vain search of their pockets, in the faint hope
+of finding a cartridge or an overlooked match head.
+
+"If we don't find some way to make a fire before sunset," said
+Macgregor gloomily, "we'll have to attack the cabin to-night.  I really
+don't believe we could live through a night without fire, with nothing
+to eat, especially as we had no sleep last night."
+
+"Surely if we went up to the cabin, they'd give us some fire," Maurice
+protested.  "They wouldn't let us die in the snow."
+
+"That's just what they count on us to do," said the Scotchman bitterly.
+
+No one said anything about renewing the guard on the cabin.  Nothing
+seemed to matter much--nothing except the cold.  The morsels of
+half-raw food they had eaten that morning did not keep them from being
+ravenously hungry again, and an empty stomach is poor protection
+against Arctic cold.
+
+Like the rest of them, Fred was heavily clad, but the cold seemed to
+find his skin as if he were naked.  He began to feel numb to the bone,
+lethargic, incapable of moving.  Then he realized his danger, forced
+himself awake, and tried to think of some expedient for making a fire.
+
+Flints could not be found under three feet of snow.  A
+burning-glass--if they only had one!  It should have been included in
+the outfit.
+
+And then an idea flashed upon him.  He jumped up suddenly.
+
+"Wait here for me, fellows!" he cried.
+
+He rushed off toward the river, and came back in a few minutes with a
+piece of clear ice, almost as large as his palm, and an inch or two
+thick.  He slipped off his mittens, and began to rub it between his
+hands, so as to melt it down with the heat of his skin.
+
+"See what it is?  Burning-glass!" he exclaimed.
+
+"But you can't make a burning-glass of _ice_!" said Maurice.
+
+"Why not?  Anyhow, I'm going to try."
+
+But before he had worked the ice long, he had to stop, for his hands
+seemed freezing.  While he beat and rubbed them, Maurice, incredulous
+but willing, took the lump of ice, and shaped it down while the heat
+lasted in his hands.  He then passed it on to Macgregor, who in turn
+handed it to Fred again.  He finally succeeded in melting and curving
+it roughly into the proper shape.
+
+He tried it on the back of his hand.  An irregular but small and
+intensely hot spot of light concentrated itself there.
+
+"I do believe it will work!" Peter cried.
+
+They hastily collected a handful of fine, dry hair moss from the fir
+branches, and peeled filmy shreds of birch bark.  Fred brought the
+"glass" to bear on the little heap.  His numbed hands trembled so that
+he could hardly hold it still.  For some time there was no result.
+Then a thin thread of smoke began to arise.  The boys held their
+breath.  The hair moss suddenly sparkled and flamed.  A shred of bark
+caught.  Peter interposed a large roll.  It flared up.
+
+"Hurrah!  We've got it!" cried Macgregor.  "Fred, you've saved our
+lives, I do believe."
+
+They piled on twigs, branches, and heavy lumps of wood, and soon had a
+brisk fire going.  Better still, they were now assured of having always
+the means of making one--at least, whenever the sun shone.
+
+The magical influence of the fire gave back to them a little of their
+cheerfulness.  They warmed themselves thoroughly, and then started to
+have another look at the outlaws, and to see whether they could find
+any small game.  For now that they no longer suffered from the cold,
+their stomachs cried loudly for food.
+
+Leaving the empty rifles by the fire, they armed themselves with clubs
+and poles for hunting, and had good hopes of being able to knock over a
+partridge or a hare.  But the grouse seemed to have turned wild.  They
+saw only two at a great distance.  No hares showed themselves, nor
+could they find any trace of porcupines on the trees.
+
+Skulking within sight of the cabin, they perceived one of the Frenchmen
+carrying in logs of wood for the fire--some of those that Fred himself
+had cut.  Mitchell stood by, smoking his pipe, with a rifle under his
+arm.  Fred fancied he could smell frying venison as the door was opened.
+
+Plainly the outlaws were on the alert still.  The boys crouched, unseen
+and unheard, among the hemlocks; but if they had been armed, they could
+easily have picked off the two men at the door.  And they had come to
+such a state of rage and desperation that they would very likely have
+done it.
+
+They found no comfort in the fact that the robbers showed no
+inclination to leave the place.  The boys were perplexed at their
+staying, but probably the men had no reason to hurry, and, finding
+themselves comfortably placed, had decided to remain where they were
+while the extreme cold snap lasted.
+
+In spite of the cold, the boys remained on watch for some time after
+the men had gone indoors.  Suddenly Peter laid his hand on Fred's
+shoulder, and nodded backward.
+
+A deer had come out of the thickets within thirty yards of where they
+lay,--a fine, fat buck,--and stood looking uneasily, sniffing, and
+cocking its ears in their direction.  Then, without showing any
+particular alarm, it walked on, and passing within twenty yards of
+them, disappeared again.
+
+They had to let it go; it was perhaps the cruelest moment they had
+lived through.
+
+Deer might be out of the question, but if they were to keep alive, it
+was absolutely necessary that they should find something, and they
+separated in order to look for small game.
+
+In the course of an hour or two they all straggled back to the camp
+fire, half frozen and empty-handed.  Macgregor indeed had seen a
+partridge, but his muscles had been so benumbed that he missed his
+throw.
+
+After warming themselves, they made another expedition--all but
+Maurice, who had neuralgic pains in his face, and who remained by the
+fire.  But again Peter and Fred came back without game.
+
+The sun had set by this time, and it was hopeless to try again.  A
+hungry night was inevitable, but they tried so to arrange matters that
+at any rate they would be warm.  They gathered all the wood that they
+could break off or lift.  Then with their snowshoes they dug down to
+the ground, heaping the snow up in a rampart behind them, and piled in
+balsam twigs, and trusted that in this pit they would be able to sleep.
+
+It grew dark rapidly, and the wind rose.  The fire, flaring and
+smoking, drove smoke and sparks into their faces until their eyes
+streamed.  It made the leeward side of the fire almost unbearable,
+whereas the windward side was freezingly cold.
+
+The temperature was perhaps not quite so low as the night before, but
+the gale made it far more disagreeable.  Regardless of smoke and
+sparks, they had to sit as near the fire as they dared, or risk
+freezing.  Sleep was impossible.
+
+All three of them were faint and sick with starvation, but the plight
+of Maurice was the most wretched.  His neuralgia had grown agonizing;
+his face was badly swollen, and he sat with his head buried in his
+arms, and his inflamed cheek turned to the heat.
+
+Much as they sympathized with him, they could do nothing to relieve
+him, except to try to keep up the fire.  This task caused them endless
+trouble.  The high wind made it burn furiously fast, and the small
+branches they had gathered were licked up like magic.  They had thought
+there was enough fuel for the night, but soon after midnight Fred and
+Peter were foraging about in the deep snow and the storm for a fresh
+supply.
+
+Toward morning their endurance broke down.  They piled on all the rest
+of the wood, and went to sleep huddled up by the fire, reckless whether
+they froze or not.
+
+Fred was awakened from a painful and uneasy slumber by Peter's shaking
+his arm.
+
+"Your ears are frozen," the Scotchman was saying.  "Rub them with snow
+at once."
+
+While asleep, Fred had fallen back beyond the range of heat.  It was
+broad daylight, and snowing fast.  The fire was low.  All of them were
+covered with white, and Maurice was still asleep, sitting up, with his
+head fallen forward on his knees.
+
+Never in his life did Fred feel so unwilling to move.  He did not feel
+cold; he hardly felt anything.  All he wanted was to stay as he was and
+be let alone.
+
+But Macgregor insisted on rousing him, dragged him up, protesting, and
+rubbed snow on his ears.  Fred was very angry, but the scuffle set his
+blood moving again.  His ears were not badly frozen, but the skin came
+off as he rubbed them.  They bled, and the blood froze on as it ran,
+and made him a rather ghastly spectacle.
+
+[Illustration: DRAGGED HIM UP, PROTESTING, AND RUBBED SNOW ON HIS EARS]
+
+Maurice was awakened by the disturbance, and sat up stiffly.  He
+declared that his neuralgia was much better.
+
+They built up the fire again, and sat beside it, shivering.  Fred felt
+utterly incapable either of action or of thought, and even his hunger
+had grown numbed.  Maurice obviously felt no better, and Macgregor, who
+seemed to retain a little energy, looked at them both with a face of
+the gravest concern.  Presently he rose, put on his snowshoes, took a
+long pole, and started away with an air of determination.
+
+Maurice and Fred remained sitting by the fire in a sort of lethargy,
+and exchanged hardly a word.  Macgregor was gone almost an hour; then
+he came back at a run, covered with snow, and carrying a dead hare.  He
+skinned the animal, cleaned it, cut it into pieces, and set it to
+roast.  At the odor of the roasting meat, the boys' appetites revived,
+and they began to take the fragments from the spits before they were
+half cooked.  The scorched, unsalted meat was even more tasteless and
+nauseating than that of the grouse, but they all bolted it voraciously,
+and washed it down by eating snow.
+
+Almost immediately afterward they were taken with distressing cramps
+and vomiting, which left both Maurice and Fred in a state of weak
+collapse.  Macgregor suffered least, perhaps because he had eaten less
+incautiously.  He alone bore the burden of the rest of that day.  He
+brought wood, kept the fire up, and propped Fred and Maurice up on
+piles of hemlock branches.  There were some small pieces of the hare
+remaining, and he finally made the boys chew them, and swallow the
+juice.  It seemed to do them good; at any rate, the nausea did not
+return.  Then the Scotchman spoke.
+
+"Look here," he said, "we've got to do it this very night--get back
+into the cabin, I mean.  We've gone almost too far now, and by another
+day we'll be too weak to move."
+
+"But how'll we do it, Peter?" asked Fred weakly.
+
+"There's only one way.  We'll wait till after midnight, when they'll be
+asleep, and then burst in the door, aim our rifles at them, and get
+hold of their guns before they can recover their wits."
+
+"They'll have the door barricaded.  We'll be shot down before we can
+break in."
+
+"I know it's a long chance, but we're living by a succession of
+miracles as it is.  It can't last, and I'd as soon be shot as frozen to
+death.  I'm most afraid of the dogs.  They'll make an awful uproar, and
+probably spring at us as soon as we get in."
+
+As far as Fred was concerned, he felt ready for the attempt, or rather,
+perhaps, that it made no difference what he did.  Maurice also
+assented, but their force seemed a pitifully small one with which to
+oppose four able-bodied, well-armed men.
+
+It was then late in the afternoon.  Peter began to work energetically
+at gathering wood enough to last until they should try their desperate
+chance, and Fred and Maurice tried to help him.  It had stopped snowing
+and had cleared.  The night promised to be intensely cold.
+
+Suddenly, faint and far, but very distinct, the sound of a rifle-shot
+resounded through the trees.  They listened, and looked at one another.
+
+"One of those ruffians has gone hunting," Maurice remarked.
+
+"So he has," said Peter.  "And see here," he added, with a suddenly
+brightening face, "this gives us a chance.  Let's ambush that fellow as
+he comes in.  We'll knock him down and stun him.  That'll make one less
+against us, and we'll have his rifle and cartridges.  Perhaps he'll
+have something to eat on him.  Boys, it doubles our chances."
+
+The plan did look promising.  At any rate, it would, if successful,
+give them a firearm.  The shot must have been fired fully a mile away;
+but they put on their snowshoes at once, and hastened in the direction
+of the cabin.
+
+The light was failing fast as they stopped about two hundred yards from
+the hut, trying to guess just where the returning hunter would pass.
+It was very still, and they would be able to hear his footsteps for a
+long way.
+
+But they waited for nearly half an hour, and the woods were dusky when
+at last their strained ears caught the regular creak, crunch, and
+shuffle of snowshoes in the distance.  They were posted too far to the
+right, and they had to run fifty yards in order to cross the man's
+path.  There they crouched behind the hemlocks, in great fear lest
+their enemy had heard their steps.  But in another minute they caught
+sight of him.  The man was alone, muffled in a great _capote_, carrying
+a rifle over his shoulder, and something on his back--possibly his
+game.  His face was indistinguishable, but he looked like one of the
+French Canadians.
+
+On he came with a steady stride, now in sight, and now concealed by the
+thickets.  He passed within ten feet of the ambush where the boys
+crouched palpitating.
+
+"Now!  Tackle him!" Macgregor cried.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+The three boys plunged at the man together.  He stopped short, and made
+a motion to lower his rifle; but he was too late.  The boys had
+fastened on him as wolves fasten on a deer.  He uttered a single,
+stifled cry; then they all went down together in a mass of kicking
+snowshoes and struggling limbs.  The hunter's efforts were feeble, and
+the boys had no trouble in over-powering him.  Fred pinioned his arms,
+and Maurice sat on his legs.
+
+Macgregor peered into the man's face.  "Why, this isn't one of that
+gang!" he cried.
+
+It had grown almost dark.  Fred bent forward to look at the man.
+
+"It's my brother!" he cried.  "It's Horace!"
+
+"What?  It can't be!" cried Peter and Maurice together.  They let go
+their hold on their prisoner in order to look closer.
+
+"I declare, I believe it is!" said Macgregor, stupefied.
+
+It really was Horace Osborne, but he was almost unrecognizable in his
+muffling _capote_, long hair, and a three months' growth of beard.  He
+had no idea who had thus attacked him, and he was in a towering rage.
+
+"What do you mean by all this?  Who are you, anyway?" he exclaimed,
+sitting up in the snow.  Then he looked more closely at his brother,
+who was trying to say something, inarticulate, half laughing and half
+crying.
+
+"Fred!" he cried, in amazement.  "Is that you?  What on earth are you
+doing here?  Who's that with you?  Peter Macgregor--and Maurice Stark!"
+
+"We thought you might be dead!" Fred cried, and Peter and Maurice cut
+in alternately:--
+
+"Heard you were sick with smallpox--"
+
+"Came up to find you--"
+
+"Came in on skates, and--"
+
+"A gang of outlaws turned us out of the cabin--"
+
+"Found your diamonds."
+
+"I don't half understand it all," said Horace, "but I see that you
+fellows have acted like good friends.  We can't get in the cabin, you
+say?  Well, you've a camp somewhere, haven't you?"
+
+They started for the camp in the snow, and on the way Fred gave his
+brother a somewhat incoherent account of what had taken place.
+
+"You fellows certainly have acted like friends to me--like brothers,
+rather!" said Horace.  "I'll never forget it, boys!"
+
+And he shook hands with them all round.
+
+"Not a bit!" said Maurice, in embarrassment.  "We were hoping that
+you'd let us in on the ground floor of a diamond mine.  Fred says there
+was a whole bagful of diamonds that you had hidden in the cabin.  What
+do you suppose they're worth?"
+
+"If they're all diamonds, perhaps a hundred thousand dollars," replied
+Horace.
+
+"Gracious!" gasped Maurice, and said no more.
+
+But Fred's attention had been fixed on the pack that his brother
+carried.
+
+"What have you there, Horace?" he asked.
+
+"Grub.  Bacon, hardtack, tea, cold boiled beans.  Why, I never thought
+of it, but you must all be as hungry as wolves.  Well, there's enough
+for a square meal here, anyhow, and to-morrow we'll find some way of
+getting those rascals out of the camp."
+
+They built up the camp-fire, and Horace got out his provisions,
+together with a couple of partridges he had shot late that afternoon.
+But Macgregor, as medical adviser, refused to let them eat as much as
+they wanted.  A little tea and a few mouthfuls of meat were all he
+permitted them to have; he promised, however, that they should have a
+full meal in a couple of hours.  He took the same ration himself; but
+Horace ate heartily.
+
+"But where have you been since you left the cabin?" Fred asked.
+
+"At a lumber camp on the Abitibi, about forty miles from here," Horace
+replied.  "I've been convalescing."
+
+"If we'd only known that there was anything of the sort so near,"
+remarked Peter, "we'd have made for it ourselves."
+
+"I stumbled on it by chance.  However, I'd better explain in detail.
+As you seem to have heard, I came sick to this trappers' shack.  I'd
+been in an Indian camp a week before, on the Nottaway River, where they
+had had smallpox, but I've been vaccinated four or five times, and
+never dreamed of danger.  I didn't know what the matter with me was, in
+fact, till the red spots began to appear.
+
+"Of course the trappers were badly scared, especially after one of them
+caught the disease and died.  I can't tell you how sorry I was for that
+death.  I suppose I wasn't to blame, but I felt somehow responsible.
+
+"The Indian cleared out, and I couldn't blame him.  But I couldn't
+afford to let the third man go.  I was over the worst of it by that
+time, but I was as weak as a kitten, and could hardly feed myself.  If
+he'd deserted me I should have died.  I offered him any sum of money if
+he would stick to me, and told him that I'd shoot him if I saw any sign
+of his making off.
+
+"I couldn't have aimed straight enough to hit him at a yard just then,
+and I suppose he knew it.  Anyhow, he disappeared one morning before I
+was awake.  He didn't take much with him except his gun and ammunition.
+
+"I was gaining strength fast, and I was able to stagger about a little.
+I could get water, and there was some grub in the shack.  I knew that I
+must get out at once, lest snow should come.  I stayed four days; then
+I took what grub I could carry, my rifle and a dozen cartridges, and
+started.  I left all my specimens, notebooks and everything, for I
+didn't dare to carry an ounce more than I could help."
+
+"But the diamonds?  They didn't weigh many ounces," interrupted Maurice.
+
+"I struck for the Abitibi," went on Horace, paying no attention to the
+question, "and I was so weak that I couldn't make much speed.  I had
+been out five days, and my grub was pretty nearly gone, when I stumbled
+into the lumbermen.  They treated me like real Samaritans, took me in
+and fed me, and I've been there convalescing ever since.  Day before
+yesterday I started back here to get my things.  I had to travel
+slowly, for I'm not overstrong yet, and I was hurrying on to get to the
+cabin to-night when you pounced on me."
+
+"If you had only taken the diamonds with you!" Fred lamented.
+
+"I did," said Horace.  He looked at the boys with a smile, and then
+went on:--
+
+"Those stones, my boy, that you saw in the cabin aren't diamonds.  They
+are quartz crystals and rather curious garnets, worth a few dollars at
+the most.  Here are the diamonds!"
+
+He took a small leather pouch from an inner pocket; the boys jumped up
+in excitement to look.  From the pouch he took a small paper package,
+unfolded it, and revealed nine small lumps, which ranged in size from a
+small shot to a large pea.  They looked like lumps of gum arabic, but
+their edges and angles reflected brilliant sparks in the firelight.
+
+"Those little things?  Are they diamonds?" cried Fred, in some
+disappointment.
+
+"Little things?  Why, if they were all perfect stones, they'd be worth
+a small fortune.  Unfortunately, the biggest has a flaw in it that you
+can see even without cutting it, and some of the others are yellowish
+and off color.  It will take an expert to say what they 're worth.  But
+the great triumph is to have found diamonds up here at all."
+
+"Yes, and there must be more where these came from," said Maurice,
+brightening.  "If you've discovered the beds--"
+
+"I haven't, though," Horace returned.  "Three of these stones I bought
+from a camp of Ojibwas.  The rest I found in the gravel of the
+creek-beds, mostly along the Nottaway River, but none of them within a
+quarter of a mile of another.  Whenever I thought the gravel looked
+promising, I sifted some of it.  But I didn't find a trace of the blue
+soil that always forms the diamond-beds; if there are diamond-beds up
+here, they must be somewhere beyond the region that we have explored."
+
+"But they must be here somewhere," cried Peter, "and there must be more
+diamonds where you found those!  I'll certainly come up here next
+summer and try my own luck."
+
+"I've thought of doing so myself; that is, if this lot turns out to be
+any good.  But getting back to town is the present problem, and we've
+got to consider how to recapture the cabin and your outfit of supplies."
+
+"But not before we eat again," said Fred.
+
+Macgregor, who was as famished as any of them, consented, and they
+prepared such a banquet as the three castaways had not seen since they
+left the cabin.  It almost exhausted the supplies that Horace had
+brought, but it did them all a great deal of good.  With a new feeling
+of being able to grapple with the problem, they settled down to
+consider the question of war.
+
+"We might set fire to the cabin," Fred suggested, "and try to capture
+the fellows when they rush out."
+
+"Out of the question," declared Peter, "for, even if it worked, the
+provisions would be burned up.  I had thought of stopping up their
+chimney during the night.  The smoke would suffocate them in their
+sleep, and we could go in and drag them out insensible."
+
+"I am afraid it would waken them first," said Horace.  "We'd have them
+coming out with rifles.  Now I'd been thinking that if we only had some
+of your formaldehyde fumigator we could get them under control very
+easily."
+
+"So we could.  A can of that stuff let through the roof would put them
+into a dead stupor without waking them.  The only risk would be that of
+killing them all outright.  There was a can of it left, too, but it's
+in the cabin."
+
+"No, it isn't!" cried Fred.  "I put it outside in a hollow tree, so as
+not to have the stuff in the house.  I could get it in ten minutes."
+
+"Fred, you're a diamond yourself!" Peter exclaimed.  "If it's as you
+say, we'll have them out of that cabin in a jiffy."
+
+"Shall we try it to-night?" Maurice asked.
+
+"Why not?  It's nearly midnight, and they must be asleep," said Horace.
+"I've no fancy for spending another night and day shivering here in the
+snow.  Besides, we're out of grub."
+
+After some consultation, they put on their snowshoes and tramped off
+toward the cabin.  It was intensely cold, and very still and clear; a
+brilliant moon had come up over the pines.
+
+Fred easily found the hollow tree in which he had hidden the
+disinfectant, and came back with the apparatus.  There was an unopened
+tin of formaldehyde complete with its little lamp almost full of spirit.
+
+For some time they reconnoitered the cabin cautiously.  A faint glow
+shone through the skin window, but no sound either of man or dog could
+be heard within.
+
+It would not be possible to introduce the fumigator through the door or
+window, and if it were lowered down the chimney, the draft would carry
+the gas out again.  But Maurice recollected the hole he had patched in
+the roof; it could easily be opened again.  He volunteered to set the
+"smoker" going.
+
+This was really the most dangerous part of the undertaking, for a
+slight sound might bring out the ruffians, who would probably shoot
+without much hesitation.  Maurice took off his snowshoes, and carrying
+the fumigator, plunged through the drifts toward the cabin.
+
+Twenty yards away the party watched him from the thickets; Horace kept
+the door covered with his rifle.  The snow had drifted so deep that
+Maurice climbed easily to the roof, crawled up the slope on hands and
+knees, groped about, and began to scrape away the snow.
+
+A moment later, he drew out the deer-hide patch, peered down the hole,
+and then waved his hand reassuringly toward the woods.  He struck a
+match, lighted the spirit lamp, and then lowered the can cautiously by
+a string about a yard long.
+
+In another minute he was back with his friends.  "They're dead asleep,"
+he said, joyfully.  "I could hear them snore.  The formaldehyde began
+to smell strong before I let it down.  How long shall we leave it?"
+
+"We don't want to kill them," said Horace.
+
+"No danger," Peter remarked.  "The draft from the big chimney will keep
+clearing the air.  I'd leave it till all the stuff is vaporized--say, a
+couple of hours.  The only thing I dread is that some one may wake up;
+but then, he wouldn't know what the smell was, and the spirit flame is
+so pale that it's almost invisible."
+
+They watched the cabin intently.  All remained deathly quiet.  It was
+very cold as they crouched there in the snow.  Horace kept his rifle
+ready, but finally his vigilance slackened.  They walked about to keep
+from freezing, talked in whispers, and still watched the silent hut.
+
+Suddenly Horace clutched Fred's arm.
+
+"Look!" he cried.  "The cabin's on fire!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A thin stream of smoke was rising from the hole in the roof of the
+cabin.  From the chimney volumes of vapor had suddenly begun to pour
+out into the moonlight.  The dim glow at the window now and then flared
+up brightly.
+
+"That spirit lamp must have set fire to something.  Those men will be
+burned to death.  Come, we must try to get them out!" Horace cried.
+
+They rushed together to the cabin door.  It was barricaded on the
+inside; they battered it with kicks and blows for a good half-minute,
+and at last it yielded.
+
+A gush of smoke and suffocating fumes burst out into their faces, and
+the boys staggered back.  The inside of the cabin appeared to be all in
+flames, but it was so obscured by smoke that they could see nothing
+clearly.
+
+With the opening of the door the fire seemed to burn more fiercely.  It
+seemed impossible that anything could be alive in that place; but Fred
+shut his eyes and dashed blindly in.
+
+He stumbled over the body of a dog, and kicked it outside the door.
+Choking with the smoke and the formaldehyde fumes, he took another
+step, and his foot struck something soft; it was the body of a man.
+
+Fred stooped and tried to pick the body up by the shoulders.  Suddenly
+through the smoke Peter appeared at his side, and helped him; together
+they got the man out and laid him down on the snow.  He was one of the
+French Canadians, apparently lifeless.
+
+"Is he dead?" gasped Fred to Macgregor, who bent over the prostrate
+form.
+
+The medical student peered under the man's eyelids, and felt his wrist.
+"No," he said, "he'll come round all right in the fresh air.  It's the
+smoke more than the gas."
+
+Horace came out at that moment, dragging Mitchell's limp body.  The
+red-bearded ruffian was alive, but unconscious; the boys placed him on
+the snow beside his companion.  Then all four of them rushed into the
+cabin together, and succeeded in getting out the remaining two French
+Canadians.
+
+"Now the dogs!  We must get them out!" cried Peter.  That was not hard
+to do, for the animals were lying close to the door.
+
+The strong draft from the door to the chimney had by this time cleared
+the atmosphere a good deal, and the boys saw that the fire was burning
+chiefly among the couches of balsam boughs.  The spirit lamp must have
+scorched through the cord by which it hung, and dropped into a heap of
+dry twigs.
+
+The boys had no means of putting the fire out; the immediate need was
+to rescue the provisions.  They rushed in again, and each dragged out
+an armful of supplies.  They took a breath of fresh air, and then
+hastened in again.  Fred was reaching for a slab of bacon, when
+suddenly something exploded almost under his hand.
+
+He jumped back, almost fancying he had been shot at.  _Crack! crack!
+bang!_ went several other reports in quick succession, and this time he
+realized what it must be.
+
+"Run!  The ammunition's going off!" he shouted, and rushed for the
+open; as he ran, however, he caught up the piece of bacon.
+
+Some of the rifle cartridges were exploding, one by one, and then two
+or three together, and suddenly, with a tremendous bang, a whole box
+seemed to go off.
+
+Then the firing ceased, and after a short interval, the boys set to
+work again to get out more provisions.  The cabin was stifling now from
+powder smoke, but they got what they could lay their hands on--a bag of
+flour, a quantity of canned stuff, a kettle, a rifle; soon a great heap
+of rescued supplies lay on the snow outside.
+
+The flames, unable to ignite the solid logs of the cabin, were now
+dying; evidently they would soon burn themselves out.
+
+Mitchell at this moment gave signs of returning life.  He opened his
+eyes, stirred, and began to cough violently.  They placed him in a more
+comfortable position, and at the same time took the precaution of tying
+his wrists and ankles securely with strips of deer-hide.  The man
+seemed dazed; he looked at the boys in amazement, and did not utter a
+word.
+
+Two of the French Canadians were also reviving, and the boys tied them
+up in the same way.  The fourth was in bad shape, and it took vigorous
+rubbing to restore him to consciousness: if he had been neglected a
+little longer he might have died.
+
+They laid the captives out in a row on a pile of hemlock branches, and
+lighted a roaring fire to keep them from freezing.  Horace then went
+through Mitchell's pockets, and recovered the sack of stones that Fred
+had seen.  He poured the glittering crystals into his hand, while
+Mitchell looked on in black disappointment.
+
+"My friend," said Horace, "you've taken a vast amount of trouble,
+risked committing murder, and almost lost your own life for these
+pebbles.  Here, I'll give them to you."  He poured the crystals back
+into the pouch, and then flung the sack into the man's lap.
+
+[Illustration: FLUNG THE SACK INTO THE MAN'S LAP]
+
+The outlaw looked utterly bewildered.
+
+"Ain't them diamonds?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Fool's diamonds," Horace replied.  "Maybe you can get five dollars for
+the lot.  If they were real diamonds, you might be a millionaire now."
+
+Mitchell was evidently convinced, for he swore bitterly.
+
+"I'm curious to know," Horace said, "how you came to hear that you
+might expect to find diamonds hereabouts?"
+
+"One of these breeds," said Mitchell sullenly, "got it from a brother
+of his down by Hickson that a prospector had died here with a pocketful
+of shiny stones that he'd picked up.  I've prospected some myself.  I
+thought what these stones likely was, and I got together this crowd,
+and--"
+
+"We know the rest," said Peter.  "You came on the same false scent that
+we did."  Then he turned to Horace, and whispered, "What in the world
+are we going to do with these fellows?"
+
+Horace wrinkled his brows in perplexity, and shook his head.  "I don't
+know," he said.
+
+But whatever they did, they must first of all sleep.  The fire in the
+cabin had indeed burned out, but the place was so charred and smoky as
+to be uninhabitable; so they built a huge camp-fire of logs on the
+snow.  Here they all passed the night,--there was not much left of
+it,--and Peter, Fred, and Maurice took turns in staying awake in order
+to watch the prisoners.
+
+The next morning the boys prepared a great breakfast from the
+recaptured provisions.  They released the right hands of the captives,
+to enable them to eat; the men showed no hostile spirit.  Mitchell only
+was sullen, as usual; the three French Canadians chattered gayly; they
+had quite recovered from their suffocation.  Four of the dogs were
+lively, too; but one was dead.
+
+After breakfast the boys inspected the cabin, and carried out the rest
+of the supplies.  Most of these were badly damaged.  All the blankets
+had been destroyed; the rifles were charred about the stocks, but could
+still be used; the kettles and tinware were not much injured; but the
+boys found only one box of cartridges that had not exploded.
+Mitchell's dog harness was burned to pieces.  Both the sledges had been
+left outdoors, and were unhurt.
+
+As they looked over the outfit, the boys discussed their plans.  They
+agreed that they should start for home at once.  They were all anxious
+to have the diamonds appraised, and there was not the slightest reason
+for remaining.  But the question what to do with the prisoners
+perplexed them.  They could not take them along, could not leave them
+bound, and did not dare to set them free and restore their weapons.
+
+Finally, however, the boys found a way out of the difficulty.  They
+divided the provisions and ammunition into two equal parts, and loaded
+their toboggan with one of them.  Peter then cut the four men loose.
+
+"We'll treat you better than you did us," he said.  "We're leaving you
+half the grub, and there are some old deerskins here from which you can
+make a new dog harness.  We'll carry your snowshoes with us for two
+miles down the river, and leave them there.  We'll carry your rifles
+three miles farther, and leave them in a conspicuous place, too."
+
+Then the boys set out on their homeward journey.  One of the Frenchmen
+immediately started after them in order to pick up the snowshoes and
+the rifles, but the boys soon left him far behind.  They saw no more of
+any of the outlaw gang, although, for fear of an attack, they kept
+watch for the next two nights in camp.
+
+None of the boys were in condition for fast travel, and the question of
+supplies was a serious one.  Horace thought it best to make straight
+for the lumber camp where he had been so kindly received, and they
+reached it on the third day.  Here they spent a couple of days in rest
+and recuperation, and were lucky enough to be able to buy enough beans,
+flour, and bacon to last them to the railway.  Again they set off, and,
+after four days of hard tramping in bitter cold weather, they heard the
+whistle of a train, faint and far away through the trees.
+
+They all yelled with joy.  It was like a voice from home.  They began
+to run, and in a short time they came to iron rails running north and
+south through the snowy forest.  Following up the line, they found
+themselves at Ringwood, three stations north of Waverley, where they
+had gone in.
+
+The next train took them down to that point, and they went back to the
+hotel, recovered their suit-cases, and put on town clothes again.  It
+seemed a long time since they had passed that way before, and collars
+and cuffs were hard to wear.  A great many curious eyes followed them
+about the little hotel.
+
+"Find any gold?" the landlord asked them, in an offhand manner.
+
+"No," said Maurice.  If he had inquired about diamonds, the boys would
+have been puzzled what to say.
+
+For the last time they packed their dunnage sacks on the battered
+toboggan, and shipped it to the city.  They traveled on the same train
+themselves, and were in Toronto the next morning.
+
+The boys parted with hearty farewells--Maurice going home, Macgregor to
+his rooms, and Horace accompanying Fred to his boarding-house, where he
+intended to find quarters for himself.
+
+"And now for the great question!" said Horace, when they were once
+indoors.  "Are the diamonds worth anything, or are they not?  I can't
+think of anything else till I find out."
+
+"Why, I thought you were sure--" began Fred.
+
+"So I am--in a general sort of way.  But I'm not a diamond expert, and
+I may be deceived.  It's just possible that the things may not be real
+diamonds at all.
+
+"But don't worry," he added, seeing his brother's startled face.  "I'm
+pretty sure they 're all right.  But I'm going to take them at once to
+Wilson & Keith's and get them appraised.  They're the best diamond firm
+in the city, and they'll treat me honestly."
+
+Horace dressed himself very carefully, took his little sack of jewels,
+and departed.  He was gone fully three hours, and Fred waited in almost
+sickening impatience.  At last he heard Horace's step on the stairs,
+and rushed out to meet him.
+
+"What luck?" he cried eagerly.
+
+"S-sh!" said Horace, drawing him back into the room.  "It's all right.
+They're diamonds!"
+
+"Hurrah!" Fred shouted wildly.
+
+"They were awfully keen to know where I got them, but of course I
+wouldn't tell, except that it was in Ontario.  They would have bought
+the lot, I think, but I wasn't anxious to sell at once.  They wanted me
+to make a price, and I wanted them to make an offer, and both of us
+were afraid, I guess.  However, they're going to take care of the
+stones for me and think it over."
+
+"We must tell the other boys!" exclaimed Fred.  "Can you make the
+slightest guess at what the stones are worth?"
+
+"Hardly--at present.  Maybe a thousand or two.  Three of them are too
+small to be of any use at all, too small to be cut.  The biggest has a
+bad flaw in it; it could be used only for cutting up into what they
+call 'commercial diamonds,' for watch-movements, and such things.  Yes,
+give Peter and Maurice the news, certainly, but do it by word of mouth.
+Don't 'phone them.  You don't know who may be listening.
+
+"And be sure to warn them to keep the whole affair the closest kind of
+secret.  Wilson & Keith are going to exhibit the stones in their show
+window, and you've no idea what an excitement will be stirred up.
+We'll all be watched.  People will try in every possible way to find
+out where we got them.  The newspapers will be after the story, and
+there'll be all kinds of underhand tricks to trap us into letting out
+something.  Not that it would do much good, for none of you know enough
+to be dangerous, but we don't want a dozen parties going up the
+Nottaway River next spring.  We 're going there ourselves."
+
+Fred promised secrecy, and presently found that his brother had hardly
+exaggerated the sensation caused by the little pile of dull stones on a
+square of black velvet in the jeweler's window, labeled "Canadian
+Diamonds."  The newspapers were unremitting; Horace gave them a brief
+and circumspect interview, and thenceforth refused to add another word
+to his statement.  He was besieged with inquiries.  He had all sorts of
+proposals made to him by miners and mining firms.  One group of
+capitalists made him an offer that he thought good enough to consider
+for a day, but he ultimately rejected it.
+
+Fred had his share of glory too, as the brother of the diamond finder.
+It leaked out that Maurice and Peter had also been on the expedition,
+and they were so pestered with inquiries and interviewers that it
+seriously interfered with their collegiate work.  But by degrees the
+excitement wore off, for lack of anything further to feed upon.  The
+diamonds were withdrawn from exhibition, and the jewelers at last made
+up their minds to offer Horace seven hundred dollars for the lot.
+
+It was rather a disappointing figure.  Horace took his diamonds to
+Montreal and submitted them to two jewel experts there, who advised him
+that they were probably worth little more, in their uncut form.  The
+cutting of them might develop flaws, or it might bring out unexpected
+luster; it was taking a chance.
+
+Returning to Toronto, he announced that he would take eight hundred and
+no less; and after some arguing Wilson & Keith consented to pay that
+price.  The boys had a grand dinner at a downtown restaurant that night
+to celebrate it.  It was far from the fortune they had hoped to gain,
+but they still had great hopes of discovering that fortune.
+
+"It's more than enough to cover the expenses of your trip into the
+woods this winter, and our next trip in the spring, too," said Horace,
+"for of course this eight hundred is going to be divided equally
+between us."
+
+
+
+
+"Not a bit of it!" protested Mac.  "You found the stones.  They're
+yours.  We won't take a cent of it, will we, Maurice?"
+
+"I should think not!" Maurice exclaimed.
+
+Horace tried to insist, but the two boys stood firm.  At last he
+persuaded them to agree that the expenses of the expedition should be
+defrayed out of the diamond money.  As for their coming trip next
+season, the matter was left to be settled later.
+
+There was plenty of time to think of it, for it would be months before
+the woods would be open for prospecting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Nearly the whole winter was before them, but it was none too long a
+time to consider their plans.  Horace had found diamonds, it is true,
+but they had been found miles apart, one at a time, in the river
+gravel.  This is not the natural home of diamonds, which are always
+found native to the peculiar formation known in South Africa as "blue
+clay."  Nobody had ever found a trace of blue clay in Ontario, yet
+Horace felt certain that the blue-clay beds must exist.  They were the
+only thing worth looking for.  To poke over the river gravel in hopes
+of finding a chance stone would be sheer waste of time.  Hundreds of
+men had done it without lighting on a single diamond.
+
+Horace was a trained geologist, and that winter he spent much time in
+study, without saying a word even to Fred as to what he was meditating.
+He pored over geological surveys, and went to Ottawa to consult the
+departmental maps at the Legislative Library.  By slow degrees he was
+working out a theory, and at last, one February evening, he came into
+his brother's room.
+
+"Just look at this, Fred, and see what you think of it," he remarked
+casually.
+
+It was a large pen-and-ink map, skillfully drawn, for Horace was a
+practiced map-maker.
+
+"It's the country of the Abitibi and Missanabie Rivers," Horace
+explained.  "These red crosses show where I found my diamonds--see, in
+the Whitefish River, the Smoke River, and another river that hasn't any
+name, so far as I know.  Right here is the trappers' cabin where you
+boys found me.  My bones might have been up there now but for you, old
+boy!"
+
+And he thumped Fred's back affectionately.
+
+"If you hadn't come along when you did I'm pretty certain our bones
+would be there, anyway," said Fred.
+
+"Well, let's hope we all saved one another.  But see, most of these
+diamonds were found many miles apart.  They didn't grow where I found
+them.  They must have been washed down, perhaps from the very
+headwaters of the river.  Now look at the map.  Do you see, all these
+three rivers rise in pretty much the same region."
+
+"So they do," said Fred, his eyes fixed on the paper.  "Then you
+think--"
+
+"The stones were probably all washed down from that region.  The
+blue-clay beds, the diamond field, must be up there, somewhere within
+this black circle I've drawn."
+
+Fred's heart began to throb with excitement.
+
+"But some prospector would have hit on them before now," he said.
+
+"I doubt if any prospector has ever gone in there.  They say it's one
+of the roughest bits of country in the North, and no mineral strikes
+have ever been made in that region.  I've never been up there myself.
+It's up in the hills, you see; the rivers are too broken for a canoe,
+and the ground is too rough to get over on foot, except in the winter.
+The Ojibwas hunt there in the winter, they say, and I dare say there's
+plenty of game."
+
+"But if it's so rough to get into, how can we travel?"
+
+"Oh, often those bad places are not so bad when you get there.  I'd
+like to see the place I couldn't get into if there were diamonds there!
+We'll get into it somehow, for the diamond-beds must surely be there if
+they're anywhere.  But there's no doubt it'll be a rough trip."
+
+"Rough?  What of that?" cried Fred.  "If your theory is right we'll
+make our fortunes--millions, maybe!  Of course you'll let me go, won't
+you?  And Maurice, and Mac?"
+
+"I couldn't manage without you.  But mind, not a word to anybody else!"
+
+They telephoned the other boys that day, and in the evening a meeting
+was held in Fred's room, like the previous time when the first
+expedition had been so hurriedly planned.  But this was to be a
+different affair, carefully thought out and equipped for all sorts of
+possibilities.
+
+"Of course you'll both be able to go?" said Fred.
+
+"I certainly will," answered Peter.  "I've lost so much time this
+winter already, with our other trip, and then having my mind on the
+diamonds and dodging newspaper reporters and things, that I've got
+hopelessly behind.  My laboratory work especially has gone all to
+pieces.  I'm bound to fail on next summer's exams, anyway, so I'm going
+to let it slide and make the trip, on the chance that I'll make such a
+fortune that I won't have to practice medicine for a living at all.
+How about you, Maurice?"
+
+"I wouldn't miss it for anything--if I could help it," Maurice replied.
+"I don't know, though, whether I can afford it."
+
+Maurice's parents were not in rich circumstances, and Horace hastened
+to say--
+
+"I'm paying for this expedition, you know, out of the diamond money.
+There'll be plenty, and some to spare."
+
+"Well, it isn't exactly the cost," said Maurice, "but my father is
+awfully anxious for me to make an honor pass next summer.  I couldn't
+afford to fail, and have to take another year at the work.  I don't
+know, though,--I'll see.  I'd be awfully disappointed if I had to stay
+out of it."
+
+Under the circumstances they could not urge him to say more.  As for
+Horace and Fred, they had very few family ties.  Their closest
+relatives were an aunt and uncle in Montreal.  The trip was quite in
+the line of Horace's profession, and Fred did not mind resigning the
+post he held in the real estate office.  The firm was shaky; it was not
+likely to continue in business much longer, and he would be likely to
+have to look for another position soon in any event.  As they had
+feared, Maurice was obliged to announce his inability to go with them.
+His professors thought that an absence of two months would be a
+handicap that he could never make up.  In the eyes of his parents the
+expedition was no more than a hare-brained expedition into the woods,
+that would cost a whole year of collegiate work.  To his bitter
+disappointment, he had to give it up.
+
+Fred and Macgregor at once began to train as if for an athletic
+contest.  They took long cross-country runs in the snow and worked hard
+in the gymnasium.  They introduced a new form of exercise that made
+their friends stare.  They appeared on the indoor running track bent
+almost double; each carried on his back a sack of sawdust, held in
+place by a broad leather band that passed over the top of his forehead.
+Thus burdened they jogged round the track at a fast walk.
+
+They were the butt of many jokes before the other men at the gymnasium
+discovered the reason for this queer form of exercise.  It had been
+Horace's idea.  He knew that there would be long portages where they
+would have to carry the supplies with a tumpline; and he also knew that
+nothing is so wearing on a novice.
+
+Fred and Peter found it so.  Strong as they were, they discovered that
+it brought a new set of muscles into play, and they had trouble in
+staggering over a mile with a fifty-pound pack; but they kept at it,
+and before the expedition started, Fred could travel five miles with a
+hundred pounds, and big Macgregor could do even better.
+
+As soon as the ice on Toronto Bay broke up, they bought a large
+Peterboro canoe, which Horace inspected thoroughly.  He was a skilled
+canoeman; Fred and Peter could also handle a paddle.  When the ice went
+out of the Don and Humber Rivers, the boys began to practice canoeing
+assiduously.  The streams were running yellow and flooded, and they got
+more than one ducking, but it was all good training.
+
+They decided to start as soon as the Northern rivers were navigable,
+for at that early season they would escape the worst of the black-fly
+pest, and the smaller streams would be more easily traveled than when
+shallow in midsummer.  Besides, they all felt anxious to get on the
+ground at once.  But although the streams were free in Toronto, in the
+Far North winter held them locked.  It was hard to wait; but not until
+May did Horace think it safe to start.
+
+Since Maurice was not going, the boys decided to take only one canoe.
+It was impossible to say how long they might be gone, but Horace made
+out a list of supplies for six weeks.  It was rather a formidable list,
+and the outfit would be heavy to transport.  They carried a tent and
+mosquito-bar, and a light spade and pick for prospecting the blue clay,
+besides Horace's own regular outfit for mineralogical testing work.
+For weapons they decided upon a 44-caliber repeating rifle and a
+shotgun, with assorted loads of shells.  It was not the season for
+hunting, but they wished to live on the country as far as possible to
+save their flour and pork.  Fish should be abundant, however, and they
+took a steel rod with a varied stock of artificial flies and
+minnow-baits.
+
+It was warm weather, almost summery, when they took the northbound
+express in Toronto; but when Fred opened the car window the next
+morning, a biting cold air rushed in.  Rough spruce woods lined the
+track, and here and there he saw patches of snow.
+
+It was almost noon when they got off at the station that was a favorite
+starting-point for prospectors.  Here they had to spend two days, for
+Horace wished to engage Indian packers to help them portage over the
+Height of Land.  As it was early in the season, they had their pick of
+men, and obtained three French half-breeds, who furnished their own
+canoe and supplies.
+
+The boys' canoe and duffel sacks had come up by freight.  All was ready
+at last.  The next morning they put the canoes into the water; the
+paddles dipped, and the half-dozen houses of the village dropped out of
+sight behind the pines.
+
+The first week of that voyage was uneventful, except for hard work and
+considerable discomfort.  It rained four days in the seven, and once it
+snowed a little.  They were going upstream always, against a rushing
+current swollen with snow water.  Sometimes they could paddle, more
+often they had to pole, and frequently they were forced either to
+carry, or else to wade and "track" the canoes up the current.  The
+nearer they came to the head of the river, the swifter and more broken
+the stream became.  At last they could go no farther in the canoes.
+Then came the long portage.  In order to reach the head of the
+Missanabie River, which flowed in the opposite direction, they had to
+carry the canoe and over six hundred pounds of outfit for about twelve
+miles, across the Height of Land.
+
+Here they camped for one night.  At daylight next morning they started
+over the long portage, heavily burdened, and before the first hour had
+passed they were thankful that they had brought along the half-breed
+packers, who strode along sturdily under a load that made Fred stare.
+It is only fair to say, though, that the half-breeds were almost
+equally surprised at the performance of the boys, for their previous
+experience with city campers had not led them to expect anything in the
+way of weight-carrying.  Thanks to their gymnasium practice, however,
+Fred and Macgregor were able to travel under a sixty-pound load without
+actually collapsing.
+
+The trail was rough and wound up and down over rocky ridges, through
+tangles of swamp-alder and tamarack, but continually zigzagged up
+toward the hills.  It was a chilly day; the streams had been rimmed
+with ice that morning, but after a few miles the boys were dripping
+with perspiration.
+
+That was a killing march.  If it had not been for their weeks of hard
+training the boys could never have stood up under it, and they had all
+they could do to reach the topmost ridge of the Height of Land by the
+middle of the afternoon.
+
+Fred slipped the tumpline from his head, slung the sixty-pound pack on
+the ground, and sat down heavily on the pack.
+
+"That part's over, anyway!" he gasped.
+
+"There won't be anything much rougher, old boy," replied Horace, as he
+came up and threw off his own burden.
+
+Staggering through the underbrush, slipping on the wet, mossy stones of
+the slope, came a queer procession.  In front was a bronze-faced
+half-breed, bent double, with the broad tump-line over the top of his
+head, and a mountainous pack of blankets and food supplies on his back.
+Behind him came two more half-breeds, each with a heavy pack of camp
+outfit.  Macgregor brought up the rear; he carried a Peterboro canoe
+upside down on his shoulders, and steadied it with his hands.
+
+They all sat down on the top of the hill to rest.  The three white
+boys, although trained athletes, were pretty well at the end of their
+strength; but the half-breeds seemed little the worse for their labor.
+
+They were on the top of the Height of Land, which divides the flow of
+the rivers between the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay.  Behind them was the
+long, undulating line of hills and valleys they had just crossed.
+
+Before them the land fell away sharply.  In the clear May sunshine they
+could see for miles over the tree-tops until the dark green of the
+spruce and tamarack faded to a hazy blue.  A great ridge showed a split
+face of gray granite; in the distance a lake glimmered.
+
+About two miles away to the northwest a yellowish-green strip showed
+here and there through the trees.  It was a river--one of the
+tributaries of the Missanabie, which was to take them North.
+
+The descent on the other side of the ridge was almost as hard as the
+ascent had been.  The northern slope was wet and rocky; in the hollows
+were deep banks of snow.  The rocks were loosened by the frost, which
+made the footing dangerous.  But it was only two miles now to the
+river, and they reached it in time to camp before dusk.  The next
+morning they paid off the half-breeds, who returned over the ridges
+southward.  The boys were left alone; the real expedition had begun.
+
+The work now looked easy, but dangerous.  The river was narrow,
+swollen; its tremendous current, roaring over rocks and rapids, would
+carry them along at a rapid pace.  They would have to do some careful
+steering, however, if they did not wish to upset.
+
+As the most skillful canoeman, Horace took the stern; Macgregor sat in
+the bow, and Fred in the middle behind a huge pile of dunnage.
+
+For a quarter of a mile they shot down the river; then they had to land
+and make a fifty-yard carry.  Another swift run in the canoe followed,
+and then another and longer portage.
+
+It was like that for about fifteen miles.  Then they caught sight of
+wider water ahead, and the little river poured into a great, brown,
+swift-flowing stream a hundred yards wide.  It was the Missanabie.
+
+During the rest of that day they ran over forty miles.  The current
+carried them fast, and the river was so big and deep that it was seldom
+broken by dangerous rapids.
+
+The country grew lower and less hilly; it was covered with a rather
+stunted growth of spruce, tamarack, and birch.  Ducks splashed up from
+the water as the canoe came in sight; and when the boys stopped to make
+camp for the night they found at the river's edge the tracks of a moose.
+
+It was wintry cold in camp that night, and there was ice in the pools
+the next morning.  Shortly after sunrise the boys launched the canoe
+again, and it was not much more than an hour later when a sound of
+roaring water began to grow loud in their ears.  With vast commotion
+and foam a smaller stream swept into the Missanabie from the southwest.
+
+"Hurrah!  I've been here before!" cried Horace.  "It's the Smoke River.
+Up here real work begins."
+
+"And up here," Peter said, gazing at the wild, swift stream, "is the
+diamond country."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+The mouth of the Smoke River was so rough that the boys could not enter
+it in the canoe; and the dense growth of birch and willow along the
+shores would make portaging difficult.
+
+"We'll have to track the canoe up," Horace decided.
+
+They got out the "tracking-line"--a long, stout, half-inch rope--and
+attached one end of it to the bow of the canoe.  Peter Macgregor
+harnessed himself to the other end, and started up the narrow, rocky
+strip of shore; Horace waded beside the canoe in order to fend her off
+the boulders.  Fred, carrying the fire-arms and a few other articles
+that a wetting would have ruined, scrambled through the thickets.
+
+The water was icy cold, but it was never more than hip-deep.
+Fortunately, the very broken stretch of the river was only a hundred
+yards long; after that, they were able to pole for a mile or so, and
+once indeed, the stream broadened so much that they could use the
+paddles.  Then came a precipitous cascade, then a difficult carry, and
+then another stretch of poling.
+
+They had gone about five miles up the river when Horace, who had been
+watching the shores carefully, pointed to a tree and gave a shout.  It
+was a large spruce, on the trunk of which was a blazed mark that looked
+less than a year old.
+
+"It's my mark," said Horace.  "I made it last August.  Right here I
+found one of the diamonds."
+
+"We must stop and do some prospecting!" cried Fred.
+
+"No use," replied his brother.  "I prospected all round here myself,
+and for a mile or so up the river.  I didn't go any farther, but I've a
+notion that we'll have to go nearly to the head of the river to find
+the country we want."
+
+On they went, shoving the canoe against the current with the iron-shod
+canoe poles.  They had all been looking up the kind of soil in which
+diamonds are usually found, and now they closely observed the eroded
+banks on both sides of the river.  According to Horace's theory, the
+river, or one of its tributary streams, must cut through the
+diamond-beds of blue clay.  But as yet the shores showed nothing except
+ordinary sand and gravel.
+
+Two miles farther the river broadened into a long, narrow lake,
+surrounded by low spruce-clad hills and edged with sprouting lily-pads.
+It was a great relief to the boys to be able to paddle, and they dashed
+rapidly to the head of the lake.  There, rapids and a long carry
+confronted them!  They had made little more than fifteen miles that day
+when finally they went into camp; they were almost too tired to cook
+supper.  And they knew that that day's work was only a foretaste of
+what was coming, for from now on they would be continually "bucking the
+rapids."
+
+The next day they found rapids in plenty, indeed.  They seemed to come
+on an average of a quarter of a mile apart, and sometimes two or three
+in such close succession that it was scarcely worth while to launch the
+canoe again after the first portage.  It was slow, toilsome work; they
+grew very tired as the afternoon wore on, and shortly before sunset
+they came to one of the worst spots they had yet encountered.
+
+It was a pair of rapids, less than a hundred yards apart.  Over the
+first one the water rushed among a medley of irregular boulders, and
+then, after some ten rods of smooth, swift current, poured down a
+cataract of several feet.  Huge black rocks, split and tumbled, broke
+up the cataract, and the hoarse roar filled the pine woods with sound.
+
+"I move we camp!" said Fred, eyeing this obstacle with disgust.
+
+"Let's get over the carry first and camp at the top," Peter urged.
+"Then we'll have a clear start for morning."
+
+Fred grumbled that they would certainly be fresher in the morning than
+they were then, but they unpacked the canoe, and began to carry the
+outfit around the broken water, as they had done so many times that
+day.  Once at the head of the upper rapid Horace began to get out the
+cooking-utensils.
+
+"I'll start supper," he said.  "You fellows might see if you can't land
+a few trout.  There ought to be big fellows between these two cascades."
+
+It did look a good place for trout, and Mac had an appetite for fishing
+that no fatigue could stifle.  He took the steel fly-rod, and walked a
+little way down the stream past the upper rapid.  Fred cut a long,
+slender pole, tied a line to it and prepared to fish in a less
+scientific fashion.  As his rod and line were considerably shorter than
+Mac's, he got into the canoe, put a loop of the tracking-rope around a
+rock, and let himself drift for the length of the rope, nearly to the
+edge of the rough water.  Hung in this rather precarious position, he
+was able to throw his hook into the foamy water just at the foot of the
+fall, and had a bite almost instantly, throwing out a good half-pound
+fish whose orange spots glittered in the sunlight.
+
+Peter meanwhile was fishing from the shore lower down.  The thickets
+were farther back from the water than usual, and he had plenty of room
+for the back cast.  He was kept busy from the first, and when he had
+time to glance up Fred seemed to be having equally good luck.
+
+But at one of these hurried glances his eye caught something that
+appalled him.  The looped rope that held the straining canoe seemed to
+be in danger of slipping from its hold on the rock.
+
+He shouted, but the roar of the water drowned his voice.  He started up
+the bank, shouting and gesticulating, but Fred was busy with a fish and
+did not hear or see.  Horace was cutting wood at a distance.  And at
+that moment the rope slipped free.  The canoe shot forward, and before
+Fred could even drop his rod he was whirled broadside on into the rapid.
+
+Instantly the canoe capsized.  Fred went out of sight in the foam and
+water, and then Macgregor saw him floating down on the current below
+the rapid.  He was on his back, with his face just above water, and he
+did not move a limb.
+
+Mac yelled at him, but got no answer.  Fred had not been under long
+enough to be drowned.  He had evidently been stunned by striking his
+head against a rock.
+
+Then Mac realized the boy's new and greater danger.  Fred was drifting
+rapidly head first toward the second cataract, and no one could dive
+over that fall and live.  The rocks at the bottom would brain the
+strongest swimmer.
+
+Mac instinctively dropped his rod and rushed into the water.  The
+strength of the swirling current almost swept him off his feet.  It was
+too deep to wade, and he was not a good swimmer.  He could never reach
+Fred in time.  They would go over the fall together.
+
+Fred was more than thirty feet from shore.  Mac thought of a long pole,
+and splashed madly ashore again.  He caught sight of his fishing-rod,
+with its hundred yards of strong silk line on the reel.
+
+Fred was now about twenty yards above the cascade when Mac ran into the
+river again, rod in hand, as far as he dared to wade.  He measured the
+distance with his eye, reeled out the line, waving the rod in the air,
+and then, with a turn of his wrist, the delicate rod shot the pair of
+flies across the water.
+
+Mac was an expert fly-caster.  The difficulty was not in the length of
+the cast; it was to hook the flies in Fred's clothing.  They fell a
+yard beyond the boy's body.  Mac drew them in.  The hooks seemed to
+catch for an instant on his chest, but came free at the first tug.
+
+Desperately Mac swished the flies out of the water for another cast.
+He saw that he would have time to throw but this once more, for Fred
+was terribly near the cataract, and moving faster as the pull of the
+current quickened.  Mac waded a little farther into the stream, leaning
+against the current to keep his balance.
+
+The line whirled again, and shot out, and again the gut fell across
+Fred's shoulders with the flies on the other side.  With the greatest
+care Mac drew in the line.  The first fly dragged over the body as
+before.  The other caught, broke loose, and caught again in Fred's coat
+near the collar, and then the steel rod bent with the sudden strain of
+a hundred and fifty pounds drawn down by the strong current.
+
+Mac knew that the rod was almost unbreakable, but he feared for his
+line.  The current pulled so hard that he dared not exert much force.
+Fred's body swung round with his head upstream, his feet toward the
+cataract, and the current split and ripped in spray over his head.
+
+The lithe steel rod bent hoop-like.  There was a struggle for a moment,
+a deadlock between the stream and the line, and Mac feared that he
+could not hold it.  The light tackle would never stand the strain.
+
+Mac had fought big fishes before, however, and he knew how to get the
+most out of his tackle.  With the check on the reel he let out line
+inch by inch to ease the resistance; and meanwhile he endeavored to
+swing Fred across the current and nearer the shore.
+
+As he stood with every nerve and muscle strained on the fight he
+suddenly saw Horace out of the corner of his eye.  Horace was beside
+him, coat and shoes off, with a long hooked pole in his hands, gazing
+with compressed lips at his brother's floating body.
+
+There was not a word exchanged.  Under the steady pull Fred came over
+in an arc of a circle, but for every foot that was gained Mac had to
+let out more line.  His legs were swinging already within a few yards
+of the dangerous verge, but he was getting out of the center of the
+stream, and the current was already less violent.
+
+Inch by inch and foot by foot he came nearer, and all at once Horace
+rushed forward, nearly shoulder-deep, and hooked the pole over his
+brother's arm.  At the jerk the gut casting-line snapped with a crack,
+and the end flew back like a whip into Peter's face.  But Horace had
+drawn Fred within reach, had gripped him, and waded ashore carrying him
+in his arms.
+
+"I'll never forget this of you, Mac!" he ejaculated as he passed the
+medical student.
+
+Fred had already come half to himself when they laid him on the bank.
+He had not swallowed much water, but had been merely knocked senseless
+by concussion with a boulder.
+
+"What's--matter?" he muttered faintly, opening his eyes.
+
+"Keep quiet.  You fell in the river.  Mac fished you out," said Horace.
+
+Fred blinked about vaguely, half-attempted to rise and fell back.
+
+"Gracious!  What a head I've got!" he muttered dizzily.
+
+They carried him up to the camp, put him on the blankets and examined
+his cranium.  The back of his neck was skinned, there was a bleeding
+cut on the top of his head and a big bruise on the back, but Mac
+pronounced none of these injuries at all serious.  While they were
+examining him Fred opened his eyes again.
+
+"Fished me out, Mac?  Guess you saved my life," he murmured.
+
+"That's all right, old fellow," replied Peter; and then he gave a
+sudden start.
+
+"The canoe!"
+
+In the excitement over Fred's rescue they had entirely forgotten it.
+It had drifted downstream.  If lost or destroyed they would be left
+stranded in the wilderness--almost as hopelessly as castaways at sea.
+
+Without another word Mac began to run at full speed down the bank in
+the deepening twilight.  If the canoe had drifted right down the
+stream, he might never have overtaken it, but luckily he came upon it
+within a mile, lying stranded and capsized.  By the greatest good luck,
+too, it was not ruined.  It had several bruises and a strip of the rail
+was split off, but it was still water-tight.
+
+The next morning Fred was fairly recovered of his hurts, but felt weak
+and dizzy, so that not much progress was made.  During the whole
+forenoon they remained in camp.  Horace went hunting with the shotgun
+and got a couple of ducks.  None of them felt much inclined for any
+more fishing in that almost fatal spot.
+
+On the following day, however, Fred was able to take his share of the
+work again, and the party proceeded.  That day and many days after were
+much alike.  They tracked the canoe up long stretches of rough water,
+where two of them had to wade alongside in order to keep it from going
+over.  They made back-breaking portages over places where they had to
+hew out a trail for a quarter of a mile.  At night when they rolled
+themselves into their blankets they were too tired to talk.  But the
+hard training they had undergone before they started showed its results
+now.  Although they were dead tired at night, they were always ready
+for the day's work in the morning.  They suffered no ill effects from
+their wettings in the river, and their appetites were enormous.
+
+The supplies, especially of bacon and flour, decreased alarmingly.
+Although signs of game were abundant, they did not like to lose time in
+hunting until they reached the prospecting grounds; but a couple of
+days later meat came to them.  They had reached the foot of the worst
+rapid they had yet encountered.  It was a veritable cascade, for the
+river, narrowing between walls of rock, leaped and roared over fifty
+yards of boulders.  The portage led up a rather steep slope.  The three
+boys, each heavily burdened, were struggling along in single file, when
+Horace, who was in front, suddenly sank flat, and with his hand
+cautioned the others to be silent.
+
+"S-s-h!  Lie low!" he whispered.  "Give me the rifle!"
+
+Macgregor passed the weapon to him, and then he and Fred wriggled
+forward to look.
+
+Eighty yards away Fred saw the light-brown flank of a doe, and beside
+her, partly concealed by the underbrush, the head and large,
+questioning ears of a fawn.  The animals were evidently excited, for as
+Horace lowered his rifle, not wishing to kill a mother with young, they
+bounded a few steps nearer, and stood gazing back at the thicket from
+which they had come.  The wind blew toward the boys, and the roar of
+the cataract had drowned the noise of their approach.
+
+Suddenly there was a commotion in the thicket, and two young bucks
+burst from the spruces and dashed past the doe and fawn toward the
+boys.  At the same instant the lithe, tawny form of a lynx leaped out.
+It struck like lightning at the fawn, but the little fellow sprang
+aside and bounded after its mother.  The lynx gave a few prodigious
+leaps and then stood, with tufted ears erect, glaring in
+disappointment.  It had all happened within a few seconds, and the deer
+were disappearing behind some rocks and stunted spruces fifty yards to
+the right before the boys thought again of their need of meat.
+
+At that moment, one of the bucks wheeled at the edge of the tangle
+behind which the other deer had passed.  For an instant he presented a
+fair quartering shot.
+
+"Shoot quick!" whispered Macgregor, excitedly.
+
+As the repeater in Horace's hands cracked, the buck whirled round in a
+half-circle, leaped once, and fell.
+
+Fred uttered a wild shout, slipped the tumpline from his head, and ran
+forward.  He was carrying the shotgun and held it ready; but the buck,
+shot behind the shoulder, was virtually dead, although he was kicking
+feebly.
+
+The lynx had vanished; there was no sign of the other deer.  Only the
+rush of the water in the river-bed now disturbed the forest stillness.
+
+The dressing of the game was no small task.  It was late in the
+afternoon when the boys had finished it and had brought up the rest of
+their outfit to the head of the cataract.  "Buck Rapids" they named the
+place.  There was enough meat on the deer to last them for the next
+week at least.  The slices they cut and fried that night, although not
+tender, were palatable and nourishing.
+
+The weather had been warmer that day, and for the first time mosquitoes
+troubled them.  The boys slept badly, and got up the next morning
+unrefreshed and in no mood to "buck the river" again.
+
+"Why not stop here a couple of days and prospect?" Mac suggested at
+breakfast.
+
+The proposal struck them all favorably.  It was the real beginning of
+the search for fortune.  Fred in particular was fired with instant
+hope, and immediately after breakfast he set out to explore the country
+north of the river; he intended to make a wide circle back to the Smoke
+River and to come homeward down its bank.  He carried a compass, the
+shotgun, and a luncheon of cold flapjacks and fried deer meat.  Horace
+went off to the south; Macgregor remained in camp, to jerk the venison
+by smoking it over a slow fire.
+
+It was a sunny, warm day.  Spring seemed to have come with a bound, and
+the warmth had brought out the black flies in swarms.  All the boys had
+smeared themselves that morning with "fly dope" that they had bought at
+the railway station, but even that black, ill-smelling varnish on their
+hands and faces was only partly effectual.  Great clouds of the little
+pests hovered round them.
+
+Fred struck straight north from the river, and then turned a little to
+the west.  He examined the ground with the utmost care.  The land lay
+in great ridges and valleys, and he soon found that prospecting was
+almost as rough work as fighting the river.  In the valleys the earth
+was mucky with melting snow water; on the hills it was rocky, with huge
+boulders, tumbled heaps of shattered stone, slopes of loose gravel;
+everywhere was a tangle of stunted, scrubby birch and poplar, spruce
+and jack-pine.
+
+After half an hour he came upon a small creek that flowed from the
+northwest.  With a glance at his compass, he started to follow it.  For
+nearly three hours he plodded along the creek, digging into the banks
+with a stick and examining every spot where there seemed a chance of
+finding blue clay; but he found nothing except ordinary sand and
+gravel.  At last, disappointed and disheartened, he turned back toward
+the Smoke River.  After a mile or so he stopped to eat his luncheon,
+and built a smudge to keep the flies away; then he proceeded onward
+through the rough, unprofitable country.
+
+But if he did not find diamonds, he came on plenty of game.  Ruffed
+grouse and spruce partridges rose here and there and perched in the
+trees.  He saw many rabbits, and there were signs where deer or moose
+had browsed on the birch twigs.  Once, as he came over a ridge, he
+caught a glimpse of a black bear digging at a pile of rotten logs in
+the valley.  The animal evidently had not been long out of winter
+quarters, for it looked starved, and its fur was tattered and rusty.
+The moment the bear caught sight of him, it vanished like a dark streak.
+
+Fred found no trace that afternoon of blue clay, or, indeed, of any
+clay, but he happened upon something that caused him some apprehension.
+It was a steel trap, lying on the open ground, battered and rusted as
+if it had been there for some time.  Scattered round it were some bones
+that he guessed had belonged to a lynx.  Apparently the animal had been
+caught in the trap, which was of the size generally used for martens,
+had broken the chain from its fastening, and had traveled until it had
+either perished from starvation or had been killed by wolves.
+
+Although rusty, the trap was still in working condition, and Fred,
+somewhat uneasy, took it along with him.  Some one had been trapping in
+that district recently, perhaps during the last winter; was the
+stranger also looking for diamonds?
+
+With frequent glances at his compass Fred kept zigzagging to and fro,
+and finally came out on the river again; but he was still a long way
+from camp, and he did not reach the head of the cataract until nearly
+sunset.
+
+Horace had already come in, covered with mud and swollen with fly bites.
+
+"What luck?" cried Fred, eagerly.
+
+His brother shook his head.  He had encountered the same sort of rough
+country as Fred; and to add to his troubles, he had got into a morass,
+from which he had escaped in a very muddy condition.
+
+Then Fred produced the trap and told of his finding it and of his
+fears.  The boys examined it and tested its springs.  Horace took a
+more cheerful view of the matter.
+
+"The Ojibywas always trap through here in the winter," he said.  "The
+owner of that trap is probably down at Moose Factory now.  Besides, the
+lynx might have traveled twenty or thirty miles from the place where it
+was caught."
+
+In spite of the failure of the day's work they all felt hopeful; but
+they resolved to push on farther before doing any more prospecting.
+
+The next morning they launched the canoe, and for four days more faced
+the river.  Each day the work was harder.  Each day they had a
+succession of back-breaking portages; sometimes they were able to pole
+a little; they hauled the canoe for hours by the tracking-line, and in
+those four days they traveled scarcely thirty miles.
+
+On the last day they met with a serious misfortune.  While they were
+hauling the canoe up a rapid the craft narrowly escaped capsizing, and
+spilled out a large tin that contained twenty-five pounds of corn meal
+and ten pounds of rice--their entire stock.  What was worse, the cover
+came off, and the precious contents disappeared in the water.
+
+About fifteen pounds of Graham flour and five pounds of oatmeal were
+all the breadstuffs they had left now, and they had to use it most
+sparingly.
+
+But they were well within the region where Horace thought that the
+diamond-beds must lie.  On the map it had seemed a small area; but now
+they realized that it was a huge stretch of tangled wilderness, where a
+dozen diamond-beds might defy discovery.  Even Horace, the veteran
+prospector, admitted that they had a big job before them.
+
+"However, we'll find the blue clay if it's on the surface--and the
+supplies hold out," he said, with determination.
+
+The next morning each of the boys went out in a different direction.
+Late in the afternoon they came back, one by one, tired and fly-bitten,
+and each with the same failure to report.  The ground was much as they
+had found it before, covered with rock and gravel in rolling ridges.
+Nowhere had they found the blue clay.
+
+They spent two more days here, working hard from morning to night, with
+no success.  The next day they again moved camp a day's journey
+upstream; that brought them into the heart of the district from which
+they had expected so much.  The river was growing so narrow and so
+broken that it would be almost impossible for them to follow it farther
+by canoe.  If they pushed on they would have to abandon their craft,
+and carry what supplies they could on their backs.
+
+But they intended to spend a week here.  They set out on the diamond
+hunt again with fresh energy.  A warm, soft drizzle was falling, which
+to some extent kept down the flies.
+
+Horace came back to camp first; he had had no success.  He was trying
+to find dry wood to rekindle the fire when he saw Fred coming down the
+bank at a run.  The boy's face was aglow.
+
+"Look here, Horace!  What's this?" he asked, as he came up panting.  In
+his hand he held a large, wet lump of greenish-blue, clayey mud.
+Horace took it, poked into it, and turned it over.  Then he glanced
+sympathetically at his brother's face.
+
+"I'm afraid it isn't anything, old boy," he said.  "Only ordinary mud.
+The real blue clay is more of a gray blue, you know, and generally as
+hard as bricks."
+
+Fred pitched the stuff into the river and said nothing, but his face
+showed his disappointment.  He had carried that lump of clay for over
+four miles, in the conviction that he had discovered the
+diamond-bearing soil.
+
+Macgregor came in shortly afterward with nothing more valuable than two
+ducks that he had shot.
+
+The boys were discouraged that evening.  After the rain they could find
+little dry wood.  It was nearly dark before Fred began to stir up the
+usual pan of flapjacks, and "Mac" set himself to the task of cutting up
+one of the ducks to fry.  They were too much depressed to talk, and the
+camp was quiet, when suddenly a crackling tread sounded in the
+underbrush.
+
+"What's that?" cried Horace sharply.  And as he spoke, a man stepped
+out of the shadow, and advanced into the firelight.
+
+"_Bo' soir_!  Hello!" he said, curtly.
+
+"Hello!  Good evening!" cried Fred and Mac, much startled.
+
+"Sit down.  Grub'll be ready in a minute," Horace added.  Hospitality
+comes before everything else in the North.
+
+"Had grub," answered the man; but he sat down on a log beside the fire,
+and surveyed the whole camp with keen, quick eyes.
+
+All the boys looked at him with much curiosity.  He was apparently of
+middle age, with a tangled beard and black hair that straggled down
+almost to his shoulders.  He wore moccasins, Mackinaw trousers shiny
+with blood and grease, a buckskin jacket, and a flannel shirt.  He was
+brown as any Ojibwa, and he, carried a repeating rifle and had a belt
+of cartridges at his waist.
+
+"Hunting?" he asked presently, with a nod at the deerskin that was
+hanging to dry.
+
+"Now and again," said Horace.
+
+"Well, ye can't hunt here," said the man deliberately, after a pause.
+"Don't ye know that this is a Government forest reserve?  No hunters
+allowed.  Ye'll have to be out of here by to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The boys were thunderstruck at the stranger's assertion.  They knew of
+several forest reserves in northern Ontario where timber and game are
+closely protected, but they had never heard of one in this district.
+
+"I guess you're wrong," said Horace.  "There isn't any Government
+reserve north of Timagami."
+
+"Made last fall," the stranger retorted.  "I ought to know.  I'm one of
+the rangers.  We've got a camp up the river, and we've been here all
+winter to keep out hunters and lumbermen."
+
+Horace looked at him closely, but said nothing.
+
+"Prospecting's allowed, isn't it?" Fred blurted out.
+
+"Prospect all ye want to, but ye can't stake no claims."
+
+"Where's the limit of this reserve?" asked Mac.
+
+"Ten miles down the river from here.  Ye'll have to be down below there
+by to-morrow night.  Or, if ye want to stay, ye'll have to give up your
+guns.  No guns allowed here."
+
+"I suppose you've got papers to show your authority?" Mac inquired.
+
+"'Course I have.  They 're back at camp.  Oh, ye'll get all ye want.
+Why," pointing to the fresh hide, "ye killed that there deer out of
+season.  Ye've got the law agin ye for that."
+
+"It was for our own food.  You can kill deer for necessary supplies."
+
+"Not on this ground.  Now ye can do as ye like--give up your guns till
+ye 're ready to leave, or get out right away.  I've warned ye."
+
+The "ranger" got up and glanced round threateningly.
+
+"If you can show us that you're really a Government ranger, we'll go,"
+Horace said.  "But I know the Commissioner of Crown Lands; I saw him
+before we started, and I didn't hear of any new reserve being made.  I
+don't believe in you or your reserve, and we'll stay where we are till
+you show us the proof of your authority."
+
+"I'll show you _this_!" exclaimed the man fiercely, slapping the barrel
+of his rifle.
+
+"You can't bluff us.  We've got guns, too, if it comes to that!" cried
+Fred.
+
+"I've give ye fair warning," repeated the man.  "Ye'll find it mighty
+hard to buck agin the Gover'ment, and ye'll be sorry if ye try it.
+Ye'll see me again."
+
+Turning, he stepped into the shadows and was gone.  The boys looked at
+one another.
+
+"What do you make of it?" Peter asked.  "Is he a ranger--or a
+prospector?"
+
+"They don't hire that kind of man for Government rangers," replied
+Horace.  "And I'm certain there's no forest reserve here.  Why, there's
+no timber worth preserving.  He's a hunter or a prospector, and from
+his looks he's evidently been in the woods all winter, as he said.
+Perhaps he belongs to a party of prospectors who found a good thing
+last fall, and got snowed in before they could get out."
+
+"Hunters wouldn't be so anxious to drive us away," said Fred.  "They
+must be prospectors.  Suppose they've found the diamond fields!"
+
+They had all thought of that.  There was a gloomy silence.
+
+"One thing's certain," said Horace, "we must trail those fellows down,
+and see what sort of men they are and where they 're camped.  We'll
+scout up the river to-morrow."
+
+They all felt nervous and uneasy that evening.  They stayed up late,
+and when they went to bed they loaded their guns and laid them close at
+hand.
+
+But the night passed without any disturbance, and after breakfast they
+set out at once to trail the ranger.  They followed the river for about
+four miles, to a point where the stream broke through the hills in a
+succession of cascades and rapids; but although they searched all the
+landscape with the field-glass from the top of the hills, they saw no
+sign of man.  Beyond the ridges, however, the river turned sharply into
+a wooded valley.  They struggled through the undergrowth, found another
+curve in the river, rounded it--and then stepped hastily back into
+cover.
+
+About two hundred yards upstream stood a log hut on the shore, at the
+foot of a steep bluff.  A wreath of smoke rose from its chimney, but no
+one was in sight.  Talking in low tones, the boys watched it for some
+time.  Then they made a détour through the woods, and crept round to
+the top of the bluff.  Peering cautiously over the edge, they saw the
+cabin below them, not fifty yards away.
+
+It looked like a trappers' winter camp.  It was built of spruce logs,
+chinked with mud and moss.  A deep layer of scattered chips beside the
+remains of a log pile showed that the place had been used all winter.
+
+Presently a man came out of the door, stretched himself lazily, and
+carried a block of wood into the cabin.  It was not the man they had
+seen, but a slender, dark fellow, dressed in buckskin, who looked like
+a half-breed.  In a moment he came out again, and this time the ranger
+came with him.  There was a third man in the cabin, for they could hear
+some one speaking from inside the shack.
+
+For some moments the men stood talking; their voices were quite
+audible, but the boys could not make out what they were saying.  The
+two men examined a pile of steel traps beside the door and a number of
+pelts that were drying on frames in the open air.
+
+"These aren't rangers.  They're just ordinary trappers," Mac whispered
+to Horace.
+
+"They've certainly been trapping.  But why do they want to run us out
+of the country?"
+
+In a few minutes both men went into the cabin, came out with rifles,
+and started down the river-bank.
+
+"They may be going down to our camp," Horace said, "and we must be
+there to meet them.  We'd better hurry back."
+
+The boys started at as fast a pace as the rough ground would allow.
+Owing to dense thickets, swamps, and piled boulders, they could not
+make much speed.  In about twenty minutes Fred heard a sound of falling
+water in front, and supposed that they were approaching the river.  He
+was mistaken.  Within a few yards they came upon a tiny lake fed by a
+creek at one end and closed at the other by a pile of logs and brush.
+Curious heaps of mud and sticks showed here and there above the water.
+Horace uttered an exclamation.
+
+"A beaver pond!" he cried.  "That explains it all."
+
+In a moment the same thought flashed over Fred and Macgregor.  The
+killing of beaver is entirely prohibited in Ontario; but in spite of
+that, a good deal of illicit trapping goes on in the remote districts,
+and the poachers usually carry their pelts across the line into the
+Province of Quebec, where they can sell the fur.  Naturally, the
+trappers had resented the appearance of the three boys in the vicinity
+of the beaver pond; the men had no wish to have their illegal trapping
+discovered.  It was the first beaver pond the boys had ever met with,
+and in spite of their hurry they stopped to look at it.  They came upon
+two or three traps skillfully set under water, and one of them
+contained a beaver, sleek and drowned, held under the surface.
+Apparently the men intended to clean out the pond, for the season was
+already late for fur.
+
+After a few minutes the boys hurried on.  They met no one on the way,
+and they found everything undisturbed in camp; they kept a sharp
+lookout all day, but no one came near them.
+
+On the whole, they felt considerably relieved by the result of their
+scouting.  The lawbreakers had no right to order them off the ground.
+For their own part, the boys felt under no obligation to interfere with
+the beaver trappers.
+
+"If we meet any of them again, we'll let them know plainly that we know
+how things stand," said Mac.  "We'll let them alone if they let us
+alone, and I don't think there'll be any more trouble."
+
+It rained hard that evening--a warm, steady downpour that lasted almost
+until morning.  The tent leaked, and the boys passed a wretched night.
+But day came pleasant and warm, with a moist, springlike air; the
+leaves had unfolded in the night.  The warmth brought out the flies in
+increased numbers.  They smeared their skins with a fresh application
+of "fly dope," and with little thought for the fur poachers, started
+out again to prospect.  All that day and the next they worked hard;
+they saw nothing of the trappers, and found nothing even remotely
+resembling blue clay.
+
+The condition of their footwear had begun to worry them.  The rough
+usage was beginning to tell heavily on their boots, which were already
+ripping, and which had begun to wear through the soles; they would
+hardly hold together for another fortnight.  But the boys bound them up
+and patched them with strips of the deerskin, and kept hard at work.
+
+In the course of the next two days they thoroughly examined all the
+country within five miles of their present camp.  On the evening of the
+second day they finished the last of the oatmeal, and Horace examined
+the remaining supply of Graham flour with anxiety.
+
+"Just about enough to get home on, boys," he said, looking dubiously at
+his companions.
+
+"But we're not going home!" cried Mac.
+
+"The flour and beans'll be gone in another week, and we're a long way
+from civilization.  Can we live on meat alone, Mac?"
+
+"Pretty sure to come down with dysentery if we do--for any length of
+time," admitted the medical student reluctantly.
+
+There was silence round the fire.
+
+"We didn't start this expedition right," said Horace, at last.  "I
+should have planned it better.  We ought to have come with two or three
+canoes and with twice as much grub, and we should have brought several
+pairs of boots apiece."
+
+He thrust out his foot; his bare skin showed through the ripped leather.
+
+"Make moccasins," Mac suggested.
+
+"They wouldn't stand the rough traveling for any time."
+
+"What do you think we ought to do, Horace?" asked Fred.
+
+"Well, I hate to retreat as much as any one," said Horace, after a
+pause.  "But I know--better than either of you--the risk of losing our
+lives if we try to run it too fine on provisions.  At the same time I
+do think that we oughtn't to give up till we've reached the head of
+this river.  It's probably not more than ten or fifteen miles up."
+
+After some discussion they decided that Macgregor and Fred should make
+the journey to the head of the river, carrying provisions for three
+days; that would give them one day in which to prospect at the source.
+Meanwhile, Horace was to strike across country to the northwest, to the
+headwaters of the Whitefish River, about fifteen miles away.
+
+The next morning, therefore, they carefully cached the canoe, the tent,
+and the heavy part of the outfit, and started.  They were all to be
+back on the third evening at the latest, whether they found anything or
+not.
+
+Fred and Mac made a wide détour to avoid the hut of the trappers.  They
+had a hard day's tramp over the rough country, but reached their
+destination rather sooner than they expected.  The river, shrunk to a
+rapid creek, ended in a tiny lake between two hills.
+
+The general surface of the country was the same as that which had
+already grown so monotonously familiar, except that there was rather
+more outcrop of bedrock.  Nowhere could they see anything that seemed
+to suggest the presence of blue clay, and although they spent the whole
+of the next twenty-four hours in making wide circles round the lake,
+they found nothing.
+
+The following morning they started back, depressed and miserable.  If
+Horace's trip should also prove fruitless, the chances of their finding
+the diamonds would be slim indeed.  The Smoke River made a wide turn to
+the west and north, and they concluded that a straight line by compass
+across the wilderness would save them several miles of travel, and
+would also give them a chance to see some fresh ground.  They left the
+river, therefore, and struck a bee-line to the southeast.  The new
+ground proved as unprofitable as the old, and somewhat rougher.  The
+journey had been hard on shoe leather; Fred was limping badly.
+
+Late in the afternoon the boys stopped to rest on the top of a bare,
+rocky ridge, where the black flies were not so bad as in the valleys.
+They guessed that they were about four or five miles from camp.  The
+sun shone level and warm from the west, and the boys sat in silence,
+tired and discouraged.
+
+"I'm afraid we're not going to make a million this trip, Mac," said
+Fred, at last.
+
+"No," Peter replied soberly.  "Unless Horace has struck something."
+
+"It's too big a country to look over inch by inch.  If there really are
+any diamond-beds--"
+
+"Oh, there must be some.  Horace found scattered stones last summer,
+you know.  But of course the beds may be far underground.  In South
+Africa they often have to sink deep shafts to strike them."
+
+Fred did not answer at once.  He had taken out the field-glass that he
+carried, and was turning it aimlessly this way and that, when Mac spoke
+suddenly:--
+
+"What's that moving in the ravine--see!  About a hundred yards up,
+below the big cedar on the rock."
+
+"Ground hog, likely," said Fred, turning the glass toward the rocky
+gorge, through which ran a little stream that lay at the base of the
+ridge.  "I don't see anything.  Oh--yes, now I've got 'em.
+One--two--three--four little animals.  Why, they're playing together
+like kittens!  They look like young foxes, only they're far too
+dark-colored."
+
+Mac suddenly snatched the glass.  But Fred, now that he knew where to
+look, could see the moving black specks with his unaided eye.  Just
+behind them was a dark opening that might be the mouth of a den.
+
+"They are foxes!" said Mac.  "It's a family of fox cubs.  You're right.
+And--and--why, man, they're black--every one of them!"
+
+He lowered the glass, almost dropping it in his excitement, and stared
+at his companion.
+
+"Fred, it's a den of black foxes!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+"Black foxes!" cried Fred.  "Mac, give me the glass!"
+
+"Black, all right," Macgregor said.  "Four of them, black as jet.  See
+the fur shine!  I can't see the old ones.  There, I believe I saw
+something move just inside the burrow!  Anyhow, all the cubs are going
+in."
+
+He handed the glass to Fred, who raised it to his eyes just in time to
+see the black, bushy tail of the last cub disappear into the hole.
+
+"Black foxes!" he said, in an awed whisper.  "Four of them!  Why, Mac,
+they're worth a fortune, aren't they?"
+
+"And probably two old ones," said the medical student.  "A fortune?
+Rather!  Why, in London a good black fox pelt sometimes brings two or
+three thousand dollars.  The traders here pay only a few hundreds, but
+if I had a couple of good skins I'd take them over to London myself."
+
+"But we haven't got them.  And we've no traps."
+
+"One of us might watch here with the rifle for the old ones.  I could
+hit a fox from here, but the bullet would tear the skin awfully."
+
+"Yes, and it's too late in the spring now for the fur to be any good,
+I'm afraid," said Fred.
+
+"Not first-class, that's a fact," Mac admitted sadly.  "But what can we
+do?  We can't wait here all summer for the cubs to grow up."
+
+"Let's go down and take a look at the den," Fred proposed.
+
+"Better not.  If the old foxes get suspicious they'll move the den and
+we'll never find it again.  I think we'd best go quietly away.  This is
+too big a thing for us to take chances on."
+
+They took careful note of the spot before they left, and in order to
+make assurance doubly sure, Mac blazed a tree every ten paces or so
+until they struck the river again.
+
+They had followed the river downward for about two miles when they saw
+the smoke rising from their camping-ground.  Hurrying up, they found
+that Horace had come in already.  He had brought out the supplies and
+was frying bacon.
+
+"What luck?" cried Fred, forgetting the foxes for a moment in his
+anxiety to hear the result of Horace's trip.
+
+"None," said Horace curtly.  He looked tired, dirty, and discouraged.
+"I went clear to the Whitefish--nothing doing.  But what are you
+fellows grinning about?  What did you find at the head of the river?
+You haven't--it isn't possible that you've hit it!"
+
+"No, not diamonds," said Mac.  "But we 've found something valuable."
+And he told of their discovery of the black foxes.  "But the problem is
+how to get them," he finished.  "The only way I can see is to shoot
+them at long range."
+
+"Shoot them!  Are you crazy?" exclaimed Horace, who was even more
+stirred by the news than they had expected.  "Never!  Catch 'em alive!
+They're worth their weight in gold."
+
+"Alive!  I never thought of that!" exclaimed Fred.
+
+"Why, their fur is no good now.  Besides, suppose you did get a
+wretched thousand dollars or so for the pelts--what's that?  Why, down
+in Prince Edward Island a pair of live black foxes for breeding was
+sold for $45,000."
+
+"Gracious!" gasped Fred.
+
+"Down there every one is wild about breeding fur.  A big syndicate has
+a ranch that's guarded with watchmen and burglar alarms like a bank.
+Their great trouble is to get the breeding stock, and they'll pay
+almost any price for live, uninjured black foxes.  If we could manage
+to catch this pair of old ones and the four cubs without hurting them,
+they ought to bring--I'd be afraid to guess how much!  Maybe a hundred
+thousand dollars!  Kill them?  Why, you'd kill a goose that laid golden
+eggs!"
+
+"That's right!  I've heard of those fox ranches, of course," said Mac,
+"but I didn't think of them at the moment.  A hundred thousand dollars!
+But how on earth can we catch them?  We might dig the cubs out of their
+den, but we couldn't get the old ones that way.  If we only had a few
+traps!"
+
+"Why, there's that trap I found in the woods!" exclaimed Fred suddenly.
+
+They had all forgotten it; they had dropped the trap into the dunnage,
+and had not seen or thought of it since.  Now, however, they eagerly
+rummaged it out, and examined it critically.
+
+It was badly rusted, but not broken.  Mac knocked off the dirt and rust
+scales, rubbed it thoroughly with grease, and set it.  When he touched
+the pan with a stick the jaws snapped.  The springs were a little
+stiff, but after they had been worked several times and well greased,
+the trap seemed to be almost as good as new.
+
+"We should have three or four of them," said Peter.  "Having only one
+trap gives us a slim chance.  But suppose we do get them, what then?"
+
+"Why, we'll have to have some sort of cage ready in which to carry
+them; then we'll make all the speed we can back to Toronto," replied
+Horace.
+
+"And give up the diamond hunt?" cried Mac, in disappointment.
+
+"What else can we do, anyhow?" replied Horace.  "The flour is almost
+gone and we're almost barefoot.  And see here, boys," he went on,
+earnestly, "I hate to admit it, but I'm afraid my calculations were
+wrong on these diamond-beds.  I thought it all out while I was coming
+home from Whitefish River.  Somewhere up here in the North there must
+be a place where those diamonds came from--but I'm beginning to believe
+it isn't in this part of the country.  You see, the geological
+formation is all different from the kind where diamond matrix is ever
+found.  Those stones I picked up may have been traveling for a thousand
+years down one creek and another.  They may have come down in the
+glacial drift.  I was altogether too hasty, I see now, in assuming that
+they originated in one of the rivers where I found them.
+
+"They may have come from a river a hundred miles away.  Or perhaps from
+deep underground.  We should have made a study of the geological
+structure of this whole North Country, the direction of the glacial
+drift, and everything.  Then we should have come in here prepared to
+travel a thousand miles and stay all summer, or for two summers, if
+necessary."
+
+"Hanged if I'll give it up," said Mac stubbornly.  "However," he added,
+"we must certainly try to catch these black diamonds, and we can keep
+on prospecting at the same time."
+
+They uncached their outfit, pitched the tent again, and prepared
+supper; meanwhile they talked of the foxes until they reached a high
+pitch of enthusiasm.  Even Mac admitted that the black foxes bade fair
+to be as profitable as a small diamond-bed would be.  As for Fred, it
+was almost with relief that he let the diamond hunt take second place
+in his mind.  The continual strain of labor and failure had robbed the
+search for the blue clay of much of its fascination.
+
+Early the next morning they paddled up the river to the point where
+Mac's blazed trail came down to the shore, and set out to reconnoiter
+the den.  After half an hour's tramping across the woods they reached
+the rocky ridge; through the field-glass they scrutinized the lair,
+which was about two hundred yards away.
+
+Not a hair of a fox was in sight, but the burrow looked as if it could
+be opened with spade and pick.  Horace thought they ought to do that
+first of all; in that way they could capture the cubs before there was
+any possible danger of the old foxes' moving the den.
+
+On their way back to camp, Mac stopped at a marshy pool and cut a great
+armful of willow withes.
+
+"It's lucky that I once used to watch an old willow worker making
+baskets and chairs," he said.  "I'll see if I've forgotten the trick of
+it.  We've got to make a cage, for we'll need one the instant we
+capture one of those cubs."
+
+He made a strong framework of birch, with bars as thick as his wrist,
+which he notched together, and lashed with deer-hide.  Then he had the
+framework of a box about three feet long, two feet wide, and two feet
+deep, through which he now began to weave the tough, pliable withes.
+
+He did not altogether remember the trick of it, and he had to stop
+frequently to plan it out.  He worked all that afternoon, and continued
+his labor by firelight.  He did not finish the cage until the middle of
+the next forenoon.  It was rough-looking, but light, and nearly as
+strong as an iron trunk, and had a door in the top.
+
+All that remained for them to do now was to catch the game.  They ate a
+hasty luncheon, and carrying the cage, the trap, the axe, the spade and
+pick, two blankets, and the guns, started back along Mac's blazed
+trail.  So great was their eager hurry that they stumbled over roots
+and stones.
+
+Clambering down the ravine, they cautiously approached the foxes' den.
+The opening to the burrow was a triangular hole between two flat rocks.
+From it came a faint odor of putrid flesh.  The ground in front was
+strewn with muskrat tails, small bones, and the beaks and feet of
+partridges and ducks.  From the rocks Fred picked off two or three
+black hairs.
+
+The boys looked into the dark hole and listened intently.  They could
+not hear a sound, but they knew that the cubs, at any rate, must be
+within.  Mac cut a sapling, trimmed it down and sharpened one end of
+it; with that as a lever the boys loosened the rocks at the entrance of
+the burrow, and rolled them aside.  The burrow ran backward and
+downward into the ground, but there seemed to be nothing in their way
+now except earth, gravel, and roots.  Horace picked up the spade and
+began to dig; occasionally he had to stop to cut a tree root or pick
+out a rock.  Meanwhile, Peter and Fred stood close behind him, ready to
+stuff the blankets into the hole in case the occupants should try to
+bolt.
+
+They uncovered the burrow for about four feet; then they had to
+dislodge another rather large stone.  There seemed to be a large, dark
+cavity down behind it.  When they stopped to listen, they could hear a
+slight sound of movement in the darkness, and a faint squeaking.
+
+"They're there," said Horace; "not a yard away.  Now who's going to
+reach in and pull 'em out?"
+
+Macgregor volunteered at once; he crept up to the hole and cautiously
+thrust in his arm.  There was a sound of scrambling inside and a sharp
+squeal.  Mac, with a strained expression on his face, groped about with
+his hand inside the hole.
+
+When he withdrew his arm, there was blood on his hand, but he held by
+the neck a little jet-black animal with a bushy tail, as large as a
+kitten.
+
+"Open the cage--quick!" he cried.
+
+Fred held the door up, and Mac dropped the cub in.  For a moment the
+animal rushed from side to side, and then crouched trembling in a
+corner.
+
+"Nipped me on the thumb," said Mac, examining his hand.  "They've got
+teeth like needles.  But the old one doesn't seem to be there now, and
+I can easily get the rest."
+
+He fished the second out without being bitten, and caged it safely.
+But his hold on the third cub could not have been very secure, for the
+little creature managed by struggling frantically to squirm out of his
+hand.  It turned over in the air, landed on its four feet, and darted
+swiftly away.
+
+The boys shouted in dismay.  Fred flung himself sprawling upon the cub;
+but it evaded him like lightning, and bolted into the undergrowth.  It
+would have been useless to pursue it.
+
+The boys were greatly chagrined.
+
+"It was my fault," said Peter, in disgust.  "But it can't be helped
+now, and there's another to come out."
+
+He had trouble in getting hold of the last of the cubs.  Twice he
+winced with pain as the animal bit him, but at last he hauled it into
+view.  It was a little larger than the others; it scratched and bit
+like a fury, and nearly broke away before they got it into the cage.
+
+The boys gathered round and gloated over their prizes.  With their
+glossy jet coats, bushy tails, prick-eared faces, and comical air of
+intense intelligence, the cubs were beautiful little creatures; but
+they were all in a desperate panic, and huddled together in the
+farthest corner of the cage.
+
+"If we can only get them home in good condition they should be worth
+fifteen thousand," said Horace.  "But I'm much afraid they won't live
+unless we can get the mother to travel with them.  But now that we have
+the cubs it should be rather easy to catch her, and maybe the father,
+too."
+
+They set the cage back into the hollow made by the ruined burrow, and
+laid spruce branches over it so that it was well hidden.  Then they
+wrapped the jaws of the trap with strips of cloth so that they would
+not cut the fox's skin, and set it directly in front of the cage.
+Finally they scattered dead leaves over the trap.  The cubs themselves
+would act as bait.
+
+"A fox never deserts her young," Horace said.  "She's sure to come back
+to-night, probably along with her mate, to carry off the cubs, and
+we've a good chance to catch one or both of them."
+
+It seemed dangerous to go away and leave that precious cageful of
+little foxes at the mercy, perhaps, of the beaver trappers; perhaps
+prowling lynxes or wolves.  However, the boys had to take the risk.  As
+to the trappers, they had seen nothing of them for so long that they
+had little fear of them.
+
+They went back to camp and tried to pass the time; but they could talk
+of nothing except black foxes.  Fred conceived the idea of using their
+stock to start a breeding establishment of their own, and Macgregor was
+elaborating the plan, when suddenly he stopped with a frown.
+
+"Is it so certain that the parents of those cubs are black?" he asked.
+"I've heard that black foxes are an accident, a sport, and that the
+mother or father is very often red."
+
+"That's something that naturalists have never settled," replied Horace.
+"Some think that the black fox is a distinct strain, others that it's
+merely a 'sport,' as you say.  However, when all the cubs in the litter
+are pure black, I think it's safe to assume that the parents are black
+also."
+
+It was scarcely daylight the next morning before the boys were hurrying
+along the blazed trail again.  Shaking with suppressed excitement, they
+approached the ravine of the foxes.  When they came in sight of the den
+and the cage their anticipation was succeeded by bitter disappointment.
+The trap was undisturbed.  Nothing had been caught.  The cubs were
+still in the cage, as frightened as ever.
+
+But they found that one at least of the old foxes had visited the
+place, for the dry leaves were disturbed; there were marks of sharp
+teeth on the willows of the cage, and inside the cage were the tails of
+a couple of wood mice.  Unable to get her cubs out of the cage, the
+mother had brought them food.
+
+It seemed too bad to take advantage of her mother love, but as Horace
+remarked, all they desired was to restore her to her family; once on
+the fox ranch, she would be treated like a queen.
+
+They put the cage farther back and piled rocks round it, so that it
+could be approached only by one narrow path.  In the path they placed
+the trap, and again covered it carefully with leaves.
+
+The cubs had to be left for another night, and the boys had another
+hard day of waiting.  None of them had the heart to try to prospect.
+Macgregor went after ducks with the shotgun; the others lounged about,
+and killed time as best they could.  They all went to bed early, and
+before sunrise again started for the den.
+
+It was fully light when they came to the hill over the ravine, and as
+they sighted the den, a cry of excitement broke from all three of them
+at once.
+
+From where they stood they could see the cage, and the crouching form
+of a black animal beside it, evidently in the trap.  And over the beast
+with the dark fur stood a man in a buckskin jacket, with a club raised
+to strike.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Fred and Mac, who were carrying the guns, fired wildly at the man at
+the trap; they took no aim, for their only purpose was to startle him
+and to keep him from killing the fox.  When the shots rang out, the man
+straightened up, saw the boys rushing down the hill toward him, and
+dropped his club.  Stepping back, he picked up his rifle, and as they
+dashed up, held it ready to shoot.
+
+Fred gave a whoop when he saw that the animal in the trap was really a
+black fox; moreover, it was the mother fox.  Her black coat was glossy
+and spotless.
+
+Horace turned to the man.  "Let that fox alone!" he cried.  "That's our
+fox!"
+
+"Yours?  It's my fox!" retorted the man angrily.  "Why, that's my trap!"
+
+"I don't believe it; we found it in the woods.  Anyway, you can have
+the trap if you like, but the fox is certainly ours.  We've been after
+her for some time."
+
+"Me and my pardners have been after this fox all winter," declared the
+trapper.  "Now that we've got her we 're going to keep her--you can bet
+on that."
+
+He made a movement toward the fox.
+
+"None of that!" cried Mac, sharply, and snapped a fresh cartridge into
+the rifle chamber.
+
+"You would, would you?" cried the trapper, and instantly covered Peter
+with his gun.  Fred had reloaded the shotgun, and he covered the man in
+his turn.
+
+So for a moment they all stood at a deadlock.
+
+"Put down your guns!" said Horace.  "A fox pelt isn't worth killing a
+man for, and this pelt's no good, anyway.  It's too late in the season.
+We're going to take this fox away with us alive.  Stick to your
+beavers, for you can't steal this animal from us--and you can bet on
+that!" he added, with great emphasis.
+
+"You might shoot one of us, but you'd have a hole in you the next
+minute," said Mac.  "You'd better drop it, now, and get out!"
+
+The trapper glared at them with a face as savage as a wildcat's.  For a
+second Fred really expected him to shoot.  Then, with a muttered curse,
+the man lowered his gun.
+
+"You pups won't bark so loud when I come back!" he snarled.  Then he
+turned, and started away at a rapid pace.
+
+"Bluffed!" Fred exclaimed, trembling now that the strain was over.
+
+"He's gone for the rest of his gang!" Mac cried.  "Quick, we've got to
+get out of here!"
+
+"Yes, and far away, too," said Horace, "now that we've caught the
+mother fox.  We should never have got the male, anyway.  Let's get this
+beauty into her box."
+
+The black fox was indeed a beauty, but there was no time to admire her.
+Snarling viciously, she laid back her ears and showed her white teeth.
+Her hind leg was in the trap, but did not appear to have been injured
+by the padded jaws.
+
+Horace cut two strong forked sticks, with which the boys pinned her
+down by the neck and hips.  Fred opened the jaws of the trap; Mac
+picked the fox up firmly by the back of her neck, and in spite of her
+frantic struggles, thrust her into the cage.
+
+Horace and Mac then seized the box, one at either end, and started
+toward the river; Fred carried the guns and kept a sharp lookout in
+front.  The cage of foxes was not heavy, but it was so clumsy that the
+boys had hard work carrying it over the rough ground.  After stumbling
+for a few rods, they cut a long pole and slipped it through the handles
+in the ends of the cage.  After that they made somewhat better
+progress, although even then they could not travel at a very rapid pace.
+
+"If those fellows have a canoe," panted Mac, "they'll be down the river
+before we can get to camp!"
+
+"You may be sure they'll do their best," said Horace.  "These foxes are
+probably worth ten times their winter catch.  We'll have to break camp
+instantly and make for home as fast as we can."
+
+They went plunging along through the thickets, and up and down the
+rocky hills; it was well that the cage was strong.
+
+After more than an hour of this arduous tramping they heard the rush of
+the river.  "We'd best scout a little way ahead before we go any
+farther," Horace declared.
+
+They set down the cage, crept forward to the river and reconnoitered
+the bank.  Their canoe was where they had left it, concealed behind a
+cedar thicket, and no other canoe was in sight up or down the river.
+Horace swept the shore with the field-glass.
+
+"Nothing in sight," he reported.  "We may have time to pack our outfit
+and get off, after all.  Possibly those fellows haven't a canoe."
+
+They quickly launched the canoe, and put the cage of black foxes
+amidships; Fred sat behind it in order to hold it steady.  Horace took
+the stern paddle, and Peter the bow.
+
+The river ran swift and rather shallow, but there were no dangerous
+rapids between them and camp.  They swept down the current, and in a
+few minutes the tent came in sight.  Horace took up the glass again,
+but he could see no sign of the trappers.  They paddled on, intending
+to land at their usual place, but when they were scarcely twenty yards
+from the tent, Fred uttered a suppressed cry.
+
+"Look!  A canoe--lower down!"  He spoke barely loud enough for his
+brother to hear him.  He had caught a glimpse of the bow of a birch
+canoe, which was thrust back almost out of sight behind a willow clump
+below the campground.
+
+"Run straight past!" Horace commanded, instantly.  "Dig in your paddle,
+Mac!"
+
+The canoe shot forward, and at doubled speed swept by the tent.  As
+they passed it a man rose from behind a thicket and yelled hoarsely:--
+
+"Stop, there!  Halt!"
+
+_Bang!_ went a rifle somewhere behind them, and then the rapid _crack!
+crack! crack!_ of more than one repeater.  A bullet clipped through the
+sides of the canoe, fortunately well above the water-line.  Another
+glanced from a rock, and hummed past them.
+
+As the boys whirled by the ambushed birch canoe, Fred snatched up the
+shotgun, and sent two loads of buckshot tearing through its sides.
+
+"That'll cripple them for a while!" he cried.
+
+_Bang!_  A better-aimed bullet dashed the steering paddle from Horace's
+hands.  The canoe swerved, and heeled in the current.  Horace snatched
+the extra paddle that lay in the stern, and brought the craft round
+just in time to prevent it from upsetting.  As the paddle that had been
+hit floated past, Fred picked it up; it had a round hole through the
+handle.
+
+The canoe was a hundred yards from the tent now, and was going so fast
+that it offered no easy target to the men behind, who, however, still
+continued to shoot.  Another bullet nicked the stern.  Glancing over
+his shoulder, Fred saw the three trappers running down the shore, and
+firing as they ran.  But in another moment the canoe swept round a bend
+in the river, and was screened from the trappers by the wooded shore.
+
+"Keep it up!  Make all the speed you can!" cried Horace.
+
+Down the fast current they shot like an arrow.  As they went round
+another curve, they heard the roar of rushing water ahead; a short but
+turbulent rapid confronted them.  There the river, foaming and surging,
+dashed down over the black rocks; the shore was rough and covered with
+dense thickets.  The boys remembered the hard work they had had making
+a portage here on the way up; but there was no time to make a portage
+now.
+
+"Down we go!  Look sharp for her bow, Mac!" Horace sang out.
+
+The rush of the rapid seemed to snatch up the canoe like a leaf.  Fred
+caught his breath; the pit of his stomach seemed to sink.  There was a
+deafening roar all around him, a chaos of white water, flying spray,
+and sharp rocks that sprang up and flashed behind.  Then, before he had
+recovered his breath, they shot out into the smooth river below.
+
+Six inches of water was slopping in the bottom of the canoe, but they
+ran on without stopping to bale it out.  For over half a mile the
+smooth, swift current lasted; then came another rapid.  It was longer
+and more dangerous than the other, and the boys carried the canoe and
+the foxes round it.  They would not risk spilling the precious cage,
+and for the present they thought that they had outrun their pursuers.
+
+For another mile or two they descended the river, until they came to
+another carry.  They made the portage, and stopped at the bottom to
+discuss their situation and make their plans.  They had escaped the
+trappers, indeed, and they had the foxes; but except the canoe, a
+blanket, the guns, and the light axe that Mac had at his belt, they had
+nothing else.  "I guess this settles our prospecting, boys," said
+Horace.  "What are we to do now?  Shall we go on, or--"
+
+"Or what?" Fred asked, as his brother stopped.
+
+"I hardly know.  But here we are, without supplies, and at least a
+hundred and fifty miles from any place where we can get them.  We all
+know what a hard road it is, and going back it'll be up-stream all the
+way, after we leave this river."
+
+"Do we have to go back the way we came?"
+
+"Well, instead of turning up the Missanabie River when we come to it,
+we might go straight down it to Moose Factory, the Hudson Bay Company's
+post at the mouth; but if we did that, these foxes would never live
+till we got back to Toronto.  It would be too long and hard a trip for
+them."
+
+"That settles it.  We don't go that way," said Mac.  "Surely we can get
+home in ten or twelve days the way we came, and we ought to be able to
+kill enough to live on during that time."
+
+"How many cartridges have we?" asked Horace dubiously.
+
+Macgregor had nineteen cartridges in his belt, and there were six more
+in the magazine of the rifle.  Fred had only ten shells in his pockets,
+and the shotgun was empty.  They had left the fishing tackle at camp,
+but luckily they had plenty of matches.
+
+"If we can get a deer within the next day or so, or even a few ducks or
+partridges, we may make it," said Horace.  "But I've noticed that game
+is always scarce when you need it most.  Now if we turned back and
+tried to recover our outfit, we should certainly have to fight the
+trappers, and probably we'd be worsted, for they outmatch us in
+weapons.  One of us might be killed, and we'd be almost certain to lose
+the foxes."
+
+"Trade these foxes for some flour and bacon?  I'd starve first!" said
+Fred.
+
+"So would I!" cried Macgregor.  "But we won't starve.  We didn't starve
+last winter, when we hadn't a match or a grain of powder, and when the
+mercury was below zero most of the time, too."
+
+"Well, we'll go on, if you say so," said Horace.  "It's a mighty
+dangerous trip, but I don't see what else we can do."
+
+"Forward it is, then!" cried Fred.
+
+"And hang the risk!" exclaimed Mac, springing up to push the canoe into
+the water.
+
+"Do you think those men will really follow us, Horace?" asked Fred.
+
+"Sure to," replied his brother.  "It'll take them a few hours to patch
+up their canoe, but they 're probably better canoemen than we are, and
+we'll have to work mighty hard to keep ahead of them."
+
+Fred was more optimistic.  "They'll have to work mighty hard to keep up
+with us," he said, as they launched the canoe.
+
+Going down the river was very different from coming up it.  The current
+ran so swiftly that the boys could not add much to their speed by
+paddling; all they had to do was to steer the craft.  The water was so
+high that they could run most of the rapids, and stretches that they
+had formerly toiled up with tumpline or tracking-line they now covered
+with the speed of a bullet.
+
+Toward noon Fred became intolerably hungry; but neither of the others
+spoke of eating, and he did not mention his hunger.  Mac, in the bow,
+put the shotgun where he could easily reach it, and scanned the shores
+for game as closely as he could; but no game showed itself.  They
+traveled all day without seeing anything except now and then a few
+ducks, which always took wing while still far out of range.
+
+At last they came to "Buck Rapids," where they had shot the deer.  The
+river there was one succession of rapids, most of which were too
+dangerous to run through.  It was the place where, on the way up, they
+had made only four miles in a whole day; and they did not cover more
+than ten miles this afternoon.
+
+When they came to the long, narrow lake on the lower reaches of the
+river, the sun was setting.  They were all pretty much exhausted with
+the toil and excitement of the day.
+
+"I vote we stop here," said Mac.  "There'll be a moon toward midnight,
+and we can go on then.  We ought to get some sleep."
+
+"I'm too hungry to sleep," said Fred.
+
+"Well, so am I," Mac admitted.  "But we can rest, anyway."
+
+So they drew up the canoe and lighted a fire, partly from force of
+habit and partly to drive away the mosquitoes.  They carefully lifted
+the fox cage ashore.
+
+"We've nothing for them to eat," Horace said anxiously, "but they ought
+to have water, at any rate."
+
+The difficulty was that they had nothing to put water into.  Mac made a
+sort of cup from an old envelope, and filled it with water, but the
+animals shrank away and would not touch it.  Feeling sure, however,
+that they must be thirsty, the boys carried the cage to the river, and
+set one end of it into the shallow water.  For a few minutes the mother
+fox was shy, but presently she drank eagerly; then the cubs dipped
+their sharp noses into the water.
+
+The boys spread their only blanket on a few hemlock boughs and lay
+down.  Although they were so thoroughly tired, none of them could
+sleep.  Fred's stomach was gnawed by hunger; he was still much excited,
+and in the rush of the river he fancied every minute or two that he
+heard the trappers approaching.
+
+They lay there for some time, talking at intervals, and at last Mac got
+up restlessly.  He threw fresh wood on the fire, in order to make a
+bright blaze; then from an old pine log close by he began to cut a
+number of resinous splinters.  When he had collected a large handful of
+them, he went down to the canoe, and tried to fix them in the ring in
+the bow of the craft.
+
+"What in the world are you doing?" asked Fred, who had got up to see
+what Peter was about.
+
+Peter hammered the bundle of splinters home.  "If we don't get meat in
+twelve hours we won't be able to travel fast--can't keep up steam," he
+said.  "There's only one way to shoot game at night, and that's--"
+
+"Jack light," said Horace, who recognized the device.  "It's a regular
+pot-hunter's trick, but pot-hunters we are, and no mistake about that.
+I only hope it works."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Here where deer were plentiful and hunters scarce, Mac's jack light
+should prove effective.  Sportsmen and the law have quite properly
+united in condemning killing deer by jack light; but the boys felt that
+their need of food justified their course.
+
+After adjusting the torch, Mac cut a birch sapling about eight feet
+long, and trimmed off the twigs.  Bending it into a semicircle, he
+fitted the curve into the bottom of the canoe, close to the bow; then
+he hung the blanket by its corners upon the projecting tips of the
+sapling, and thus screened the bow from the rest of the canoe.
+
+As it had already become dark, and the shores were now black with the
+indistinct shadows of the spruces, Fred and Horace set the canoe gently
+into the water.  When it was afloat, Mac lighted the pine splinters,
+which crackled and flared up like a torch.
+
+"You'd make a better game poacher than I, Horace," he said.  "You take
+the rifle, and I'll paddle."
+
+Horace accordingly placed himself just behind the blanket screen, with
+the weapon on his knees.  Mac sat in the stern, and Fred, who did not
+want to be left behind, seated himself amidships.
+
+"Keep a sharp lookout, both of you," Mac said.  "Watch for the light on
+their eyes, like two balls of fire."
+
+The canoe, keeping about thirty yards from shore, glided silently down
+the long lake.  The "fat" pine flamed smoky and red, and it cast long,
+wavering reflections on the water.  Once an animal, probably a muskrat,
+startled them by diving noisily.  A duck, sleeping on the water, rose
+with a frantic splutter and flurry of wings.  Then, fifty yards
+farther, there was a sudden splash near the shore, then a crashing in
+the bushes, and a dying thump-thump in the distance.
+
+Horace swung his rifle round, but he was too late.  The deer had not
+stopped to stare at the light for an instant.  A jack light ought to
+have a reflector, but the boys had no means of contriving one.
+
+Unspeakably disappointed, they moved slowly on again.  They started no
+more game, and at last reached the lower end of the lake.  Here Mac
+stopped to renew the torch, which had almost burned out.
+
+Then they turned up the other side of the lake, on the home stretch.
+No living thing except themselves seemed to be on the water that night.
+The shore shoaled far out.  Once the keel scraped over a bottom of soft
+mud.  Lilies grew along the shore, and sometimes extended out so far
+that the canoe brushed the half-grown pads.
+
+Suddenly Fred felt the canoe swerve slightly, and head toward the land.
+Horace raised the rifle.  Fred had seen nothing, but after straining
+his eyes ahead, he made out two faint spots of light in the darkness,
+at about the height of a man's head.  Could it be a deer?  The balls of
+light remained perfectly motionless.
+
+Without a splash the canoe glided closer.  Fred thought that he could
+make out the outline of the animal's head, and clenched his hands in
+anxiety.  Why did not Horace shoot?
+
+Suddenly a blinding flash blazed out from the rifle, and the report
+crashed across the water.  There was a splash, followed immediately by
+a noise of violent thrashing in the water near the land.
+
+Fred and Mac shouted together.  With great paddle strokes, Mac drove
+the canoe forward, and at last Horace leaped out.  The others followed
+him.  The deer was down, struggling in the water.  It was dead before
+they reached it.  Horace's bullet had broken its neck.
+
+"Hurrah!" Fred cried.  "This makes us safe.  This'll last us all the
+way home."
+
+It was a fine young buck--so heavy that they had hard work to lift it
+into the canoe.  Far up the lake they could see their camp-fire, and
+they paddled toward it with the haste of half-starved men.
+
+Without stopping to cut up the animal, they skinned one haunch and cut
+off slices, which they set to broil over the coals.  A delicious odor
+rose; the boys did not even wait until the meat had cooked thoroughly.
+They had no salt, but the venison, unseasoned as it was, seemed
+delicious.
+
+The food gave them all more cheerfulness and energy.  The prospect of a
+hard ten days' journey did not look so bad now.  At any rate, they
+would not starve.
+
+"I wonder if the foxes would eat it.  They ought to have something,"
+said Fred, and he dropped some scraps of the raw venison into the cage.
+
+As he stooped to peer more closely at the animals, he made a startling
+discovery.  During their absence on the hunt, the mother fox had been
+gnawing vigorously at the willow cage, particularly at the rawhide
+lashings that bound the framework together.  She had loosened one
+corner, and if she had been left alone for another hour, she might have
+escaped with her cubs.  It gave the boys a bad fright.  Mac refastened
+the lashings with strips of deer-hide, and strengthened the cage with
+more willow withes.  But the boys realized that in the future one of
+them would have to stand guard over the cage at night.
+
+The foxes refused to touch the raw meat.
+
+"I didn't expect them to eat for the first day or two," said Horace.
+"Don't worry.  They'll eat in time, when they get really hungry."
+
+"Let's get this buck cut up," said Mac.  "It'll soon be moonrise, and
+we must be moving."
+
+In order to get more light for their work, they piled pitch pine on the
+fire; then they hung the deer on a tree, and began the disagreeable
+task of skinning and dressing the animal.  When they had finished, they
+had a good deerskin and nearly two hundred pounds of fresh meat.
+
+They would gladly have slept now, but the sky was brightening in the
+east with the rising moon, and there was no time for rest.  No doubt
+the trappers were on their trail, somewhere behind them.  Hastily the
+boys loaded the foxes and the venison into the canoe, and as soon as
+the moon showed above the trees paddled down the lake.  They soon found
+that the moonlight was not bright enough to enable them to run rapids
+safely, and they consequently had to make frequent carries.  Between
+the rapids they shot swiftly down the current, but the river was so
+broken that they made no great progress that night.
+
+Northern summer nights are short, and soon after two o'clock the sky
+began to lighten.  By three o'clock the boys could see well, and they
+went on faster, shooting all except the worst stretches of rough water.
+Shortly after six o'clock they came out from the Smoke River into the
+Missanabie.
+
+"Stop for breakfast?" asked Mac.
+
+"Not here," said Horace.  "We must be careful not to mark our trail,
+especially at this point.  They won't know for sure whether we turned
+up the Missanabie or down, and they may make a mistake and lose a lot
+of time.  A canoe doesn't leave any track, and we mustn't land until we
+have to."
+
+Now the hard work of "bucking the river" began again.  The Missanabie
+had lowered somewhat since the boys had come down it, but it still ran
+so strong that they could not make much progress by paddling.  Their
+canoe poles were far back on the Smoke River, and they did not dare to
+land in order to cut others, for in doing so they would mark their
+trail.
+
+Straining hard at every stroke, they dug their paddles into the water;
+but they made slow work of it.  The least carelessness on their part
+would cause them to lose in one minute as much as they had gained in
+ten.
+
+A stretch of slacker water gave them some respite; but then came a
+long, tumbling, rock-strewn rapid.
+
+"We'll have to portage here," said Mac.
+
+"It'll be a long carry," Horace said.  "We'd lose a good deal of time
+over it.  I think we can track her up."
+
+Mac and Horace carried the cage of foxes along the shore to the head of
+the broken water, and Fred carried up the guns.  Returning to the foot
+of the rapid, they prepared to haul the canoe against the stream.
+Luckily the tracking-line had always been kept in the canoe.  Horace
+tied it to the ring in the bow, took the end of the rope and, bracing
+himself firmly, waded into the water; Macgregor and Fred, on either
+side, held the craft steady.
+
+The bed of the river was very irregular.  Sometimes the water was no
+more than knee-deep; sometimes it reached their hips.  The water was
+icy cold, and the rush and roar of the current were bewildering.  Once
+Mac lost his footing, but he clung to the canoe and recovered himself.
+Then, when halfway up the rapid, Horace stepped on an unsteady stone
+and plunged down, face forward, into the roaring water.
+
+As the towline slackened, the canoe swung round with a jerk against
+Macgregor, and upset him.  Fred tried to hold it upright, but the
+unstable craft went over like a shot.
+
+Out went the venison and everything else that was in her.  Fred made a
+desperate clutch at the stern of the canoe, caught it and held on.  As
+the canoe shot down the rapid, he trailed out like a streamer behind
+it.  He heard a faint, smothered yell:--
+
+"The venison!  Save the meat!"
+
+Almost before he knew it, Fred, half choked, still clinging to the
+canoe, drifted into the tail of the rapid.  He found bottom there, for
+the water was not deep, and managed to right the canoe.  By that time
+Macgregor had got to his feet, and was coming down the shore to help
+Fred.  They were both dripping and chilled; but they got into the
+canoe, and poling with two sticks, set out to rescue what they could.
+
+They must, above everything else, recover the venison, but they could
+see no sign of it.  Some distance down the stream they found both
+paddles afloat, and they worked the canoe up and down below the rapid.
+On a jutting rock they found the deerskin.  Finally they came upon one
+of the hindquarters floating sluggishly almost under water.  They
+rescued it joyfully; but although they searched for a long time, they
+found no more of the meat.
+
+They had left the axe in the canoe, and it was now somewhere at the
+bottom of the river.  They could better have spared one of the guns,
+but they were thankful that their loss had been no greater.
+
+"If we had left the foxes in the canoe," said Fred, "they'd have been
+drowned, sure!"
+
+Horace had waded ashore, and now had a brisk fire going.  Fred and
+Macgregor joined him, and the three boys stood shivering by the blaze,
+with their wet clothes steaming.
+
+"We're well out of it," said Horace, with chattering teeth.  "The worst
+is the loss of the axe.  It won't be easy to make fires from now on."
+
+Once more the problem of supplies loomed dark before the boys.  They
+had nothing now except the haunch of venison, which weighed perhaps
+twenty-five pounds; unless they could pick up more game, that would
+have to last them until they reached civilization.  However, they were
+fairly confident that they could find game soon, and meanwhile they
+could put themselves on rations.
+
+"We've marked our trail all right now," said Mac.  "These tracks and
+this fire will give it away.  We may as well portage, after all."
+
+Their clothing was far from dry, but they were afraid to delay longer.
+None of them felt like trying to wade up the rapid again, and so they
+carried the canoe round it.  At the head of the portage they cut
+several strong poles to use in places where they could not paddle.
+
+They soon found that without the poles they could hardly have made any
+progress at all; and even with them they moved very slowly.  About noon
+they landed, broiled and ate a small piece of venison, and after a
+brief rest set out on their journey again.
+
+By five o'clock they were all dead tired, wet, and chilled, and Mac and
+Fred were ready to stop.  Horace, however, urged them to push on.  He
+felt that perhaps the beaver trappers were not many miles behind.
+After another day or two, he said, they could take things more easily,
+but now they ought to hurry on at top speed.
+
+Just before they were ready to land in order to make camp, three ducks
+splashed from the water just in front of the canoe.  Fred managed to
+drop one of them with each barrel of the shot gun.  Thus the boys got
+their supper without having to draw on their supply of venison; but the
+roasted ducks proved almost as tough as rawhide and, without salt,
+extremely unpalatable.  But they were all so hungry that they devoured
+the birds almost completely; they put the heads into the willow cage,
+but the foxes would not touch them.
+
+For three hours more they pushed on up the river, tired, silent, but
+determined.  At last it began to grow dark.  The boys had reached the
+limit of their endurance, for they had had no sleep the night before.
+They landed and built a fire.  It was hard work to get enough wood
+without the axe, but fortunately the night was not cold.
+
+Exhausted as the boys were, they knew that one of them would have to
+stand watch to see that the foxes did not gnaw their way out of the
+cage, and that the trappers did not attack the camp.  They drew lots
+for it; Macgregor selected the short straw and Fred the long one, and
+they arranged that Mac should take the watch for two hours, then
+Horace, and lastly Fred.
+
+The mosquitoes were bad, and there were no blankets, but Fred seemed to
+go to sleep the moment he lay down on the earth.  He did not hear
+Horace and Mac change guard at midnight, and it seemed to him that he
+had scarcely done more than close his eyes when some one shook him by
+the arm.
+
+"Wake up!  It's your turn to watch!" Horace was saying.
+
+Half dead with sleep, Fred staggered to his feet.  Moonlight lay on the
+forest and river.
+
+"Take the rifle," said Horace.  "There's not been a sign of anything
+stirring, but keep a sharp eye on the foxes."
+
+Horace lay down beside Mac and seemed to fall asleep at once.  Fred
+would have given black foxes and diamonds together to do likewise, but
+he walked up and down until he felt less drowsy.  The foxes were not
+trying to get out, and he saw that they had gnawed the duck heads down
+to the bills.
+
+He sat down against a tree, close to the cage, with the loaded repeater
+across his knees.  For some time the mosquitoes, as well as the
+responsibility of his position, kept him awake.
+
+Every sound in the forest startled him; through the dash of the river
+he imagined that he heard the sound of paddles.  But by degrees he grew
+indifferent to the mosquitoes, and his strained attention flagged.
+Drowsiness crept upon him again; he was very tired.  He found himself
+nodding, and roused himself with a shock of horror.  He thought that he
+would go down to the river and dip his head into the water.  He dozed
+while he was thinking of it--dozed and awoke, and dozed again.
+
+Then after what seemed a moment's interval he was awakened by a harsh
+voice shouting:--
+
+"Hands up!  Wake up, and surrender!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Half awake, Fred made a blind snatch at the rifle that had been across
+his lap.  It was gone.
+
+The sky was bright with dawn.  Ten feet away stood three men with
+leveled rifles.  Horace and Mac were sitting up, holding their hands
+above their heads and looking dazed.
+
+"I said you pups wouldn't bark so loud next time," remarked one of the
+newcomers.  It was the man that had pretended to be a ranger.  With him
+was the slim, dark fellow whom they had seen outside the trappers'
+shack, and the third was a tall, elderly, bearded man, who looked more
+intelligent and more vicious than the others.
+
+None of the boys said anything, but Horace gave Fred a reproachful
+glance that almost broke his heart.  It was his fault that this had
+happened, and he knew it.  Tears of rage and shame started to his eyes.
+He looked about desperately for a weapon.  He would gladly risk his
+life to get his companions out of the awkward scrape into which his
+negligence had plunged them.  But the ranger had taken the boys' rifle,
+and the half-breed had picked up the shotgun.
+
+With a grin of triumph the trappers went to the fox cage, peered at the
+animals, and talked eagerly in low voices.  The boys watched them in
+suspense.  Were they going to kill the foxes?
+
+Presently two of the men picked up the cage and carried it down to the
+river.  The light was strong enough now so that Fred could see the bow
+of a bark canoe drawn up on the shore.  They put the cage into the
+canoe.  Then the half-breed laid his rifle and the stolen shotgun
+beside it, and paddled down the river.  The other two men lifted the
+boys' Peterboro into the water.
+
+"You aren't going to rob us of our firearms and our canoe, too, are
+you?" cried Horace desperately.  "You might as well murder us!"
+
+"Guess you won't need the guns," said the third trapper.  "You've got
+grub, I see, and we durstn't leave you any canoe to foller us up in."
+
+The two men pushed off the Peterboro and followed the birch canoe down
+the river at a rapid pace.  In two minutes they were out of sight round
+a bend.
+
+There was a dead silence.  Fred could not meet the eyes of his
+companions.  He turned away, pretended to look for something, and
+fairly broke down.
+
+"Brace up, Fred!" said his brother.  "It can't be helped, and we're not
+blaming you.  It might have happened to any of us."
+
+"If you'd been awake you might have got shot," said Mac, "and that
+would have been a good deal worse for every one concerned."
+
+But Fred was inconsolable.  Through his tears, he stammered that he
+wished he had been shot.  They had lost the foxes, they were stranded
+and destitute, and they stood a good chance of never getting out alive.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Mac, with forced cheerfulness.  "We were in a far
+worse fix last winter, and we came out on top."
+
+"The first thing to do is to have some grub," added Horace.  "Then
+we'll talk about it."
+
+Looking with calculating eyes at the lump of meat, he cut the slices of
+venison very thin.  There was about twenty pounds left.  They roasted
+the meat he had cut off, and ate it; then Horace unfolded his pocket
+map and spread it on the ground.
+
+They were probably forty miles from the Height of Land.  It was twelve
+miles across the long carry, and at least forty more to the nearest
+inhabited point--almost a hundred miles in all.  There was a chance,
+however, that they might meet some party of prospectors or Indians.
+
+"It's terribly rough traveling afoot," said Horace.  "We could hardly
+make it in less than two weeks.  Besides, our shoes are nearly gone
+now."
+
+"And that piece of venison will never last us for two weeks!" cried
+Macgregor.
+
+"Oh, you can often knock down a partridge with a stick," said Horace.
+
+"If we only had a canoe!" Mac exclaimed, with a burst of rage.  "I'd
+run those thieves down if I had to follow them to Hudson Bay!"
+
+They all agreed on that point, but it was useless to think of following
+them without a canoe.  The boys would have all they could do to save
+their own lives; a hundred-mile journey on foot across that wilderness,
+without arms and with almost no provisions, was a desperate undertaking.
+
+"Well, we've got no choice," said Horace, after a dismal silence.  "We
+must put ourselves on rations of about half a pound of meat a day, and
+we'll lay a bee-line course by the compass for the trail over the
+Height of Land."
+
+He marked the course on the map, and the boys studied it in silence.
+The sun had risen by this time, but the boys were not anxious to break
+camp and start on that journey which would perhaps prove fatal to all
+of them.  They lingered, talking, discussing, hesitating, reluctant to
+make the start.
+
+Fred had not contributed a single word to the discussion.  He had
+barely managed to swallow a little breakfast, and was too miserable to
+join in the talk.  He knew how slim their chances were; he imagined how
+the party would struggle on, growing weaker daily, until--
+
+If only they had a canoe!  If only they could run the robbers down and
+ambush them in their turn!  And as he puzzled on the problem, an
+idea--an inspiration--flashed into his mind.
+
+He bent over, and studied the map intently for a second.
+
+"Look!  Look here!" he cried, wildly.  "What fools we are!  We can
+overtake those fellows--catch 'em--cut 'em off before they get
+anywhere--and get back our grub, and the foxes, and the
+canoe--everything--why--"
+
+"What's that?  What do you mean?" cried Horace and Mac together.
+
+Fred placed a trembling finger on the map.
+
+"See, this is where we are, isn't it?  Those thieves will go down here
+to the mouth of the Smoke River, and turn up it to their camp.  They
+didn't have much outfit with them; so they'll go back to their shanty.
+It's about fifty miles round by the way they'll go, but if we cut
+straight across country--this way--we'd strike the Smoke in twenty-five
+miles, and be there before them."
+
+"I do believe you've hit something, Fred!" Mac exclaimed.
+
+In fact, the Smoke and the Missanabie Rivers made the arms of an acute
+angle.  Between twenty and thirty miles straight to the northwest would
+bring them out on the former stream somewhere in the neighborhood of
+"Buck Rapids."
+
+"Let's see!" calculated Horace hurriedly.  "They can run down to the
+mouth of the Smoke in a few hours from here.  After that it'll be
+slower work, but they'll have the portage trails that we cut, and they
+ought to get up beyond the long lake by this evening.  Can we get
+across in time to head 'em off?"
+
+"We must.  Of course we can!" Fred insisted.  "It's our only chance,
+and you both know it.  We never could get home with our boots gone, and
+with the food we have, but this venison will last us across to the
+Smoke."
+
+"Patch our boots up with the deerskin!" cried Mac.  "We'll ambush 'em.
+We'll catch 'em on a hard carry.  Only let me get my hands on 'em!"
+
+"Then we haven't a minute to lose!" said Horace.
+
+"Let's be off!" cried Fred, springing up.
+
+First of all, however, they repaired their tattered boots by folding
+pieces of the raw deerhide round them and lashing them in place with
+thongs.  It was clumsy work at the best; but Mac rolled up the rest of
+the hide to take with him, in case they should have to make further
+repairs.
+
+Horace consulted the map and the compass again, and picked up the lump
+of venison, which, with the deerskin, constituted their only luggage.
+In less than half an hour from the time Fred had hit upon his plan they
+were off, running through the undergrowth on the twenty-five-mile race
+to the Smoke River.
+
+None of them knew what sort of country the course would pass over.  The
+map for that part of the region was incomplete and no more than
+approximately accurate, so that the boys were not at all sure that
+their guess at the distance to the Smoke River was correct.  But they
+did know that now that they had started on the race, their lives
+depended upon their winning it.  Fred took the lead at once, tearing
+through the thickets, tripping, stumbling.
+
+"Easy, there!" called Horace.  "We mustn't do ourselves up at the
+start."
+
+Fred slackened his pace somewhat, but continued to keep in front.  For
+nearly a mile from the river the land sloped gently upward through
+dense thickets of birch.  Then the birches thinned, and finally gave
+way to evergreen, and the rising ground became rough with gravel and
+rock.  The slope changed to undulating billows of hills, covered with
+stone of every size, from gravel to small boulders, and over it all
+grew a stubbly jungle of cedar and jack-pine, seldom more than six feet
+high.
+
+It was a rough, broken country, and the boys had to slacken their pace
+somewhat; to make things worse, it presently began to rain.  First came
+a driving drizzle, then a heavy downpour, with a strong southwest wind.
+The rocks streamed with water, and the boys were drenched; but the
+heavy rain presently settled again to a soaking drizzle that threatened
+to continue all day.
+
+Through the rain they struggled ahead; sometimes they found a clear
+space where they could run; sometimes they came upon wet, tangled
+shrubbery that impeded them sadly.  They kept hoping for easier
+traveling; but those broken, rocky hills stretched ahead for miles.  At
+last the trees became even more sparse, and the boys encountered a
+whole hillside covered with a mass of split rock.
+
+Over this litter of sandstone they crawled and stumbled at what seemed
+a snail's pace.  They were desperately anxious to hurry, but they knew
+that a slip on those wet rocks might mean a broken leg.
+
+A rain-washed slope of gravel came next; they went down it at a trot,
+and then encountered another hillside covered with huge, loose stones.
+They scrambled over it as best they could, and ran down another slope;
+then trees became more abundant, and soon they were again traveling
+over low, rolling hills clothed in jack-pine scrub.
+
+With marvelous endurance Fred still held the lead.  He went as if
+driven by machinery, with his head down and his lips clenched; he did
+not speak a word.  He was supposed to be the weakest of the party, but
+even Macgregor, a trained cross-country runner, found himself falling
+farther and farther behind.
+
+At eleven o'clock Horace called a halt.  The rain had almost stopped,
+and the boys, lighting a small fire, roasted generous slices of
+venison.  There was no need of sparing the meat now.  Either plenty of
+food or death was at the end of the journey.
+
+No sooner had they eaten it than Fred sprang up again.
+
+"How you fellows can sit here I can't understand!" he exclaimed,
+nervously.  "I'm going on.  Are you coming?"
+
+Mac and Horace followed him.  The land seemed to be sloping continually
+to lower levels; the woods thickened into a sturdy, tangled growth of
+hemlock and tamarack that they had hard work to penetrate.  They
+presently caught a glimpse of water ahead, and came to the shore of a
+small, narrow lake that curved away between rounded, dark hillsides.
+They had to go round the lake, and lost two or three miles by the
+détour.  As they hurried up the shore a bull moose sprang from the
+water, paused an instant to look back, and crashed into the thickets.
+It would have been an easy shot if they had had the rifle.
+
+Round the end of the lake low hills rose abruptly from the shore.
+After scrambling up the slippery slope of the hills they reached the
+top, and saw ahead of them an endless stretch of wild hills and
+forests; there was not a landmark that they recognized.
+
+Horace guessed that they had come about fifteen miles.  Mac thought
+that it was much more.  They agreed that they had broken the back of
+the journey, and that if their strength held out, they could reach the
+Smoke that day.
+
+"Suppose we were--to find the diamond-beds now!" said Mac, between
+quick breaths.
+
+"Don't talk to me about diamonds!" said Horace.  "I never want to hear
+the word again."
+
+On they went, up and down the hills, through the thickets and over the
+ridges; but they no longer went with the energy they had shown in the
+morning.  With every mile their pace grew slower, and they were all
+beginning to limp.  Fred still kept in front, with his face set in grim
+determination.  About the middle of the afternoon Horace came up with
+him, stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, and looked into his face.
+
+Fred's eyes were bright and feverish.  His face was pale and spotted
+with red blotches, and he breathed heavily through his open mouth.
+
+"You've got to stop!" said his brother firmly.  "You're going on your
+nerves.  A little farther, and you'll collapse--go down like a shot."
+
+"I--I'm all right!" said Fred thickly.  "Got to get on--got to make it
+in time!"
+
+But Horace was firm.  First they built a smudge to keep off the flies;
+then they made fresh repairs to their shoes; and finally they stretched
+themselves flat to rest.  But in spite of their fatigue, they were too
+highly strung to stay quiet.  They knew that a delay of an hour might
+lose the race for them.  After resting for less than half an hour, they
+got up and went plunging through the woods again.
+
+They believed now that the Smoke River could not be more than five or
+six miles away.  From every hilltop they hoped to catch sight of it, or
+at least to see some spot that they had passed while prospecting.
+
+But although all the landscape seemed strange, they doggedly continued
+the struggle.  The sun was sinking low over the western ridges now;
+toiling desperately on, they left mile after mile behind, but still the
+Smoke River did not come into sight.  At last Macgregor sat down
+abruptly upon a log.
+
+"I'd just as soon die here as anywhere," he said.
+
+"You're right.  We'll stop, and go on by moonrise," said Horace.
+"Grub's what we need now."
+
+"Why, we're almost at the end!  We can't stop now!" Fred cried.
+
+"We won't lose anything," said his brother.  "The trappers will be
+camping, too, about this time.  If we don't rest now we'll probably
+never get to the Smoke at all."
+
+Staggering with fatigue, he set about getting wood for a fire.  Mac and
+Fred helped him, and when they had built a fire they broiled some of
+the deer meat.  Fred could hardly touch the food.  Horace and Macgregor
+ate only a little, and almost as they ate they nodded, and dropped
+asleep from sheer fatigue.
+
+Fred knew that he, too, ought to sleep, but he could not even lie down.
+His brain burned, his muscles twitched, and he felt strung like a taut
+wire.  Leaving his companions asleep, he started to scout ahead.  He
+went like one in a dream, hardly conscious of anything except the
+overwhelming necessity of getting forward.  His course took him over a
+wooded ridge and down a hillside, and at last he came upon a tiny
+creek.  Stumbling, sometimes falling, but always pushing on, he
+followed the course of the creek for a mile or two; suddenly he found
+himself on the shore of a large and rapid river, into which the creek
+emptied.
+
+Furious at the obstacle, he looked for a place where he could cross the
+river.
+
+It was too deep for him to wade across it, and too swift for him to
+swim it.  He hurried up the bank, looking for a place where he could
+ford it, and at last came to a stretch of short, violent rapids.
+
+He was about to turn back when he caught sight of axe marks in the
+undergrowth.  Some one had cut a trail for the carry round the rapid.
+He stared at the axe marks, and then at the river.  Suddenly his dazed
+brain cleared.
+
+He recognized the spot.  He recognized the trail that he himself had
+helped to cut.  He had found the Smoke River!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Fred never quite knew how he got back to camp after he had found the
+river.  He found his companions still sound asleep, but it did not take
+him long to rouse them and to tell them the news.
+
+"I couldn't see any tracks on the shore.  I don't think any one has
+passed," Fred said.
+
+In less than a minute the boys, wild with joy, were hurrying through
+the woods again.  It was almost dark when they reached the river;
+peering close to the ground they examined the trail carefully, to make
+sure that the trappers had not already passed.
+
+The heavy rain had washed the shores, and no fresh tracks showed in the
+mud.  The men had not been over the portage that day, and they could
+hardly have passed the rapids without making a carry.  They had
+evidently camped for the night at some point below, and would not come
+up the river until morning.
+
+After piling up some hemlock boughs for a bed, the boys lay down, and
+dropped into a heavy sleep.  Now that the strain was over, Fred slept,
+too.  In fact, for the last quarter of an hour he had hardly been able
+to stay on his feet.
+
+In the gray dawn Horace awakened them.  They were stiff from their
+thirty-mile race of the day before, and their feet were swollen.  Hot
+food--especially hot tea--was what they longed for; but they were
+afraid to make a fire, and they had to content themselves with a little
+raw venison for their breakfast.
+
+Horace thought that they could make their ambush where they were as
+well as anywhere else.  The portage was about thirty yards long, and
+the narrow trail passed over a ridge and ran through dense hemlock
+thickets.  If the trappers came up the trail in single file, carrying
+heavy loads, they could not use their rifles against a sudden attack.
+
+The boys armed themselves each with a hardwood bludgeon; then they
+ensconced themselves in the thickets where they could see the reaches
+of the river below--and waited.
+
+An hour passed.  It was almost sunrise, and there was no sign of the
+trappers on the river.  The boys grew nervous with dread and anxiety.
+The tree-tops began to glitter with sunlight.  It was almost six
+o'clock.
+
+"Could they have gone some other way?" asked Fred uneasily, staring
+upstream.
+
+At that very moment Macgregor grasped his arm and pointed down the
+river.  Two small objects had appeared round a bend, half a mile below.
+They were certainly canoes, making slow headway against the stiff
+current, but they were too far away for the boys to make them out
+plainly.  Minute by minute they grew nearer.
+
+"The front one's a Peterboro!" said Mac.  "There's one man in it, and
+two in the other.  I think I can see the fox cage."
+
+Without doubt it was the trappers.  The young prospectors slipped back
+through the thickets, almost to the upper end of the trail, and
+concealed themselves in the hemlocks.
+
+"Above all things, try to get hold of their guns!" said Horace.
+
+For a long while they waited in terrible suspense.  They could not see
+the landing, nor at first could they hear anything, for the tumbling
+water of the rapids roared in their ears.  After what seemed almost an
+hour, stumbling footsteps sounded near by on the trail, and the bow of
+the Peterboro hove in sight.  A man was carrying it on his head; he
+steadied it with one hand, and in the other grasped a gun--Horace's
+repeating rifle.
+
+When he was almost within arm's reach, Mac sprang and tackled him low
+like a football player.  The trapper dropped the gun with a startled
+yell, and went over headlong into the hemlocks--canoe and all.
+
+Horace leaped out to seize the gun that the man had dropped.  Before he
+could touch it, the second trapper rushed up the trail with his rifle
+clubbed.  Fred struck out at him with his bludgeon.  The blow missed
+the fellow's head, and fell on his arm.  Down clattered the rifle,
+discharging as it fell.  The trapper made a frantic leap aside, and
+disappeared into the bushes.
+
+As Fred snatched up the rifle, he caught a glimpse of the third
+trapper, the wiry half-breed, hastening up the path.
+
+"Halt!  Hands up!" shouted Horace, raising the repeater.
+
+The man stopped, fired a wild shot, turned and bolted back toward the
+landing.  Fred and his brother rushed after him; they reached the
+landing just in time to see him leap into the birch canoe, which still
+held the fox cage, shove off, and digging his paddle furiously into the
+water, shoot down the stream.
+
+"After him!  The canoe!  Quick!" shouted Horace.
+
+They dashed back.  The man that Fred had struck was nowhere to be seen.
+Macgregor had pinned his antagonist to the ground, and seemed to have
+him well subdued.
+
+"Never mind him, Mac!" Fred cried.  "Pick up that canoe in a hurry!
+One of the scoundrels has got away with the foxes!"
+
+All three of them seized the canoe and rushed it down to the landing.
+There they found the shore strewn with articles of camp outfit where
+the men had unloaded the canoes.
+
+"Load it in, boys!" cried Horace.  "Take what we need.  We're not
+coming back."
+
+They pitched an armful or two of supplies into the canoe.  Fred's
+shotgun was there, and several other articles that the boys recognized
+as their own.  The rest was a fair exchange for the outfit that they
+had abandoned in their tent.
+
+They shoved the canoe off.  The half-breed had gained a long lead by
+this time.  He was nearly a quarter of a mile ahead, paddling
+frantically; he did not even stop to fire at the boys.  But there were
+three paddles in pursuit, and the boys began to gain on him noticeably.
+More than two miles flashed by, and then the roar of rapids sounded
+ahead.
+
+"Got him!" panted Mac.  "He'll have to land now."
+
+Round another bend shot the birch canoe, with the Peterboro three
+hundred yards behind, and now the broken water came in sight.  It was a
+long, rock-staked chute, and the boys thought it would be suicidal to
+try to run it.  But the half-breed kept straight on in mid-channel.
+
+"He's going to try to run through!" Horace cried.  "He'll drown himself
+and the foxes!"
+
+The boys yelled at him; but the next instant the man's canoe had shot
+into the broken water.  For a moment they lost sight of him in a cloud
+of spray; then they saw him half-way down the rapids, going like a
+bullet.  With incredible skill, he was keeping his craft upright.
+
+The boys drove their canoe toward the landing, and still watched the
+man.  When he was almost through the rapids, they saw his canoe shoot
+bow upward into the air, hang a moment, and then go over.
+
+Shouting with excitement, they dragged the canoe ashore, picked it up,
+and went over the portage at a run.  Far down the stream they saw the
+birch canoe floating on its side, near the fox cage.  They had just
+launched the Peterboro at the tail of the rapids, when they saw
+something black bobbing in the swirling water.
+
+It was the head of the half-breed.  He was swimming feebly, and when
+they hauled him into the canoe, was almost unconscious.  He had a great
+bleeding gash just above his ear, where he had struck a rock; but he
+was not seriously injured.  The boys paid little attention to him, but
+hastened to rescue their treasure.  When they came up with the birch
+canoe, they found that the fox cage had been lashed to it with a strip
+of deerskin, and, to their great relief, that the foxes were there, all
+four of them, alive and afloat.
+
+They got the cage ashore as quickly as possible.  The foxes were
+dripping with water, but looked as lively as ever.  To all appearances,
+the ducking had not hurt them.
+
+The canoe itself had not come off so well.  It had a great rent in the
+bottom, and Horace stamped another hole through the bow.  Then the boys
+examined their new outfit.  From their own former store they had a
+kettle, a frying-pan, a box of rifle-cartridges, and a sack of tea.
+They had taken from the trappers' supplies half a sack of flour, a lump
+of salt pork, two blankets, and two rifles.
+
+The half-breed had recovered his wits by this time; sitting on the
+bank, he glared savagely at them.
+
+"You'll find your partners waiting for you up the river," Horace said
+to him.  "We've got what we need, and you'll find the rest of your kit
+on the shore where you unpacked it.  As for your rifles--"
+
+He picked them up and tossed them into six feet of water.  "By the time
+you've fished them out and mended your canoe I guess you won't want to
+follow us.  If you do, you won't catch us napping again, and we'll
+shoot you on sight.  _Savez_?"
+
+The half-breed muttered some sullen response.  The boys loaded the fox
+cage into the Peterboro, got in themselves, and shot down the river
+again in a fresh start for home.  They left the trapper sitting on the
+rock, glaring after them.
+
+Now that the strain was over and the fight won, the boys felt utterly
+exhausted.  They kept on at as fast a pace as they could, however, and
+reached the Missanabie River a little after noon.  There they stopped
+to cook dinner.
+
+Once more they had hot, black _voyageurs'_ tea, and fried flapjacks,
+and salt pork.  It seemed the most delicious meal they had ever eaten;
+but when they had finished, they felt too weary to start up the
+Missanabie, and reckless of consequences, they lay down and slept for
+almost two hours.
+
+Then they continued their journey with double energy, and made good
+progress for the rest of the day.
+
+They were entirely out of fresh meat, and had nothing whatever to give
+the foxes, but fortunately Mac shot three spruce grouse that evening.
+They dropped the heads of the birds into the cage; the foxes devoured
+them with a voracity that indicated that the trappers had fed them
+nothing.  Early the next morning Horace by a long shot killed a deer at
+the riverside.
+
+It was a rough journey up the Missanabie, but not nearly so hard as the
+trip up the Smoke River had been.  For eight days they paddled, poled,
+tracked, and portaged, until they came at last to the point where they
+had first launched the canoe.
+
+The "long carry" over the Height of Land now confronted them.  It is
+true that they had by no means so much outfit to carry now, but, on the
+other hand, they had no packers to help them.  They had to make two
+journeys of it, and, as a further difficulty, one of the boys had to
+remain with the fox cage.  As they reached the top of the ridge on
+their first journey, Macgregor turned and looked back over the wild
+landscape to the northwest.
+
+"Somewhere over there," he murmured, "is the diamond country."
+
+"Shut up!" exclaimed Horace, in exasperation.
+
+"I never want to hear the word 'diamond' again," added Fred.
+
+They left the foxes together with the rest of their loads at the end of
+the "carry," and Fred remained to guard them, while Peter and Horace
+went back for the remainder of the outfit.  While they were gone Fred
+noticed that one of the cubs was not looking well.  It refused to eat
+or drink; its fur was losing its gloss, and it lay in a sort of a doze
+most of the time.  Plainly captivity did not agree with it.
+
+Horace and Peter were much concerned about its condition when they came
+back.  None of them had any idea what to do; in fact it is doubtful if
+the most skilled veterinary surgeon could have prescribed.
+
+"The real trouble is their cramped quarters, of course," said Horace.
+"We must get home as quickly as possible, and get them out of this and
+into a larger cage.  Some of the others will sicken if we don't look
+sharp."
+
+They made all the speed they could, and, now that they were fairly on
+the canoe route south of the Height of Land, they felt that they were
+well toward home.  It was downstream now, and portages grew less and
+less frequent as the river grew.  They did not stop to hunt or fish;
+the paddled till dusk, and were up at dawn.  They felt that it was a
+race for the life of the valuable little animal, and they did not spare
+themselves.  Two days afterward, late in the afternoon, they came to
+the little railway village that had been their starting-point.
+
+The cub seemed no better--worse, if anything.  There was a train for
+Toronto at eight o'clock that night.  The boys hurried to the hotel
+where they had left their baggage, and changed their tattered woods
+garments for more civilized clothing.  There was time to eat a
+civilized supper, with bread and vegetables and jam,--almost forgotten
+luxuries,--and time also to send a telegram to Maurice Stark.
+
+They carried the cage of foxes to the hotel with them, for they were
+determined henceforth not to let the animals out of their sight for a
+moment.  The unusual spectacle of the three boys with their burden
+attracted much attention, and when the contents of the cage became
+known, nearly the whole population of the village assembled to have a
+look.
+
+The crowd followed them to the depot, and saw the foxes put into the
+baggage-car.  They had secured permission for one of them to ride with
+the cage and stand guard, and the boys took turns at this duty.  The
+other two tried to snatch a few hours of rest in the sleeper; but the
+berths seemed stifling and airless.  Accustomed to the open camp, they
+could not sleep a wink, and were rather more fatigued the next morning
+than when they had started.  It was still four hours to Toronto, but
+they reached the city at noon.  Macgregor was standing the last watch
+in the baggage-car, and as Fred and Horace came down the steps of the
+Pullman they saw Maurice Stark pushing through the crowd.
+
+"What luck?" Maurice demanded anxiously, lowering his voice as he shook
+hands.  "Did you find the--the--?"
+
+"Not any diamonds," replied Fred, with a laugh.  "But we brought back
+some black gold.  Come and see it."
+
+They went forward to the platform where the baggage was being unloaded.
+Macgregor was helping to hand out the willow cage.  It looked strangely
+wild and rough among the neat suit-cases and trunks.
+
+"What in the world have you got there?" cried Maurice, peering through
+the bars.
+
+Fred and Horace were also looking anxiously to learn the condition of
+the sick cub.
+
+"Why, he's dead!" exclaimed Fred, in bitter disappointment.
+
+"Yes," said Mac; "the little fellow keeled over just after I came on
+guard.  I didn't send word to you fellows, for I knew there was nothing
+to be done."
+
+The rest of the family were alive and looked in good condition.  The
+boys had already decided what they would do immediately, and, calling a
+cab, they drove with the foxes to the house of a well-known naturalist
+connected with the Toronto Zoölogical Park.  He was as competent as any
+one could be, and he readily agreed to take care of the foxes till they
+should be sold.
+
+Naturally, however, he declined to be responsible for their safety, and
+Horace at once attempted to insure their lives.  No insurance company
+would accept the risk, but after much negotiation he at last managed to
+effect a policy of two thousand dollars for one month, on payment of an
+exorbitant premium.  He was more successful in getting insurance
+against theft, and took out a policy for ten thousand dollars with a
+burglar insurance company, on condition of a day and night watchman
+being employed to guard the animals.
+
+It was plain that the foxes were going to be a source of terrible
+anxiety while they remained on the boys' hands.  Horace at once
+telegraphed to the manager of one of the largest fur-breeding ranches
+in Prince Edward Island, and received a reply saying that a
+representative of the company would call within a few days.
+
+The man turned up three days later, and inspected the foxes in a casual
+and uninterested way.
+
+"We'd hardly think of buying," he remarked.  "We've got about all the
+stock we need.  I was coming to Toronto just when I got your wire, and
+I thought I'd look in at them.  What are you thinking of asking for
+them?"
+
+"Fifty thousand dollars," said Horace.
+
+The fur-trader laughed heartily.
+
+"You'll be lucky if you get a quarter of that," he said.  "Why, we
+bought a fine, full-grown black fox last year for five hundred.  Your
+cubs are hardly worth anything, you know.  They 're almost sure to die
+before they grow up."
+
+"Professor Forsythe doesn't think so," replied Horace.
+
+"Well, I'm glad I saw them," said the dealer.  "If I can hear of a
+buyer for you I'll send him along, but you'll have to come away down on
+your prices.  You might let me have your address, in case I hear of
+anything."
+
+"It doesn't look as if we were going to sell them!" said Fred, who was
+not used to shrewd business dealing.  "Perhaps we can't get any price
+at all."
+
+Horace laughed.
+
+"Oh, that was all bluff.  I saw the fellow's eyes light up when he saw
+these black beauties.  He'll be back to see us within a day or two."
+
+Sure enough, the man did come back.  He scarcely mentioned the foxes
+this time, but took the boys out motoring.  As they were parting he
+said carelessly, "I think I might get you a buyer for your foxes, but
+he couldn't pay over fifteen thousand."
+
+"No use in our talking to him then," replied Horace, with equal
+indifference.
+
+That was the beginning of a series of negotiations that ran through
+fully a week.  It was interspersed with motor rides, dinner parties,
+and other amusements to which the parties treated one another
+alternately.  The Prince Edward Island man brought himself to make a
+proposal of twenty thousand, and Horace came down to thirty-five
+thousand, and there they stuck.  Finally Horace came down to thirty.
+
+"I'll give you twenty-five," said the furbreeder at last, "but I think
+I'll be losing money at that."
+
+"I'll meet you halfway," replied Horace.  "Split the difference.  Make
+it twenty-seven thousand, five hundred."
+
+Both parties were well wearied with bargaining by this time, and the
+buyer gave in.
+
+"All right!" he agreed.  "You'll make your fortune, young man, if you
+keep on, for you 're the hardest customer to deal with that I've met
+this year."
+
+The dealer went back next day to the east, taking the foxes with him,
+and leaving with the boys a certified check for $27,500.  It was not as
+much as they had hoped to clear, but it was a small fortune after all.
+
+"Comes to nearly seven thousand apiece," Fred remarked.
+
+"Not at all," remonstrated Maurice.  "I don't see where I have any
+share in it."
+
+"Oh, come!  We're rolling in money.  You must have something out of it.
+Mustn't he, Horace?"
+
+They knew that Maurice really needed the money, and it was not by his
+own will that he had failed to go with the expedition.  In the end he
+was persuaded to accept the odd five hundred dollars, but he refused to
+take a cent more.  The remainder made just nine thousand dollars apiece
+for each of the three other boys.
+
+"I've lost a year's varsity work," said Peter, "but I guess it was
+worth it.  Nine thousand is more than I ever expect to make in a year
+of medical practice.  Besides, we know there are diamonds in that
+country.  Horace found them.  Why can't we--"
+
+"Shut up!" cried Fred.
+
+"Take his money away from him!" exclaimed Horace.  "I don't want to
+hear any more of diamonds."
+
+"--And why can't we make another expedition," continued Peter, "and
+prospect for--"  But Fred and Horace pounced on him, and after a
+violent struggle got him down on the couch.
+
+"Prospect for what?" cried Fred, sitting on his chest.
+
+"Ow--let me up!" gurgled Mac.  "Why, for--for more black foxes!"
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+The Riverside Press
+
+CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
+
+U . S . A
+
+
+
+
+Dr. Tomlinson's Books
+
+The American boy will never tire of reading tales of the early colonial
+days and especially of the desperate encounters and struggles of the
+colonists with the natives of the forest.
+
+Dr. Tomlinson has read widely and has collected a mass of incident
+through family tradition and otherwise, which he has skillfully
+incorporated in the historical frameworks of several exceedingly
+interesting and instructive stories.  He has the knack of mixing
+history with adventure in such a way as to make his young readers
+absorb much information while entertaining them capitally.  His
+historical tales are filled with an enthusiasm which it is well to
+foster in the heart of every healthy-minded and patriotic American boy.
+
+The plots are all based upon events that actually occurred; and the boy
+heroes play the part of men in a way to capture the hearts of all boy
+readers.  Dr. Tomlinson shows scrupulous regard for the larger truths
+of history, and the same care that would naturally go into a book for
+older readers.
+
+
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+
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+
+
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+
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+heroes of the American Revolution.
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+
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+Revolution.
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+
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+friendship.
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+and of the Revolution in upper New York state.
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+
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+country of the Iroquois in 1779.
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+Barrens.
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+
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+
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+
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+known to Tomlinson readers, for hero.
+
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+
+The young hero joins the garrison at Sacket's Harbor, is sent on an
+expedition down the St. Lawrence, and takes part in McDonough's victory
+on Lake Champlain.
+
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+The Young Sharpshooter
+
+The experiences of a boy in the Peninsular Campaign of 1862, under
+McClellan.
+
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+
+Deals with Lee's invasion of Maryland in 1862, relating further
+exciting adventures of Noel, the young sharpshooter.
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+
+The experiences of the heroes of "The Young Sharpshooter" and "The
+Young Sharpshooter at Antietam," during the course of the war from
+Antietam to Appomattox.
+
+
+Each volume, illustrated, crown 8vo, $1.35 net.
+
+Houghton Mifflin Company
+
+Boston and New York
+
+
+
+BOOKS BY
+
+ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER
+
+"Some of the best boys' stories of the time carry Mr. Pier's name on
+the title page.  His Boys of St. Timothy's books have always been
+popular with young readers.  They are wholesome, lively, entertaining
+tales of schoolboy life and sports."--_Detroit Free Press_.
+
+
+THE JESTER OF ST. TIMOTHY'S
+
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
+
+HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S
+
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+
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+
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+
+
+
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+
+BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
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+End of Project Gutenberg's Northern Diamonds, by Frank Lillie Pollock
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+<HTML>
+<HEAD>
+
+<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+
+<TITLE>
+The Project Gutenberg E-text of Northern Diamonds, by Frank Lillie Pollock
+</TITLE>
+
+<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
+BODY { color: Black;
+       background: White;
+       margin-right: 10%;
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Northern Diamonds, by Frank Lillie Pollock
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Northern Diamonds
+
+Author: Frank Lillie Pollock
+
+Release Date: October 8, 2010 [EBook #32323]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHERN DIAMONDS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-front"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="LOWERED THE CAN CAUTIOUSLY BY A STRING" BORDER="2" WIDTH="477" HEIGHT="612">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 477px">
+LOWERED THE CAN CAUTIOUSLY BY A STRING
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+NORTHERN DIAMONDS
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+BY
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+<I>With Illustrations</I>
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+<BR>
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+<BR>
+The Riverside Press Cambridge
+<BR>
+1917
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+COPYRIGHT, 1914 AND 1915, BY PERRY MASON COMPANY
+<BR>
+COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK
+<BR><BR>
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+<BR>
+<I>Published September 1917</I>
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+NOTE
+</H3>
+
+<P STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%">
+This book has appeared in the <I>Youth's Companion</I> in the form of a
+serial and sequel, and my thanks are due to the proprietors of that
+periodical for permission to reprint.
+<BR><BR>
+FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+</H2>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-front">
+LOWERED THE CAN CAUTIOUSLY BY A STRING . . . . . . <I>Frontispiece</I>
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-014">
+THE OTHER BOYS HAD BEEN BUSY
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-088">
+"THAT IS OUR CABIN.  LET US COME IN, I SAY"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-106">
+DRAGGED HIM UP, PROTESTING, AND RUBBED SNOW ON HIS EARS
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-128">
+FLUNG THE SACK INTO THE MAN'S LAP
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+<I>From drawings by Harry C. Edwards</I>
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+NORTHERN DIAMONDS
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER I
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It was nearly eleven o'clock at night when some one knocked at the door
+of Fred Osborne's room.  He was not in the least expecting any caller
+at that hour, and had paid no attention when he had heard the doorbell
+of the boarding-house ring downstairs, and the sound of feet ascending
+the steps.  He hastened to open the door, however, and in the dim
+hallway he recognized the dark, handsome face of Maurice Stark, and
+behind it the tall, raw-boned form of Peter Macgregor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Both of them uttered an exclamation of satisfaction at seeing him.
+They were both in fur caps and overcoats, for it was a sharp Canadian
+December night, and at the first glance Fred observed that their faces
+wore an expression of excitement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come in, boys!" he said.  "I wasn't going to bed.  Here, take your
+coats off.  What's up?  You look as if something was the matter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is Horace in town?" demanded Peter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred shook his head.  Horace was his elder brother, a mining engineer
+mostly employed in the North Country.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's still somewhere in the North Woods.  I haven't heard from him
+since October, but I'm expecting him to turn up almost any day now.
+Why, what's the matter?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The matter?  Something pretty big," returned Maurice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Maurice Stark was Fred's most intimate friend in Toronto University,
+from which he had himself graduated the summer before.  He knew
+Macgregor less well, for the big Scotch-Canadian was in the medical
+school.  His home place was somewhere far up in the North Woods, but he
+had a great intercollegiate reputation as a long-distance runner.  It
+was, in fact, chiefly in a sporting way that Fred had come to know him,
+for Fred held an amateur skating championship, and was even then
+training for the ice tournament to be held in Toronto in a few weeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's something big!" Maurice repeated.  "I wish Horace were here,
+but&mdash;could you get a holiday from your office for a week or ten days?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've got it already," said Fred.  "I reserved my holidays last summer,
+and things aren't busy in a real estate office at this time of year.  I
+guess I could get two weeks if I wanted it.  I'm spending most of my
+time now training for the five and ten miles."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Could you skate a hundred and fifty miles in two days?" demanded
+Macgregor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I might if I had to&mdash;if it was a case of life and death."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's just what it is&mdash;a case of life and death, and possibly a
+fortune into the bargain!" cried Maurice.  "You see&mdash;but Mac has the
+whole story."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Scottish medical student went to the window, raised the blind and
+peered out at the wintry sky.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No sign of snow yet," he said in a tone of satisfaction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's that got to do with it?" demanded Fred, who was burning with
+curiosity by this time.  "What's going on, anyway?  Hurry up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Spoil the skating," said Macgregor briefly.  "Well," he went on after
+a moment, "this is how I had the story.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I live away up north of North Bay, you know, at a little place called
+Muirhead.  I went home for a little visit last week, and the second day
+I was there they brought in a sick Indian from Hickson, a little
+farther north&mdash;sick with smallpox.  The Hickson authorities wouldn't
+have him at any price, and they had just passed him on to us.  The
+people at Muirhead didn't want him either.  It wasn't such a very bad
+case of smallpox, but the poor wretch had suffered a good deal of
+exposure, and he was pretty shaky.  Everybody was in a panic about him;
+they wanted to ship him straight down to North Bay; but finally I got
+him fixed up in a sort of isolation camp and looked after him myself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good for you, Mac!" Fred ejaculated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, it was good hospital training, and I'd been recently vaccinated,
+so I didn't run any danger.  It paid me, though, for when I'd pulled
+him around a bit he told me the story, and a queer tale it was."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Macgregor paused and went to look out of the window again with anxiety.
+Fred was listening breathlessly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It seems that last September this Indian, along with a couple of
+half-breeds, went up into the woods for the winter trapping, and built
+a cabin on one of the branches of the Abitibi River, away up northeast
+of Lake Timagami.  I know about where it was.  I suppose you've never
+been up in that country, Osborne?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Never quite as far as that.  Last summer I was nearly up to Timagami
+with Horace."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred had made a good many canoeing trips into the Northern wilderness
+with his brother, and Horace himself, as mining engineer, surveyor, and
+free-lance prospector, had spent most of the last five years in that
+region.  At irregular and generally unexpected times he would turn up
+in Toronto with a bale of furs, a sack of mineralogical specimens, and
+a book of geological notes, which would presently appear in the
+"University Science Quarterly," or even in more important publications.
+He was an Associate of the Canadian Geographical Society, and always
+expected to hit on a vein of mineral that would make his whole family
+millionaires.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I've been up and down the Abitibi in a canoe," Macgregor went
+on, "and I think I know almost the exact spot where they must have
+built the cabin.  Anyhow, I'm certain I could find it, for the Indian
+described it as accurately as he could.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It seems that the three men trapped there till the end of October, and
+then a white man came into their camp.  He was all alone, and
+complained of feeling sick.  They were kind enough to him; he stayed
+with them, but in a few days they found out what the matter was.  He
+had smallpox.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, you know how the Indians and half-breeds dread smallpox.  They
+fear it like death itself, but these fellows seem to have behaved
+pretty well at first.  They did what they could for the sick man, but
+pretty soon one of the trappers came down with the disease.  It took a
+violent form, and he was dead in a few days.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That was too much for the nerve of the Indian, and he slipped away and
+started for the settlements south.  But he had waited too long.  He had
+the germs in him.  He sickened in the woods, but had strength enough to
+keep going till he came to the first clearings.  Somebody rushed him in
+to Hickson, and so he was passed on to my hands."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And what became of the white man and the other trapper?" demanded Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, that's what nobody knows.  The Indian said that the remaining
+half-breed was falling sick when he left.  The white man may be dead by
+this time, or perhaps still living but deserted, or he may be well on
+the road to recovery.  But I left out the sensational feature of the
+whole thing.  My Indian said that the white man had a buckskin sack on
+him full of little stones that shone like fire.  He seemed to set great
+store by them, and threatened to blow the head off anybody who touched
+the bag."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Shining stones?  Perhaps they were diamonds!" ejaculated Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It looks almost as if he might have found the diamond fields, for a
+fact," said Peter, with sparkling eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Canada was full of rumors of diamond discoveries just then.  Every
+Canadian must remember the intense excitement created by the report
+that diamonds had been found in the mining regions of northern Ontario.
+Several stones had actually been brought down to Toronto and Montreal,
+where tests showed them to be real diamonds, though they were mostly
+small, flawed, and valueless.  One, however, was said to have brought
+nine hundred dollars, and the news set many parties outfitting to
+prospect for the blue-clay beds.  But they met with no success.  In
+every case the stones had either been picked up in river drift or
+obtained from Indians who could give no definite account of where they
+had been found.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Could it be that this strange white man had actually stumbled on the
+diamond fields&mdash;only to fall sick and perhaps to die with the secret of
+his discoveries untold?  Fred gazed from Peter to Maurice, almost
+speechless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Naturally, my first idea was to get up a rescue party to bring out the
+sick prospector," Maurice went on.  "But the woods are in the worst
+kind of shape for traveling.  The streams are all frozen hard, but
+there has been remarkably little snow yet&mdash;not near enough for
+snowshoes or sledges.  It would be impossible to tramp that distance
+and pack the supplies.  Besides, when I came to think it over it struck
+me that the thing was too valuable to share with a lot of guides and
+backwoodsmen.  If we find that fellow alive, and he has really
+discovered anything, it would be strange if he wouldn't give us a
+chance to stake out a few claims that might be worth thousands&mdash;maybe
+millions.  And it struck me that there was a quicker way to get to him
+than by snowshoes or dogs.  The streams are frozen, the ice is clear,
+and the skating was fine at Muirhead."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"An expedition on skates?" cried Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why not?  There's a clear canoe way, barring a few portages, and that
+means a clear ice road till it snows.  But it might do that at any
+moment."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A hundred and fifty miles in two days?" said Fred.  "Sure, we can do
+it.  I'll set the pace, if you fellows can keep up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Anyhow, I came straight down to the city and saw Maurice about it.  He
+said you'd be the best third man we could get.  But I had hoped we
+could get Horace, so as to have his expert opinion on what that man may
+have found."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The last time I heard from Horace he was at Red Lake," said Fred, "but
+I wouldn't have any idea where to find him now.  He always comes back
+to Toronto for the winter, and he can't be much later than this."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, we can't wait for him," said Maurice regretfully.  "I'm sorry,
+but maybe next spring will do as well, when we go to prospect our
+diamond claims."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, but we've got to get them first," said Peter, "and there's a
+man's life to be saved&mdash;and it might snow to-night and block the whole
+expedition."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then we'd get dogs and snowshoes," Maurice remarked, "but it would be
+far slower traveling than on skates."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must rush things.  Could we get away to-morrow?" Fred cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must&mdash;by the evening train.  Maurice and I have been making out a
+list of the things we need to buy.  Have you a gun?  Well, we have two
+rifles anyway, and that'll be more than enough, for we want to go as
+light as possible.  You'll need a sleeping-bag, of course, and your
+roughest, warmest woolen clothes, and a couple of heavy sweaters.
+We'll carry snowshoes and moccasins with us, in case of a snowfall.
+I'll bring a medicine case and disinfectants."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Will we have to pack all that outfit on our shoulders?" Fred asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, of course not.  I have a six-foot toboggan, which I'll have fitted
+with detachable steel runners to-morrow, good for either ice or snow.
+We'll haul it by a rope.  But here's the main thing&mdash;the grub list."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred glanced over the scribbled rows of the carefully considered
+items,&mdash;bacon, condensed milk, powdered eggs, beans, dehydrated
+vegetables, meal, tea, bread,&mdash;and he was astonished.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Surely we won't need all this for a week or ten days?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's a man-killing country in the winter," responded the Scotchman
+grimly.  "I know it.  You have to go well prepared, and you never can
+depend on getting game after snow falls.  Besides, we'll have no time
+for hunting.  Yes, we'll need every ounce of that, and it'll all have
+to be bought to-morrow.  And now I suppose we'd better improve the last
+chance of sleeping in a bed that we'll have for some time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He went to the window and again observed the sky, which remained clear
+and starry, snapping with frost.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No sign of snow, certainly.  We can count on you, then, Osborne?  Of
+course it's understood that we share expenses equally&mdash;they won't be
+heavy&mdash;and share anything that we may get out of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Count on me?  I should rather think so!" cried Fred fervently.  "Why,
+I'd never have forgiven you if you hadn't let me in on this.  But we'll
+have to do a lot of quick shopping to-morrow, won't we?  Where do we
+meet?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At my rooms, as soon after breakfast as possible," replied Mac.  "And
+breakfast early, and make all the preparations you can before that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this they went away, leaving Fred alone, but far too full of
+excitement to sleep.  He sorted out his warmest clothing, carefully
+examined and oiled his hockey skates and boots, wrote a necessary
+letter or two, and did such other things as occurred to him.  It was
+long past one o'clock when he did go to bed, and even then he could not
+sleep.  His mind was full of the dangerous expedition that he had
+plunged into within the last hours.  His imagination saw vividly the
+picture of the long ice road through the wilderness, a hundred and
+fifty miles to the lonely trappers' shack, where a white man lay sick
+with a bag of diamonds on his breast&mdash;or perhaps by this time lay dead
+with the secret of immense riches lost with him.  And the ice road
+might close to-morrow.  Fred tossed and turned in bed, and more than
+once got up to look out the window for signs of a snowstorm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But he went to sleep at last, and slept soundly till awakened by the
+rattle of his alarm-clock, set for half-past six.  He had an early
+breakfast and packed his clothes.  At nine o'clock he telephoned the
+real estate office where he was employed, and had no difficulty in
+getting his holidays extended another week.  Business was dull just
+then.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At half-past nine he met Maurice and Peter, who were waiting for him
+with impatience.  Macgregor had already left his toboggan at a
+sporting-goods store to be equipped with runners for use on ice.  But
+there remained an immense amount of shopping to do, and all the things
+had to be purchased at half a dozen different places.  Together they
+went the rounds of the shops with a list from which they checked off
+article after article,&mdash;ammunition, sleeping-bags, moccasins, food,
+camp outfit,&mdash;and they ordered them all sent to Macgregor's rooms by
+special delivery.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At four o'clock in the afternoon the boys went back, and found the room
+littered with innumerable parcels of every shape and size.  Only the
+toboggan had not arrived, though it had been promised for the middle of
+the afternoon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Gracious!  It looks like a lot!" exclaimed Maurice, gazing about at
+the packages.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It won't look like so much when they're stowed away," replied Peter.
+"Let's get them unwrapped, and, Fred, you'd better go down and hurry up
+that toboggan.  Stand over them till it's done, for we must have it
+before six o'clock."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred hurried downtown again.  The toboggan was not finished, but the
+work was under way.  By dint of furious entreaties and representations
+of the emergency Fred induced them to hurry it up.  It was not a long
+job, and by a quarter after five Fred was back at Mac's room,
+accompanied by a messenger with the remodeled toboggan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The toboggan was of the usual pattern and shape, but the cushions had
+been removed, and a thirty-foot moose-hide thong attached for hauling.
+It was fitted with four short steel runners, only four inches high,
+which could be removed in a few minutes by unscrewing the nuts, so that
+it could be used as a sledge on ice or as a toboggan on deep snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During Fred's absence the other boys had been busy.  All the kit was
+out of the wrappers, and the room was a wilderness of brown paper.
+Everything had been packed into four canvas dunnage sacks, and now
+these were firmly strapped on the toboggan.  The rifles and the
+snowshoes were similarly attached, so that the whole outfit was in one
+secure package.  They hauled this down to the railway station
+themselves to make sure that there would be no delay, and dispatched it
+by express to Waverley, where they intended to leave the train.  It was
+then a few minutes after six.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-014"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-014.jpg" ALT="THE OTHER BOYS HAD BEEN BUSY" BORDER="2" WIDTH="467" HEIGHT="570">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 467px">
+THE OTHER BOYS HAD BEEN BUSY
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+"Well, we're as good as off now," remarked Maurice, with a long breath.
+"Our train goes at eight.  We've got two hours, and now I guess I'll go
+home and have supper with my folks and say good-bye.  We'll all meet at
+the depot."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Neither Fred nor Macgregor had any relatives in the city and no
+necessary farewells to make.  They had supper together at a downtown
+restaurant, and afterwards met Maurice at the Union Depot, where they
+took the north-bound express.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Next morning they awoke from uneasy slumbers to find the train rushing
+through a desolate landscape of snowy spruces.  Through the frosted
+double glass of the windows the morning looked clear and cold, but they
+were relieved to see that there was only a little snow on the ground,
+and glimpses of rivers and lakes showed clear, shining ice.  Evidently
+the road was still open.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was half-past ten that forenoon when they reached Waverley, and they
+found that it was indeed cold.  The thermometer stood at five above
+zero; the snow was dry as powder underfoot, and the little backwoods
+village looked frozen up.  But it was sunny, and the biting air was
+full of the freshness of the woods, and the spirits of all the boys
+rose jubilantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The laden toboggan had come up on the same train with them, and they
+saw it taken out of the express car.  Leaving it at the station, they
+went to the village hotel, where they ate an early dinner, and changed
+from their civilized clothes to the caps, sweaters, and Hudson Bay
+"duffel" trousers that they had brought in their suit-cases.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had been the only passengers to leave the train, and their arrival
+produced quite a stir in Waverley.  It was not the season for camping
+parties, nor for hunting, and no one went into the woods for pleasure
+in the winter.  The toboggan with its steel runners drew a curious
+group at the station.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Goin' in after moose?" inquired an old woodsman while they were at
+dinner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," replied Peter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Goin' up to the pulpwood camps, mebbe?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What might ye be goin' into the woods fer?" he persisted, after some
+moments.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We might be going in after gold," answered Maurice gravely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He did not mean it to be taken seriously, but he forgot that gold is
+mined in several parts of northern Ontario.  Before many hours the word
+spread that a big winter gold strike had been made up north, and a
+party from the city was already going to the spot, so that for several
+weeks the village was in a state of excitement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys suspected nothing of this, but the public curiosity began to
+be annoying.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Can't we start at once?" Fred suggested.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes; there's no use in stopping here another hour," Peter agreed.  "We
+ought to catch the fine weather while it lasts, and we can make a good
+many miles in the rest of this day."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So they left their baggage at the hotel, with instructions to have it
+kept till their return, secured their toboggan at the depot, and went
+down to the river.  The stream was a belt of clear, bluish ice, free
+from snow except for a little drift here and there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Half a dozen curious idlers had followed them.  Paying no attention,
+the boys took off their moccasins and put on the hockey boots with
+skates attached.  They slid out upon the ice and dragged the toboggan
+after them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The spectators raised a cheer, which the three boys answered with a
+yell as they struck out.  The ice was good; the toboggan ran smoothly
+after them, so that they scarcely noticed its weight.  In a moment the
+snowy roofs of the little village had passed out of sight around a bend
+of the river, and black spruce and hemlock woods were on either side.
+The great adventure had begun.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER II
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+"Don't force the pace at first, boys," Fred warned his companions.
+"Remember, we've a long way to go."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the expert skater, he had taken the leading end of the drag-rope.
+His advice was hard to follow.  The ice was in perfect condition; the
+toboggan ran almost without friction on its steel shoes, and in that
+sparkling air it seemed that it would be easy to skate a hundred miles
+without ever once resting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a little way the river was bordered with stumpy clearings; then the
+dark hemlock and jack-pine woods closed down on the shores.  The
+skaters had reached the frontier; it might well be that there were not
+a dozen cultivated fields between them and the North Pole.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here the river was about a hundred feet wide, the long ice road that
+Fred had imagined.  Comparatively little snow had yet fallen, and that
+little seemed to have come with high winds, which had swept the ice
+clear.  More, however, might be looked for any day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But for that day they were safe.  They rushed ahead, forcing the pace a
+little, after all, in a swinging single file, with the toboggan gliding
+behind.  In great curves the river wound through the woods and frozen
+swamps, and only twice that day had they to go ashore to get round
+roaring, unfrozen rapids.  Each of those obstructions cost the boys
+half an hour of labor before they could get the toboggan through the
+dense underbrush that choked the portage.  But they had counted on such
+delays.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not a breath of wind stirred, and the forest was profoundly still.
+Full of wild life though it undoubtedly was, not a sign of it was
+visible, except now and then a chain of delicate tracks along the shore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Evening comes early in that latitude and season.  At sunset Macgregor
+estimated that they had covered thirty miles.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Time to camp, boys!" he shouted from the rear.  "Look out for a good
+place&mdash;shelter and lots of dry wood."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two or three miles farther on they found it&mdash;a spot where several large
+spruce trees had fallen together, and lay dry and dead near the shore.
+They drew up the toboggan and exchanged their skating-boots for
+moccasins.  Maurice began to cut up wood with a small axe; the others
+trampled down the snow in a circle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dusk was already falling when the fire blazed up, making all at once a
+spot of almost home-like cheerfulness.  Fred chopped a hole in the ice
+in order to fill the kettle, and while it was boiling, they cut down a
+number of small saplings, and placed them in lean-to fashion against a
+ridgepole.  The balsam twigs that they trimmed off they threw inside,
+until the snow was covered with a great heap of fragrant boughs.  On it
+they spread the sleeping-bags to face the fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They supped that night on fried bacon, dried eggs, oatmeal cakes, and
+tea&mdash;real <I>voyageur's</I> tea, hot and strong, flavored with brown sugar
+and wood smoke, and drunk out of tin cups.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leaning back on the balsam couch, they made merry over their meal,
+while the stars came out white and clear over the dark woods.  There
+was every prospect now of their reaching the trappers' cabin in two
+days more, at most.  There were only the two serious dangers&mdash;a
+snowstorm might spoil the ice, and Macgregor might not be able to hit
+upon the right place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys were tired enough to be drowsy as soon as they had finished
+supper.  Little by little their conversation flagged; the chance of
+finding diamonds ceased to interest them, and presently they built up
+the fire and crawled into their sleeping-bags.  It was a cold night,
+and except for the occasional cry of a hunting owl or lynx, the
+wilderness was silent as death.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys were up early the next morning; smoke was rising from their
+fire before the sun was well off the horizon.  The weather seemed
+slightly warmer, and a wind was rising from the west, but it was not
+strong enough to impede them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After breakfast, they repacked the kit on the toboggan.  The spot had
+been home for a night; now nothing was left except a pile of crushed
+twigs and a few black brands on the trampled snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The travelers were fresh again; now they settled down to a long, steady
+stroke that carried them on rapidly.  Three times they had to land to
+pass round open rapids or dangerous ice, but about eleven o'clock
+Macgregor saw what he had been looking for.  It was a spot where
+several trees had been cut down on the shore.  A rather faint trail
+showed through the cedar thickets.  It was the beginning of the main
+portage that ran three miles northwest, straight across country to the
+Abitibi River.  They had been mortally afraid of overrunning the spot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They boiled the noon kettle of tea to fortify themselves for the long
+crossing.  Then they unshipped the runners from the toboggan, put on
+their moccasins and snowshoes, and started ashore across a range of
+low, densely wooded hills.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The trail was blazed at long intervals, but not cleared, and it was
+hard, exasperating work to get the toboggan through the snowy tangle.
+After two hours they came out on the crest of a hill overlooking a
+great river that ran like a gleaming steel-blue ribbon far into the
+north.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Abitibi!" cried Macgregor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had come a good seventy miles from Waverley.  At that rate, they
+might expect to reach their destination the next day; and, greatly
+encouraged, they coasted on the toboggan down to the ice, and set out
+again on skates.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During the tramp the sky had grown hazy, and the northwest wind was
+blowing stronger.  For some time it was not troublesome, for it came
+from the left, but it continued to freshen, and the clouds darkened
+ominously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Late in the afternoon the travelers came suddenly upon the second of
+the known landmarks.  From the west a smaller river, nameless, as far
+as they knew, poured past a bluff of black granite into the Abitibi,
+making a fifty-yard stretch of open water that tumbled and foamed with
+a hoarse uproar among ice-bound boulders.  Here they had to change
+their course, for according to Macgregor's calculation, it was about
+fifty miles up this river that the cabin stood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again they went ashore, and after struggling through two hundred yards
+of dense thickets reached the little nameless river from the west.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The change in their course brought them squarely into the eye of the
+wind, and they felt the difference instantly.  The breeze had risen to
+half a gale; the whole sky had clouded.  It was only an hour from
+sunset, but no one mentioned camping; they were resolved to go on while
+the light lasted.  And suddenly Fred, struggling on with bent head
+against the wind, saw that the front of his blue sweater was growing
+powdered with white grains.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We're caught, boys!" he exclaimed; and they stopped to look at the
+menacing sky.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Snow was drifting down in fine powder, and glancing over the ice past
+their feet.  Straight down from the great Hudson Bay barrens the storm
+was coming, and the roar of the forest, now that they stopped to
+listen, was like that of the tempestuous sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Snow meal, snow a great deal,'" Macgregor quoted, with forced
+cheerfulness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's hope not!" exclaimed Maurice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Fred added: "Anyhow, let's get on while we can."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On they went, skating fast.  As yet the snow was no hindrance, for it
+spun off the smooth ice as fast as it fell.  It was the wind that
+troubled them, for it roared down the river channel with disheartening
+force.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was especially discouraging to be checked thus on the last lap, but
+none of them thought of giving up.  They settled doggedly to the task,
+although it took all their strength and wind to keep going.  But all
+three were in pretty good training, and they stuck to it for more than
+an hour.  The forest was growing dark, and the snow was coming faster.
+Then Maurice, rather dubiously, suggested a halt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nonsense!  We're good for another ten miles, at least!" cried Peter,
+who seemed tireless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They shot ahead again.  Evening settled early, with the snow falling
+thick.  The ice was white now; skates and toboggan left black streaks,
+immediately obliterated by fresh flakes.  Just before complete darkness
+fell, the boys made a short halt, built a fire, and boiled tea.  No
+more was said of camping.  They had tacitly resolved to struggle on as
+long as they could keep going, for they knew that they would have no
+chance to use their skates after that night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It grew dark, but never pitch dark, for the reflection from the snow
+gave light enough for them to see the road.  Even yet the snow lay so
+light that the blades cut it without an effort.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wind, however, was hard to fight against.  In spite of his amateur
+championship, Fred was the first to give out.  For some time he had
+felt himself flagging, dropping behind, and then recovering; but all at
+once his legs gave way, and he collapsed in a heap on the ice, half
+unconscious from fatigue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Macgregor and Stark bent over him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Got to put him on the toboggan," declared the Scotchman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Maurice felt that it was madness for two of them to try to haul the
+greater load, but without protest he helped to roll the dazed youngster
+in the blankets, and to strap him on the sledge.  The next stage always
+seemed to him a sort of waking nightmare; he never quite knew how long
+it lasted.  The wind bore against him like a wall; the drag of the
+toboggan seemed intolerable.  Half dead with exhaustion and fatigue, he
+fixed his eyes on Macgregor's broad back, and went on with short,
+forced strokes, with the feeling that each marked the extreme limit of
+his strength.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly his leader stopped.  A great black space seemed to have opened
+in the white road ahead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Another portage!" Macgregor shouted in Maurice's ear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A long, unfrozen rapid was thundering in the gloom.  With maddening
+difficulty, Maurice and Macgregor hacked a road through willow thickets
+and got the toboggan past.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again they were on the ice, with the rapid behind them.  It seemed to
+Maurice that the horror of that exertion would never end; then suddenly
+the night seemed to turn pitch black, and he felt himself shaken by the
+shoulder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Get on the toboggan, Maurice!  Come, wake up!" Macgregor was saying.
+"Wake up!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dimly he realized that he was sitting on the ice&mdash;that they had
+stopped&mdash;that Fred was up again.  Too stupefied to question anything,
+he rolled into the blanket out of which Fred had crawled, and instantly
+went sound asleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It seemed only a moment until he was roused again.  Drunk with sleep,
+he clutched the towrope blindly, while Fred, who was completely done
+this time, again took his place on the sledge.  Only Macgregor seemed
+proof against fatigue.  Bent against the gale, he skated vigorously at
+the forward end of the line, and his strong voice shouted back
+encouragements that Maurice hardly heard.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The snow was now growing so deep on the ice that the skates ploughed
+through it with difficulty.  Still the boys labored on, minute after
+minute, mile after mile.  Maurice felt numb with fatigue and half
+asleep as he skated blindly, and suddenly he ran sharply into
+Macgregor, who had stopped short.  There was another break just
+ahead&mdash;a long cascade this time, where snowy pocks showed like white
+blurs on the black water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Going to portage?" mumbled Maurice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No use trying to go any farther," replied the medical student, and his
+voice was hoarse.  "Fred's played out.  Snow's getting too deep,
+anyway.  Better camp here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Maurice would have been glad to drop where he stood.  But they dragged
+the toboggan ashore somehow, caring little where they landed it.  Peter
+rolled Fred off into the snow.  The boy groaned, but did not waken, and
+they began to unpack the supplies with stiffened hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Got to get something hot into us quick," said Peter thickly.  "Help me
+make a fire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Probably they were all nearer death than they realized.  Maurice wanted
+only to sleep.  However, in a sort of daze, he broke off branches,
+peeled bark, and they had a fire blazing up in the falling snowflakes.
+The wind whirled and scattered it, but they piled on larger sticks, and
+Macgregor filled the kettle from the river.  When the water was hot he
+poured in a whole tin of condensed milk, added a cake of chocolate, a
+handful of sugar and another of oatmeal, too stiffened to measure out
+anything.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Maurice had collapsed into a dead sleep in the snow.  Peter shook him
+awake, and between them they managed to arouse Fred with great
+difficulty.  Still half asleep they swallowed the rich, steaming mess
+from the kettle.  It set their blood moving again, but they were too
+thoroughly worn out to think of building a camp.  They crept into their
+sleeping-bags, buttoned the naps down over their heads and went to
+sleep regardless of consequences.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred awoke to find himself almost steaming hot, and in utter darkness
+and silence.  All his muscles ached, and he could not imagine where he
+was.  A weight held him down when he tried to move, but he turned over
+at last and sat up with an effort.  A glare of white light made him
+blink.  He had been buried under more than two feet of snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was broad daylight.  All the world was white, and a raging snowstorm
+was driving through the forest.  The tree-tops creaked and roared, and
+the powdery snow whirled like smoke.  Fred felt utterly bewildered.
+There was no sign of the camp-fire, nor of the toboggan, nor of any of
+his companions, nothing but a few mounds on the drifted white surface.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Finally he crawled out of his sleeping-outfit and dug into one of these
+mounds.  Two feet down he came upon the surface of a sleeping-bag, and
+punched it vigorously.  It stirred; the flap opened, and Macgregor
+thrust his face out, blinking, red and dazed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Time to get up!" Fred shouted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mac crawled out and shook off the snow, looking disconcerted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Snowed in, with a vengeance!" he remarked.  "Where's the camp&mdash;and
+where's Maurice?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After prodding about they located the third member of their party at
+last, and dug him out.  As for the camp, there was none, and they could
+only guess at where the toboggan with their stores might be buried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This ends our skating," said Maurice.  "It'll have to be snowshoes
+after this.  Good thing we got so far last night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No thanks to me!" Fred remarked.  "I was the expert skater; I believe
+I said I'd set the pace, and I was the first to cave in.  I hope I do
+better with the snowshoes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Neither snowshoes nor skates to-day," said Peter.  "We can't travel
+till this storm blows over.  Nothing for it but to build a camp and sit
+tight."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After groping about for some time they found the toboggan, unstrapped
+the snowshoes, and used them as shovels to clear away a circular place.
+In doing so they came upon the black brands of last night's fire, with
+the camp kettle upon them where they had left it.  Fred ploughed
+through the snow and collected wood for a fresh fire, while Peter and
+Maurice set up stakes and poles and built a roof of hemlock branches to
+afford shelter from the storm.  It was only a rude shed with one side
+open to face the fire, but it kept off the snow and wind and proved
+fairly comfortable.  Fred had coffee made by this time, and it did not
+take long to fry a pan of bacon.  They seated themselves on a heap of
+boughs at the edge of the shelter and ate and drank.  They all were
+stiff and sore, but the hot food and coffee made a decided improvement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What surprises me," remarked Maurice, "is that we didn't freeze last
+night, sleeping under the snow.  But I never felt warmer in bed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was the snow that did it.  Snow makes a splendid nonconductor of
+heat," replied Macgregor.  "Better than blankets.  I remember hearing
+of a man who was caught by a blizzard crossing a big barren up north
+with a train of dogs.  The dogs wouldn't face the storm; he lost his
+directions; and finally he turned the sledge over and got under it with
+the dogs around him, and let it snow.  He stayed there a day and a
+half, asleep most of the time, and wouldn't have known when the storm
+was over, only that a pack of timber wolves smelt him and tried to dig
+him out.  They ran when they found out what was there, but he bagged
+two of them with his rifle."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't believe even timber wolves would have wakened me this morning.
+I never was so stiff and used up in my life," Maurice commented on this
+tale of adventure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, we need the rest," said Mac.  "We overdid it yesterday, and we
+couldn't have gone far to-day in any case."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But meanwhile that man at the cabin may be dying," exclaimed Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If he's dead it can't be helped," responded the Scotchman.  "We're
+doing all that's humanly possible.  But if he's alive, don't forget
+that he can't get away while this storm lasts, any more than we can."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, it looks as if the storm would last all day," said Fred, gazing
+upwards.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The blizzard did last all that day, reaching its height toward the
+middle of the afternoon, but it was not extremely cold, and the boys
+were fairly comfortable.  They lounged on the blankets in the shelter
+of the camp, and recuperated from their fatigue, discussing their
+chances of still reaching the cabin in time to do any good.  None of
+them could guess accurately how far they had come in that terrible
+night, but at the worst they could not think the cabin more than forty
+miles farther.  This distance would have to be traveled on snowshoes,
+however, not skates, and none of the boys were very expert snowshoers.
+It would be certainly more than one day's tramp.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Toward night the wind lessened, though it was still snowing fast.  The
+boys piled on logs enough to keep the fire smouldering all night in
+spite of the snowflakes, and went to sleep under cover of the hemlock
+roof.  Maurice awoke toward the middle of the night, and noticed
+drowsily that it had stopped snowing, and that a star or two was
+visible overhead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Next morning dawned sparkling clear and very cold, with not a breath of
+wind.  Everything was deep and fluffy with the fresh snow, and when the
+sun came up the glare was almost blinding.  It would be good weather
+for snowshoe travel, and the boys all felt fit again for another hard
+day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After breakfast, therefore, they packed the supplies upon the toboggan,
+unscrewed the steel runners, and put on the new snowshoes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We'd better stick to the river," Peter remarked.  "It may make it a
+little farther, but it gives us a clear road, and if we follow the
+river we can't miss the cabin."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No danger of going through air-holes in the ice?" queried Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not much.  An air-hole isn't generally big enough to let a snowshoe go
+through.  We'll pull you out if you do.  Come along."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Off they went again.  But they had not gone far before discovering that
+travel was going to be less easy than they had thought.  The snow was
+light and the snowshoes sank deep.  They moved in a cloud of puffing
+white powder, and the heavy toboggan went down so that it was difficult
+to draw it.  Without the smooth, level road of the river they could
+hardly have progressed at all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They braced themselves to the work and plodded on, taking turns at
+going first to break the road.  The sun shone down in a white dazzle.
+There was no heat in it, but the glare was so strong that they had to
+pull their caps low over their eyes for fear of snow-blindness&mdash;the
+most deadly enemy of the winter traveler in the North.  During the
+forenoon they thought they made hardly more than ten miles, and at noon
+they halted, made a fire and boiled tea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The hot drink and an hour's rest made them ready for the road again.
+Twice that afternoon they had to make a long détour through the woods
+to avoid unfrozen rapids, and once the brush was so dense that they had
+to cut a way for the toboggan with the axe.  Once, too, the ice
+suddenly cracked under Fred's foot, and he flung himself forward just
+in time to avoid the black water gushing up through the snowed-over
+air-hole.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The life of the wilderness was beginning to emerge after the storm.
+Along the shores they saw the tracks of mink.  Once they encountered a
+plunging trail across the river where several timber wolves must have
+crossed the night before, and late in the afternoon Maurice shot a
+couple of spruce grouse in a thicket.  He flung them on the toboggan,
+and they arrived at camp that night frozen into solid lumps.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was plainly impossible to reach the cabin that day.  Peter, who was
+keenly on the lookout, failed to recognize any of the landmarks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We'd better camp early, boys," he said.  "We can't make it to-day, and
+there's no use in getting snowshoe cramp and being tied up for a week."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They kept on, however, till the sun was almost down.  A faint but
+piercing northwest breeze had arisen, and they halted in the lee of a
+dense cedar thicket close to the river.  A huge log had fallen down the
+shore, and this would make an excellent backing for the fire during the
+night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Drawing up the toboggan, the boys took off their snowshoes and began to
+shovel out a circular pit for the camp.  The snow had drifted deep in
+that spot.  Before they came to the bottom the snow was heaped so high
+that the pit was shoulder-deep.  It was all the better for shelter, and
+they cut cedar poles and roofed one side of it, producing a most cozy
+and sheltered nook.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred continued to pull cedar twigs for bedding, while Peter and Maurice
+unpacked the toboggan and lighted the fire against the big log.  Now
+that it was laid bare this log proved to be indeed a monster.  It must
+have been nearly three feet in diameter, and was probably hollow, but
+would keep the fire smouldering indefinitely.  Fred plucked the frozen
+grouse with some difficulty, cut them up and put them into the kettle
+to thaw out and stew.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This consumed some time, and it was rather late when supper was ready.
+A bitterly cold night was setting in.  The icy breeze whined through
+the trees, but the sheltered pit of the camp was a warm and cozy place,
+casting its firelight high into the branches overhead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Snowshoe cramp had attacked none of the boys, but the unaccustomed
+muscles were growing stiff and sore.  By Macgregor's advice they all
+took off moccasins and stockings and massaged their calves and ankles
+thoroughly, afterwards roasting them well before the fire.  One side of
+the big log was a glowing red ember now, and they piled fresh wood
+beside it, laid the rifles ready, and crept into their sleeping-bags
+under the shelter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred did not know how long he had slept when he was awakened by a sort
+of nervous shock.  He raised his head and glanced about.  All was still
+in the camp.  His companions lay motionless in their bags.  The fire
+had burned low, and the air of the zero night cut his face like a
+knife.  He could not imagine what had awakened him, but he felt that he
+ought to get up and replenish the fire and he was trying to make up his
+mind to crawl out of his warm nest when he was startled by a sort of
+dull, jarring rumble.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It seemed to come from the fire itself.  Fred uttered a scared cry that
+woke both the other boys instantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's the matter?  What is it?" they both exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before Fred could answer, there was a sort of upheaval.  The fire was
+dashed aside.  Smoke and ashes flew in every direction, and they had a
+cloudy glimpse of something charging out through the smoke&mdash;something
+huge and black and lightning quick.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jump!  Run!" yelled Peter, scrambling to get out of his sleeping-bag.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the shout and scramble the animal wheeled like a flash and plunged
+at the side of the pit, trying to reach the top with a single leap.  It
+fell short, and came down in a cloud of snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred had got clear from the encumbering bag by this time, and
+floundered out of the pit without knowing exactly how he did it.  He
+found Maurice close behind him.  Peter missed his footing and tumbled
+back with a horrified yell, and Maurice seized him by the leg as he
+went down and dragged him back bodily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before they recovered from their panic they bolted several yards away,
+plunging knee-deep in the drifts, and then Peter stopped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hold on!" he exclaimed.  "It isn't after us!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But what was it?" stammered Maurice, out of breath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Looking back, they could see nothing but the faint glow from the
+scattered brands.  But they could not overlook the whole interior of
+the camp, where the intruder must be now lying quiet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Trying to collect himself, Fred told how he had been awakened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It came straight out of the fire!" he declared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Out of the log, I guess," said Peter.  "Here, I know what it must be.
+It's simply a bear!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A bear!" ejaculated Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, a bear, that must have had his winter den in that big log.  He
+was hibernating there, and our fire burned into his den and roused him
+out.  That's all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quite enough, I should think," said Maurice.  "Bears are ugly-tempered
+when they're disturbed from their winter dens, I've heard.  He's got
+possession of our camp, now.  What'll we do?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We'll freeze if we don't do something pretty quick," Fred added.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In fact the boys were standing in stockinged feet in the snow, and the
+night was bitterly cold.  All looked quiet in what they could see of
+the camp.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't see why one of us hadn't the wit to grab a gun!" said Peter
+bitterly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned and began to wade back cautiously toward the camp.  The other
+boys followed him, till they were close enough to look into the pit.
+No animal was in sight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perhaps he's bolted out the other side," muttered Peter.  "Who's going
+to go down there and find out?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nobody volunteered.  If the bear was still in the camp he must be under
+the roofed-over shelter, and, in fact, as they stood shivering and
+listening they heard a sound of stirring about under the cedar poles of
+the roof.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's there!" exclaimed Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And eating up our stores, as like as not!" cried Maurice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This made the case considerably more serious.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must get him out of that!" Macgregor exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+How to do it was the difficulty, and, still more, how to do it with
+safety.  Both the rifles were still lying loaded under the shelter,
+probably under the very feet of the bear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, we've got to take a chance!" declared Macgregor at last.  "Talk
+about cold feet!  We'll certainly have them frozen if we stand here
+much longer.  Scatter out, boys, all around the camp.  Then we'll
+snowball the brute out.  Likely he's too scared to want to fight.
+Anyhow, if he jumps out on one side, the man on the opposite side must
+jump into the camp and grab a rifle."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It looked risky, to provoke a charge from the animal in that deep snow,
+where they could hardly move, but they waded around the camp till they
+stood at equal distances apart, surrounding the hollowed space.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now let him have it!" cried Peter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Immediately they began to throw snowballs into the camp, aiming at that
+dark hole under the cedar roof where the animal was hidden.  But the
+snow was too dry to pack into lumps, and the light masses they flung
+produced no effect.  Peter broke off branches from a dead tree and
+threw them into the shelter, without causing the bear to come out.
+Finally Fred, who happened to be standing beside a birch tree, peeled
+off a great strip of bark and lighted it with a match.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hold on!  Don't throw that!" yelled Peter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was too late.  Fred had already cast the flaming mass into the camp,
+too close to the piles of cedar twigs.  The resinous leaves caught and
+flashed up.  There was a glare of smoky flame&mdash;a wild scramble and
+scurry under the shelter, and the bear burst out, and plunged at the
+snowy sides of the pit on the side opposite Fred's position.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He fell back as he had done before, but floundered up with a second
+leap.  Maurice, who was nearest, gave a shrill yell and tried to dash
+aside, but he stumbled and went head-long in the deep snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred instantly leaped into the camp.  The shelter was full of smoke and
+light flame, but he knew where the rifles lay, and snatched one.
+Straightening up, he was just in time to see the bear vanishing with
+long leaps into the darkness, ploughing up clouds of snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He fired one shot wildly, then another, but there was no sign of the
+animal's being stopped, and the next instant it was out of sight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quick!  Stamp out this fire!" exclaimed Peter at his shoulder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They tore down the flaming branches and beat them out in the snow.  The
+light flame was easily put out, but it left the camp a chaos of
+blackened twigs and ashes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, we turned him out," said Maurice, who had hastened in to help.
+"Did you hit him, do you think?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wish I'd killed him!" said Fred.  "He's ruined our camp.  But I
+don't believe I touched him.  He was going too fast."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Peter had raked the camp-fire together and thrown on fresh wood.  A
+bright blaze sprang up, and by its light they took off their stockings
+and looked for the dead white of frozen toes.  But it was only Maurice
+who had suffered the least frost-bite, and this yielded to a little
+snow-rubbing.  The heavy woolen stockings, and perhaps the depth of the
+snow itself had protected the rest of them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Putting on his moccasins Fred then went to look for results from his
+shots, but came back reporting not a drop of blood on the snow.  The
+bullets had missed cleanly, and the animal was probably miles away by
+that time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you suppose he'll do for the rest of the winter?" Maurice
+asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, he'll find some hole to crawl into, or perhaps he'll just creep
+under a log and let the snow bury him," said Peter.  "He'll have to
+look a long time to find another snug nest like this one, though."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The big log was hollow, as they had thought, and the fire had burned
+well into the cavity.  They could see the nest where the bear had lain,
+soft with rotted wood and strewn with black hairs.  It seemed a pity to
+have turned him out of so cozy a sleeping-place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys' own sleeping-place was in a complete state of wreck.  The
+cedar roofing had fallen in, and everything was littered with snow and
+burned brush.  The fire had been too light and too quickly extinguished
+to do any damage to the stores, however, and they were relieved to find
+that the bear had eaten none of the bacon or bread.  Probably the
+animal had been merely cowering there for shelter, afraid to come out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They did not attempt to rebuild the shelter roof, but cleared away the
+snow and ashes, and sat in their sleeping-bags by the fire.  After all
+the excitement none of them felt like sleeping.  They were hungry,
+though, and finally they boiled tea and cooked a pan of bacon and dried
+eggs.  Even after this they lay talking for a long time, and it was
+between midnight and dawn when they finally fell asleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was the reason why it was long after sunrise when they awoke,
+feeling rather as if they had had a bad night.  It was another clear,
+bright day, though still very cold, and they felt it imperative that
+they should reach the cabin before nightfall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That forenoon they made all the speed they could, halted for only a
+brief rest at noon, and pushed on energetically through the afternoon.
+The cabin could not be far, unless Macgregor had mistaken the way.
+Look as he would, he could not make out any landmarks that he could
+remember; but he had been through only by canoe in the summer, and the
+woods have a very different appearance in the winter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the afternoon wore on they began to grow anxious.  At every turning
+they looked eagerly ahead, but they saw nothing except the unbroken
+forest.  It was nearly sunset when Maurice suddenly pointed forward
+with a shout of excitement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had just rounded a bend of the river.  A hundred yards away,
+nestling in a hemlock thicket, stood a squat log hut.  But no trail led
+to its door, no smoke rose from its chimney, the snow had drifted
+almost to its eaves, and it looked gloomy and desolate as the darkening
+wilderness itself.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER III
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+There was so grim an air of desolation about the hut that the boys
+stopped short with a sense of dread.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Can this really be it?" Maurice muttered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The hut and its surroundings were exactly as the Indian had described
+them.  They ventured forward hesitatingly, reconnoitered, and
+approached the door.  It stood ajar two or three inches; a heavy drift
+of snow lay against it.  Clearly no living man was in the cabin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We've come too late, boys," said Macgregor.  "However, let's have a
+look."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Using one of his snowshoes as a shovel, he began to clear the doorway.
+Fred helped him.  They scraped away the snow, and forced the door open.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For fear of infection, they contented themselves with peeping in from
+the entrance; a glance showed them that no man was in that dim
+interior, dead or alive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The cabin was a mere hut, built of small logs, chinked with moss and
+mud, and was less than five feet high at the eaves.  The floor was of
+clay; the roof appeared to be of bark and moss thatch, supported on
+poles.  A small window of some skin or membrane let in a faint light,
+and the rough fireplace was full of snow that had blown down the
+chimney.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No one was there, but some one had left in haste.  The whole interior
+was in the wildest confusion, littered with all sorts of articles of
+forest housekeeping flung about pell-mell&mdash;cooking-utensils, scraps of
+clothing, blankets, furs, traps; they could not make out all the
+articles that encumbered the floor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The fellow must have simply got well and gone away with the other
+half-breed," said Macgregor, after they had surveyed the place in
+silence.  "Well, that ends our hope of being millionaires next year.
+We've come on a fool's errand."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nothing for it now but to go home again, is there?" said Fred, in
+disgust.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We've come one hundred and fifty miles to see this camp, and we ought
+to look through it," said Maurice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must disinfect the place before we can go in.  And there's no
+chance of our finding any diamonds here," Fred remarked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I want to have a look through, anyway.  Let's get out the fumigating
+machine."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a formaldehyde outfit, consisting simply of a can of the
+disinfectant with a bracket attached underneath to hold a small spirit
+lamp.  By the heat of the flame, formalin gas, one of the deadliest
+germ-killers known, was given off.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Macgregor opened the can, lighted the pale spirit flame, and set the
+apparatus on a rude shelf that happened to be just inside the hut.
+They forced the door shut again, and sealed it by throwing water
+against it, for the water promptly froze.  It was not necessary to
+close the chimney, for the germicidal gas is heavier than air, and
+fills a room exactly as water fills a tank.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As it would take the disinfectant ten or twelve hours to do its work,
+they hastened to construct a camp, for it was growing dark.  It was a
+rather melancholy evening.  The nearness of the cabin, with its
+sinister associations, affected them disagreeably; and, moreover, they
+were all tired with the day's tramp, and chagrined and mortified at
+having come, as Peter said, "on a fool's errand."  After all their
+glittering hopes, there was nothing now for them except a week's
+snowshoe tramp back to Waverley, with barely enough provisions to see
+them through.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Still they were curious about the cabin, and before breakfast the next
+morning they burst open the ice-sealed door.  A suffocating odor issued
+forth, so powerful that they staggered back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good gracious!" gasped Fred, after a spasm of coughing.  "It must
+certainly be safe after that!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They found it impossible to go in until the gas had cleared away, and
+so, leaving the door wide open, they returned to breakfast.  Afterward
+they idled about, trying to kill time; it was afternoon before they
+could venture inside the cabin for more than a moment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was disagreeable even then, for the whole interior was filled with
+the heavy, suffocating odor.  They coughed, and their eyes watered, but
+they managed to endure it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As they had seen, the contents of the place were all topsy-turvy.  The
+furniture consisted solely of a rough table of split planks, and a
+couple of rough seats.  A heap of rusty, brown <I>sapin</I> in a corner,
+covered with a torn blanket, represented a bed&mdash;possibly the one in
+which the trapper had died.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In one corner stood a double-barreled shotgun, still loaded.  Three
+pairs of snowshoes were thrust under the rafters; several worn
+moccasins lay on the floor, along with nearly a dozen steel traps, a
+bundle of furs, some of which were valuable, a camp kettle, an axe,
+strips of hide, dry bones, a blanket, fishing-tackle&mdash;an unspeakable
+litter of things, some worthless, some to men in a wilderness precious
+as gold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The last occupants had plainly left in such a desperate hurry that they
+had abandoned most of their possessions.  Why had they done it?  The
+boys could not guess.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The heavy formalin fumes rose and choked them as they poked over the
+rubbish.  But they found nothing to show the fate of the prospector and
+the surviving half-breed, or even to tell them whether this was really
+the cabin they were seeking.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Throw this rubbish into the fireplace," said Macgregor.  "Burning is
+the best thing for it, and the fire will ventilate the place.  There's
+no danger of germs on the metal things."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"These furs are worth something," said Fred, who had been looking them
+over.  "There are a dozen or so of mink and marten&mdash;enough to pay the
+expenses of the trip."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They laid the furs aside, and cramming the rest of the litter into the
+snowy fireplace, with the dead balsam boughs, set it afire.  In the red
+blaze the hut assumed an unexpectedly homelike aspect.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not such a bad place for the winter, after all," Maurice remarked,
+casting his eye about.  "I shouldn't mind spending a month trapping
+here myself.  What if we did, fellows, eh?  Here are plenty of traps,
+and we might clear three or four hundred dollars, with a little luck."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here's something new," interrupted Peter, who had been grubbing about
+in a corner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He came forward with a woodsman's "turkey" in his hands&mdash;a heavy canvas
+knapsack, much stained and battered, and rather heavy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Something in this," he continued, trying the rusty buckles.  "Why,
+what's the matter, Fred?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For Fred had uttered a sudden cry, and they saw his face turn deathly
+white.  He snatched the sack, tore it open, and shook it out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A number of pieces of rock fell to the floor, a couple of geologist's
+hammers, a pair of socks, and a couple of small, oilcloth-covered
+notebooks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On these Fred pounced, and opened them.  They were full of penciled
+notes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They're his!" the boy exclaimed wildly.  "They're Horace's notebooks!
+I knew his turkey.  Horace was here.  Don't you see?  <I>He</I> was the sick
+man!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a minute his companions, hardly comprehending, looked on in
+amazement.  Then Macgregor took one of the books from his hand.  On the
+inside of the cover was plainly written, "Horace Osborne, Toronto."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's true!" he muttered.  "It must really have been Horace."  Then,
+collecting his wits, he added, "But he must be all right, since he's
+gone away."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No!" Fred cried.  "He'd never have gone away leaving his notes and
+specimens.  It was his whole summer's work.  He'd have thrown away
+anything else.  He must be dead."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He was vaccinated.  He's sure not to have died of smallpox," Peter
+urged.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred had collapsed on the mud floor, holding the "turkey," and fairly
+crying.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He had the diamonds on him.  That half-breed may have murdered him,
+and then fled in a hurry.  Things look like it," said Maurice aside to
+Peter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, but then Horace's body would be here," the Scotchman returned.
+"I don't understand it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They can't have both died, either, or they'd both be here.  So they
+must both have gone.  But no trapper would have left these valuable
+pelts, any more than Horace would have left his notes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's something mysterious here," said Fred, getting up resolutely,
+and wiping the tears from his eyes.  "Horace has been here.
+Something's happened to him, and we've got to find out what it is."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And we'll find out&mdash;if it takes all winter!" Macgregor assured him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They searched the hut afresh, but found no clues.  They now regretted
+having burned the heap of rubbish, which perhaps had contained
+something to throw light on the problem.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During the rest of that afternoon they searched and searched again
+throughout the cabin, and prowled about its neighborhood.  They dug
+into the snowdrifts, poked into the brushwood, scouted into the forest
+in the faint hope of finding something that would cast light on
+Horace's fate.  All they found was the trapper's birch canoe, laid up
+ashore, and buried in snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At dusk they got supper, and ate it in a rather gloomy silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We've nothing to go on," said Macgregor.  "I can't believe that Horace
+is dead, though, and we must stay on the spot till we know something
+more definite."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course we must," Maurice agreed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shouldn't have asked it of you, boys," said Fred.  "I'd made up my
+mind to stay, though, till I found out something certain&mdash;and it would
+have been mighty lonely."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nonsense!  Do you think we'd have left you?" Maurice exclaimed.
+"Aren't we all Horace's friends?  The only thing I'm thinking of is the
+grub.  We have barely enough for a week more."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What of that?" said Peter.  "We have rifles, haven't we?  The woods
+ought to be full of deer&mdash;plenty of partridges and small game, anyway.
+We must make a regular business of hunting till we get enough meat for
+a week, and we must economize, of course, on our bread and canned
+stuff.  Then there are sure to be whitefish or trout in the nearest
+lake, and we can fish through the ice.  Lucky the Indians left their
+hooks and lines.  And we can trap, too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boys," cried Fred, "you're both bricks.  You're solid gold&mdash;"  A choke
+in his voice stopped him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A pair of gold bricks!" laughed Maurice, with a suspicious huskiness
+in his own tones.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the thing was settled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It turned colder that night, and the next day dawned with blustering
+snow flurries.  Their open camp was far from comfortable, and with some
+reluctance they moved into the cabin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A good deal of fresh snow had drifted in, but they swept it out,
+brought in fresh balsam twigs for couches, and lighted a roaring fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The hut was decidedly homelike and cozy, and a vast improvement on the
+open camp.  The smell of formaldehyde had gone entirely.  The light
+from the skin-covered window was poor, but that seemed to be the only
+drawback, until, as the temperature rose, the roof showed a leak near
+the door.  Snow water dripped in freely, in spite of their efforts to
+stop it, until Maurice finally clambered to the roof, cleared away the
+snow, tore up the thatch, and covered the defective spot with a large
+piece of old deer-hide.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the afternoon it stopped snowing; Macgregor and Fred, with the two
+rifles, made a wide circuit round the cabin, but killed no game except
+half a dozen spruce grouse.  Not a deer trail did they see; probably
+the animals were yarded for the winter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without being discouraged, however, Peter set out again the next
+morning, this time with Maurice.  Fred, left alone, spent most of the
+day in cutting wood and storing it by the cabin door, and the hunters
+did not return until just after sunset.  They were empty-handed, but in
+high spirits, and had a great tale to tell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Five miles from camp, Maurice and Peter had come upon the fresh trail
+of a moose, and had followed it nearly all day.  Toward the middle of
+the afternoon, however, they were obliged to give up the chase and turn
+back, for they were fully fifteen miles from home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the way to the cabin they chanced upon a well-beaten deer trail that
+they felt certain must lead to a "yard."  It was too late to follow it
+that day, but they determined to have a great hunt on the morrow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Killing yarded deer is not exactly sportsmanlike, and is unlawful
+besides; but law is understood to yield to the necessities of the
+frontier, and the boys needed the meat badly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next morning they were off early.  It was clear and cold.  A little
+wind blew the powdery snow like puffs of smoke from the trees, and the
+biting air was full of life.  It was impossible to be anything but gay
+in that atmosphere; even Fred, oppressed with anxiety as he was, felt
+its effect.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The fresh snow was criss-crossed here and there with the tracks of
+small animals,&mdash;rabbits, foxes, and squirrels,&mdash;and now and again a
+spruce partridge rose with a roar.  These birds were plentiful, and the
+boys might have made a full bag if they had ventured to shoot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was nearly noon before they reached the deer trail.  They followed
+it back for some twenty minutes, and came down into a low bottom, grown
+up with small birch and poplar.  Fred had only the vaguest idea what a
+deer yard was like; he half expected a dense huddle of deer in a small,
+beaten space, and he was consequently much startled when he suddenly
+heard a sound of crashing and running in the thickets.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Macgregor's rifle banged almost in his ear.  Maurice fired at the same
+instant.  Something large and grayish had shot up into view behind a
+thicket, and had departed with the speed of an arrow.  Peter fired
+again at the flying target, and Fred caught a single glimpse of a buck,
+with antlered head carried high, vanishing through a screen of birches.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hit!" shouted Macgregor, and he ran forward, clicking another
+cartridge into his rifle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had walked right into the "yard."  All round them the snow was
+trampled into narrow trails where the herd had moved about, feeding on
+the shrubbery.  With a little more caution they might have got three or
+four of the animals.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They found the buck a hundred yards away, dead in the snow.  It was no
+small task to get him back to the cabin, for he was too fat and heavy
+to carry, even if they had cut him up.  They had to haul the carcass
+with a thong, like a toboggan, over the snow.  The weather changed, and
+it was beginning to bluster again when they arrived, dead tired, to
+find the fire gone out and the cabin cold.  But they rejoiced at being
+supplied with meat enough to last them for perhaps a month.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IV
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+That night they heard the timber wolves for the first time, howling
+mournfully a little way back in the woods.  No doubt they had scented
+the fresh carcass of the deer, and probably there would have been no
+venison in the morning if they had not had the wisdom to carry the
+carcass into the cabin.  Peter opened the door quietly and slipped out
+with a cocked rifle, but the wolves were too wary for him.  Not one was
+in sight, and the howling receded and grew fainter.  But they heard it
+at intervals again during the night&mdash;a dismal and savage note, that
+made them feel like making the fire burn brighter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They must have followed the trail where we dragged the buck home,"
+said Maurice.  "Good thing they didn't happen to strike it before we
+got back."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, they'd hardly venture to attack three of us," replied Peter.  "I
+almost wish they would.  We could mow them down with our repeaters, and
+you know there's a Government bounty of ten dollars a head on dead
+timber wolves.  We might make quite a pile, and besides the skins must
+be worth something."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Might set some traps," Fred suggested.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No use.  The timber wolf is far too wise to get into any steel trap.
+That's why so few of them are killed.  But say, boys, why couldn't we
+manage to ambush 'em?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How?" Maurice demanded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, suppose I shot a couple of rabbits to-morrow night and went
+through the woods dragging them after me, so as to make a blood trail.
+Any wolves that happened to cross it would certainly follow, and I'd
+lead them past a spot where you fellows would be ambushed, ready to
+pump lead into them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sounds all right," said Fred, "but suppose they overtook you before
+you got to the ambush?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, they wouldn't dare to attack me.  They'd keep me in sight, stop if
+I stopped, and turn if I turned, waiting for a chance to take me at a
+disadvantage.  A shot would scatter them, anyway.  The only trouble
+would be that they'd scatter so quick when you opened fire that you
+wouldn't be able to bag more than one or two.  And I don't suppose the
+same trick could be worked twice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They discussed the matter all that evening and grew so enthusiastic
+over it that they determined to try it the next night.  There was no
+hope now of diamonds, and the expedition had cost them nearly two
+hundred dollars.  A few wolf bounties and pelts, together with the furs
+found in the cabin, would cover this and perhaps leave a little profit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was cold and cloudy the next day, and they waited impatiently for
+evening.  The moon would not rise till nearly midnight, and it was
+necessary to wait in order to have light enough for the proposed
+ambush.  They sallied out toward eleven o'clock, and shot three
+rabbits, which Peter attached to a deerskin thong.  Selecting an open
+glade, Maurice and Fred established themselves in ambush under the
+thickets, while Peter started on a wide circle through the woods,
+trailing his bait, in the hope of attracting the wolves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred and Maurice waited for more than two hours, nearly frozen,
+stamping and beating their arms, listening for the hunting cry of the
+wolf pack.  At the end of that time Peter reappeared, tired and
+disgusted.  The wolves had failed to do their part, and had not picked
+up the trail.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Still he was not discouraged, and insisted on trying it again the next
+evening.  This time Fred and Maurice stayed in the cabin to keep warm,
+listening intently.  At the first, distant howl they were to rush out
+and ensconce themselves in a prearranged spot, a quarter of a mile up
+the river, which Peter was to pass.  They kept the two repeating
+rifles, while Mac carried the double-barreled gun, loaded with
+buckshot, which they had found in the cabin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Half a mile from the shanty Peter shot a swamp hare that was nibbling a
+spruce trunk, and a little way farther he secured another.  These
+carcasses he tied together with a deerskin thong as before, and trailed
+them in the wake of his snowshoes.  This time he intended to make a
+longer circuit than on the preceding night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He dragged this bait across a hardwood ridge and down into a great
+cedar swamp on the other side.  In hard weather all the wild life of
+the woods resorts to such places for shelter, and here the wolves would
+be hunting if there was a pack in the neighborhood.  But he found few
+tracks and no sign at all of wolves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After traveling slowly for two or three miles, Mac sat down on a log to
+rest, and as the warmth of exercise died out, the cold nipped him to
+the bone through the "four-point" blanket coat.  He got up and moved
+on, intending to return in a long curve toward the cabin.  He did not
+much care, after all, whether he started any wolves.  It was too cold
+for hunting that night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dry snow swished round his ankles at the fall of the long racquets.
+He still dragged the dead hares, which were now frozen almost as hard
+as wood, but not too hard to leave a scent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had reached the other side of the swamp when his ears caught
+suddenly a high-pitched, mournful howl, ending in a sort of yelp,
+sounding indefinitely far away, yet clearly heard through the tense
+air.  He knew well what it was.  The pack had struck a trail&mdash;possibly
+his own, possibly that of a deer.  He would very soon learn which.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thrilling with excitement, he walked on slowly, turning his head to
+listen.  Again and again he caught the hunting chorus of the wolf pack,
+far away, but still perceptibly nearer.  He was just then in the midst
+of a tangled stretch of second-growth timber, and he hurried on to
+reach more open ground.  As soon as he felt convinced that the pack was
+following him he intended to turn back toward the river.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He kept moving on, however, and at last came to the river before he
+expected it.  He was still more than a mile above the point where the
+ambush was to be set, and he paused on the shore and hearkened.  Far
+away through the moonlit woods he heard the savage, triumphant yell,
+much nearer now&mdash;so much so that he felt that he might as well make for
+the ambush at once.  He felt suddenly alone and in peril; he longed
+earnestly to see his companions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He started down the river at a swinging trot, still listening over his
+shoulder, when the ice suddenly gave way under his feet, and he went
+down with so swift a plunge that he had time for only a shuddering gasp.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had stepped on an airhole lightly crusted over with snow.  He went
+down to his neck without touching bottom, and the black water surged up
+to his face.  It was the gun that saved him; it caught across the hole,
+and he clung to it fiercely.  As the current fortunately was not rapid,
+he was able to draw himself up and out upon the ice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But he found himself unable to extricate his feet.  The long-tailed
+snowshoes had gone down point foremost, and now were crossed under the
+ice, and refused to come up.  He dared not cut them loose, for in the
+deep snow he would have been helpless.  Growing fainter at every
+moment, he struggled in the deadly chill of the water for four or five
+minutes before at last he succeeded in bringing them up end first, as
+they had gone down.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When he staggered back stiffly upon the snow the very life seemed
+withdrawn from his bones.  His heavy clothing had frozen into a coat of
+mail almost as hard as iron plate.  There was no sensation left in his
+limbs, and he trembled with a numb shuddering.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Long forest training told him what must be done.  He must have a fire
+at once.  He would have to find a dry birch tree, or a splintered pine
+that would light easily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His benumbed brain clung to this idea, and he began to stumble toward
+shore, his snowshoes sheets of ice, and his clothes rattling as he
+went.  But with a hunter's instinct he stuck to his gun, tucking it
+under his icy arm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He could see no birch tree, and the bank was bordered with an
+impenetrable growth of alders.  He dragged himself up the river, and
+each step seemed to require a more and more intolerable exertion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He could not feel his feet as he lifted and put them down; when he saw
+them moving they looked like things independent of himself.  He had
+ceased to feel cold.  He no longer felt anything, except a deadly
+weariness that was crushing him into the snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He went on, however, driven by the fighting instinct, till of a sudden
+he saw it&mdash;the birch tree he was seeking, shining spectrally among the
+black spruces by the river.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was an old, half-dead tree, covered with great curls of bark that
+would flare up at the touch of a match.  He had matches in a
+water-proof box, and he contrived to get them out of his frozen pocket.
+He dropped the box half a dozen times in trying to open it, opened it
+at last with his teeth, and dropped it again, spilling the matches into
+the snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Snow is as dry as sand at that temperature, however, and he scraped
+them up, and tried to strike one on the gun barrel.  But he was unable
+to hold the bit of wood in his numbed fingers; there was absolutely no
+feeling in his hands, and the match fell from his grasp at every
+attempt.  This is a familiar peril in the North Woods, where dozens of
+men have frozen to death with firewood and matches beside them, from
+sheer inability to strike a light.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mac beat his hands together without effect.  He began to grow
+indifferent; and as he fumbled again for the dropped match he fell at
+full length into the snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A sense of pleasant relief overcame him, and he decided to rest there
+for a few minutes.  The snow was soft, and he had never before realized
+how warm it was.  His shoulders were propped against the roots of the
+birch, and with a hazy consciousness that game might be expected, he
+dragged his gun across his knees and cocked it.  Then, with a
+comfortable sense of duty done, he closed his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Curious and delightful fancies began at once to flood his brain,
+fancies so vivid that he seemed not to lose consciousness at all.  How
+long he lay there he never knew.  But he grew alive at last to a
+vise-like pressure on his left arm that seemed to have lasted for
+years, and which was growing to excruciating pain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He opened his eyes with a great effort.  There were savage, hairy faces
+close to his own, pouring out clouds of steaming breath into the frosty
+air.  Something had him by the arm with such force that he almost felt
+the bones cracking, and something was tugging at his leg.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The nervous shock aroused him as nothing else on earth could have done.
+A tingle of horrified animation rushed through his body.  He was on the
+point of being torn to pieces by the wolf pack that had trailed him,
+and the powerful stimulus of the new peril called out the last reserves
+of strength.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He made a convulsive start.  His frozen hand was on the trigger of the
+shotgun, and both barrels went off.  At the sudden flash and report the
+half-dozen wolves bolted incontinently&mdash;all but one gray monster that
+got the full force of the buckshot and dropped in its tracks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Macgregor staggered to his feet, full of terrible cramps and pains in
+every muscle.  But his head had cleared somewhat.  He saw the dry birch
+tree and again tried to fumble for a match.  Almost by sheer luck he
+succeeded in striking it.  The birch bark caught fire and flamed
+crackling up the trunk.  The dry trunk itself caught and burned like a
+torch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Macgregor rubbed his face and hands savagely with snow.  They hurt
+intensely, but he welcomed the pain, for it showed that they were not
+frozen.  He was beginning to feel a little more life when he heard the
+creak and flap of snowshoes, and saw Fred and Maurice hurrying up the
+river toward him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's the matter?" they shouted, as soon as within hearing distance.
+"We heard the shot.  See any wolves?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mac tried to shout something in answer, but found that he could not
+speak distinctly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I see you've bagged one," cried Fred, rushing up.  "Why, man, you're
+covered with ice!  What's happened to you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Been in the river," Peter managed to ejaculate.  "Get my moccasins
+off, boys&mdash;rub feet with snow.  Afraid&mdash;I'm going&mdash;to lose toes!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With exclamations of sympathy the boys got his frozen outer clothing
+off,&mdash;broke it off, in fact, from the caked ice,&mdash;removed his moccasins
+and socks, and rubbed his feet with snow.  Several of the toes had
+whitened, but they regained color after some minutes' rubbing, and
+began to hurt excruciatingly.  Peter squirmed with the pain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I don't mind it," he said.  "Rub away, boys.  I certainly thought
+I was going to lose part of my feet."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Perhaps the solid cake of ice that had instantly formed over his heavy
+socks and moccasins had actually protected them from freezing.  At any
+rate, he got off much more easily than he would have thought possible.
+The attack of the wolves had left little mark on him, either.  He had a
+few light lacerations on his hands and face, but for the most part the
+beasts seemed to have laid hold on him where the thick, ice-caked cloth
+was almost like armor plate.  And no doubt the arrival of the pack had
+saved him from death by freezing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred dragged up the carcass of the fallen wolf and skinned its head and
+ears for the Government bounty.  The rest of the pelt was so terribly
+torn with buckshot as to be worthless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your scheme didn't work, Mac," he remarked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It did work.  It worked only too well," Macgregor protested.  "It's
+the best scheme for catching wolves I ever heard of."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You don't want to try it again, do you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well&mdash;that's a different thing!" he admitted.  "No, I don't know that
+I do.  But if I hadn't gone through the ice we would probably have
+bagged nearly the whole pack."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After thorough snow friction Mac considered it safe to approach the
+fire by degrees.  The ice thawed off his clothing, but left him wet to
+the skin.  It was certain that he ought to get back to the cabin and
+dry clothing as soon as possible, and he thought he would be able now
+to travel.  It was less than two miles.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It proved a painful two miles, but he reached the cabin at last, where
+his companions put him to bed in one of the bunks, covered him warmly,
+and dosed him with boiling tea.  It was then growing close to three
+o'clock in the morning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Naturally they did not get up as early as usual for breakfast.
+Macgregor's feet were sore and somewhat swollen, but there was no
+longer any danger of serious trouble.  He had to remain in the cabin
+that day and was unable to put on his moccasins, but he was much elated
+at his luck in getting off so lightly.  It was snowing and stormy,
+besides; none of the boys went out much, except for the endless task of
+cutting firewood.  They lounged about the cabin and discussed the
+problems that perplexed them so much&mdash;whether Horace had really
+discovered any diamonds, and what had become of him, and how and
+why&mdash;until the subject was utterly worn out.  Maurice then made a
+checkerboard, and they played matches till they wearied of this
+amusement also.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next day they had to fall back on it again, however, for the
+weather was still stormy.  During the afternoon it snowed heavily.
+Mac's feet were much better, and he wore his moccasins, but judged it
+unsafe to go out into the snow for another day.  In the midst of the
+storm Fred and Maurice cut down a couple of dead hemlocks, and chopped
+part of them up for fuel.  It was amazing to see what a quantity of
+wood the rough fireplace consumed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If we had acres of diamond beds we couldn't afford such fires in
+town," Maurice remarked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next day the weather cleared, but turned bitterly cold.  In the
+afternoon Maurice ventured out to look for game, and came back about
+four o'clock with three spruce grouse and a frost-bitten nose.  The
+boys were all standing outside the cabin door, when Fred suddenly
+started.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Round the bend a sledge had just appeared on the river.  It was drawn
+by six dogs, coming at a flagging trot through the deep snow; four men
+on snowshoes ran behind and beside it.  For a moment the men seemed to
+hesitate as they caught sight of the hut.  But they came on, turned up
+the shore, and drove straight to the cabin at a gallop.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Three of the <I>voyageurs</I> were plainly French Canadians, or possibly
+French half-breeds, wiry, weather-beaten men, dark almost as Indians;
+the fourth was big and heavily built, and wore a red beard that was now
+a mass of ice.  All of them wore cartridge belts, and four rifles lay
+on the packed sledge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Bo' jou'</I>!" cried the dark-faced men, as they came within hailing
+distance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Bon jour</I>!" Maurice shouted back.  He was the only one who knew any
+French, and he knew but little.  He was searching his memory for a few
+more words, when the red-bearded man came forward and nodded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Didn't know any one was living here this winter," he said.  "Trapping?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hunting a little," said Macgregor.  "Unharness your dogs and come
+inside.  It's a cold day for the trail."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You bet!" said one of the French, and they made no difficulty about
+accepting the invitation.  They rapidly unhitched the dogs, which had
+sat down, snarling and snapping in their traces; then they unpacked the
+sledge and carried the dunnage inside the cabin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were a wild-looking set.  The French Canadians were probably
+woodsmen, shanty-men or hunters, apparently good-natured and jovial,
+but rough and uncivilized.  The Anglo-Saxon, who seemed to be their
+leader, was more repellent, and when he took off his <I>capote</I>, he
+revealed a countenance of savage brutality, with small eyes, a cruel
+mouth, and a protuberant jaw, framed in masses of bricky red hair and
+beard.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't much like the looks of this crowd!" Maurice whispered in
+Macgregor's ear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Rough lot, but they'll be away in the morning," answered Peter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the North it is obligatory to be hospitable, and the boys prepared
+to feed and entertain the party as if they were the most welcome
+guests.  At the usual time they prepared supper.  The four newcomers
+ate enormously.  During the meal the red-bearded man explained that his
+name was Mitchell, that he was "going north with these breeds," as he
+rather vaguely put it, and that they had run somewhat short of
+provisions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Luckily, they had food for the dogs; one of the "breeds" presently
+produced six frozen whitefish and carried them outside, where he gave
+one to each dog with much dexterity.  The fish were bolted in a
+twinkling, and the unhappy brutes began to look for a sheltered spot
+where they could sleep through the sub-Arctic night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After supper the French, stuffed to repletion, lay back and engaged in
+an animated conversation in a dialect that seemed to be a mixture of
+French, English, and Ojibwa.  They laughed uproariously, and seemed
+thoroughly happy.  But Mitchell said little, and continually examined
+the interior of the hut with keen, restless eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next morning the visitors showed no anxiety to be off.  They fed
+the dogs, lounged about, smoked, and stayed until dinner time.  After
+dinner Mitchell announced that the dogs were tired, and would have to
+rest that day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is very unusual to take a day off the trail for the sake of the
+dogs, but the boys made no objection, although secretly much annoyed.
+The presence of the strangers inspired them all with uneasiness.
+Besides, they could not continue their search or speak freely of it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next morning the strangers said nothing about moving on.  They sat
+about the fire, and evading a suggestion that they help to cut wood,
+played cards nearly all day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's the matter with them?  Are they going to stay here all winter?"
+said Fred, in great irritation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Certainly the dogs needed no more rest.  They pervaded the place,
+trying to bolt into the warm cabin whenever the door was opened, and
+spending much time in leaping vainly but hopefully at the frozen
+carcass of the deer, swung high on a bough in the open air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The prodigious appetites of the newcomers had not diminished in the
+least, and the carcass was rapidly growing less.  The boys thought that
+at the least their guests might help replenish the larder, and the next
+morning Macgregor proposed that they all go after deer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No good to-day," said Mitchell gruffly.  "Snow's coming.  You boys go
+if you want to.  We'll mind camp."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That was the last straw; there was no sign whatever of storm.  Peter
+went out of the cabin to consult with his friends.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They think we're greenhorns from the city, and they're trying to
+impose on us!" he said angrily.  "If they don't make a move by
+to-morrow morning, I'll give them a pretty strong hint."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All the same, fresh meat had to be procured, and after dinner Macgregor
+and Maurice took the two rifles and went back to the deer yard to see
+if the herd might not have returned.  Fred stayed to watch, for the
+boys disliked to leave their guests alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The quartette were playing cards as usual, and Fred presently began to
+feel lonely.  After hanging about the hut for a time, he went out to
+pass the time in cutting wood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was very cold, but he much preferred the outer air to the smoky
+atmosphere of the shack, and he soon grew warm in handling the axe.  He
+spent nearly the whole afternoon at this exercise, and it was after
+four o'clock when he finally reëntered the cabin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He opened the door rather quietly, and was astounded at what he saw.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The card game had been abandoned.  The shanty was in a state of
+confusion and disorder.  Blankets and bedding were strewn pell-mell;
+the contents of the dunnage sacks were tossed upon the floor.
+Everything movable in the place seemed to have been moved, and a great
+part of the moss chinking had been torn from one of the walls, as if a
+hurried and desperate search had been made for something.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the object of the search had been found.  The four men were bent
+together over the table, watching intently, while Mitchell took
+something from a small leather sack.  They were all so feverishly
+intent that Fred tiptoed up close behind them unobserved.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mitchell was shaking out little lumps from the sack; each was wrapped
+in paper, and each, when he unwrapped it, was a small pebble that
+flashed fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred's heart jumped, and he gasped.  The diamonds!  Horace had really
+found them, then!  The sack seemed to contain a large handful&mdash;it was
+appalling to think what they might be worth!  And then it flashed upon
+the boy with increased certainty that his brother must be dead, for
+otherwise he would never have left them there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mitchell looked up and round at that instant.  At his explosive oath,
+the Frenchmen wheeled like a flash.  For a moment there was a deathly
+silence, while the four men glared at the boy with scowling faces.
+Fred realized that not only the possession of the stones, but probably
+his life, hung on his presence of mind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Those things are my brother's, Mr. Mitchell," he said, with an outward
+coolness that astonished himself.  "He hid them in this cabin.  I don't
+know how you came to find them, but I'll ask you to hand them back."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His voice broke the spell of silence.  One of the French said something
+in the ear of another, and then dropped quietly back toward the corner
+where the men's four rifles stood together.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Mitchell swept the pebbles together back into the bag.  "Your
+brother's?" he said.  "Why, I bought 'em myself from a gang of Ojibwas
+down on Timagami.  Rock crystals they call 'em, and I reckon to get ten
+or twelve dollars for 'em at Cochrane."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He spoke with such assurance that Fred was taken aback, and did not
+know what to say.  Then his eye fell on one of the scraps of paper in
+which a stone had been wrapped.  He leaned forward and picked it up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you put this on it?" he exclaimed indignantly.  "Look!  It's my
+brother's handwriting.  'October second, Nottaway River, near Burnt
+Lake,' it says.  That's where he found it.  And look at that!"  He
+swept his hand round the devastated cabin.  "What did you tear the
+place to pieces for if you weren't hunting for something?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They're mine, anyway," retorted the woodsman, slipping the precious
+bag into his pocket.  "Them papers was wrapped round 'em when I got
+'em."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Impossible!" said Fred.  "I tell you&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Shut up!" said Mitchell suddenly, with a snarl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A sense of his peril cooled Fred's anger like an icy douche, and he was
+silent.  There was death in the four grim faces that regarded him.  He
+had no doubt that the men would murder for a far less sum than the
+value of that sackful of precious stones.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For an instant he thought hard.  He was entirely unarmed, and the men's
+rifles stood just behind them.  He would have to wait for
+reinforcements.  It was surely almost time for Maurice and Peter to be
+back, and they must be warned of the danger before they entered the
+cabin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All right," he said, with sudden mildness.  "If you can prove that the
+stones are really yours, I'm satisfied.  The sack looked like my
+brother's, that's all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mitchell gave a contemptuous grin.  The Canadians lighted their pipes
+again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred felt that they watched him closely, however.  He lounged about the
+cabin with assumed nonchalance for a quarter of an hour, and then
+ventured to go out on the pretext of bringing in a fresh log for the
+fire.  But once outdoors, he put on his snowshoes and rushed down the
+trail to intercept his friends.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER V
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+In deadly fear of hearing a shot or a shout from behind, Fred did not
+stop running until he was out of sight of the cabin.  He knew the
+direction from which the hunters would be sure to return, and he posted
+himself in ambush, in a spot whence he could keep watch in front and
+rear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fortunately, he was not pursued.  Fortunately, too, he had not very
+long to wait there, for it was bitter cold.  In the course of half an
+hour, he discerned two black specks crossing a strip of barrens to the
+north.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred ran to meet them.  The hunters had no deer, but each of them
+carried a great bunch of partridges.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's the matter?  Is the camp on fire?" shouted Macgregor, as Fred
+dashed up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had to stop to regain breath before he could gasp out an account of
+what had happened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The diamonds!" Maurice exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, don't you see, this makes it certain that Horace never left that
+cabin alive!" Fred said heavily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It looked like it, indeed, and no one found anything to say.
+Macgregor's face had grown very grim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Anyhow, Horace risked his life for those stones,&mdash;perhaps lost
+it,&mdash;and we 're not going to let those wretches carry them off," he
+said.  "Besides, the diamonds are the least important thing.  Those
+fellows have got our cabin, grub, ammunition, everything.  We're
+stranded if we don't get them back."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must take them by surprise," said Fred.  "I'd been thinking that we
+might come up to the cabin quietly, throw the door open suddenly, and
+hold them up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They have four rifles," suggested Maurice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, but they won't be ready to use them," said the Scotchman.  "It's
+the only way."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He threw open the chamber of his rifle, glanced in, then fumbled in his
+pockets.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lend me a couple of cartridges, Maurice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't say you haven't any!  I used the last of mine on those
+partridges."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then we're done!" Peter exclaimed, and he struck his hand furiously on
+the breech of the empty repeater.  "Not a shot between us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They looked at one another hopelessly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come, we've got to do something&mdash;or starve in the snow," said Peter,
+at last.  "We'll hold them up, anyhow&mdash;with empty guns."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But suppose they fire on us?" Fred asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At the first move any one makes toward a gun, we'll jump for him.  The
+cabin's too small to use rifles in, and if it comes to a
+rough-and-tumble, why, we'll just have to keep our end up.  But I don't
+think it will come to that.  We'll have them bluffed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Certainly it seemed a long chance to take, but, as Peter said, it was
+better than starving in the snow.  They laid down the partridges, and
+began to move toward the cabin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take the axe, if it's by the door, Fred," Macgregor advised.  "You'll
+go first, and open the door.  We'll aim over your shoulders.  And
+remember, at the first hostile movement, jump for them with clubbed
+rifles and the axe."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They went on, rather slowly.  The cabin came in view, with no one in
+sight, and they made a détour through the hemlocks so as to get as
+close to the door as possible without showing themselves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now for it!" muttered Macgregor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With hearts beating tumultuously, they burst out from the evergreen
+screen.  But they had taken only two or three steps, when the cabin
+door opened a few inches, and four black rifle barrels were thrust out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Halte-là</I>!" shouted one of the Canadians.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys stopped in their tracks.  They could see nothing of the men
+within, nothing except those four ominous muzzles in the streak of
+firelight that shone through the crack.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you mean?" cried Macgregor boldly.  "Don't you know who we
+are?  Put those guns away, and let us in!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He ventured another step, but a second voice roared from the doorway,
+"Stop!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was Mitchell.  Peter stopped suddenly.  The hoarse voice bellowed
+again, "Git!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's the matter with you?" Peter persisted.  "That is our cabin.
+Let us come in, I say."
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-088"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-088.jpg" ALT="&quot;THAT IS OUR CABIN.  LET US COME IN, I SAY&quot;" BORDER="2" WIDTH="474" HEIGHT="602">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 474px">
+&quot;THAT IS OUR CABIN.  LET US COME IN, I SAY&quot;
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+"Git, <I>I</I> say!" Mitchell repeated.  "After this, we'll shoot on sight.
+I give ye till I count three.  One&mdash;two&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Back off.  We 're caught!" Peter muttered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They backed away slowly.  When they were at the edge of the thickets,
+Mitchell shouted again:&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When we're gone, you can come back!  Now keep away for your own good!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The cabin door closed as they stepped back into the undergrowth.
+Macgregor's face was black as he tucked the useless rifle under his
+arm.  They were all boiling with rage and mortification.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If we'd only turned those scoundrels out yesterday!" Peter muttered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We couldn't foresee this," said Maurice.  "Those fellows evidently
+knew that the diamonds were here&mdash;or strongly suspected it.  They must
+have heard of it from your sick Indian, or from the third trapper.
+They must have been astonished to find us on the spot."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Very likely," said Fred, "but the present question is what we're going
+to do to-night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must make the best camp we can in the snow," remarked Maurice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't see how we'll cut wood without an axe," said Peter.  "It's
+going to be a savage cold night.  We have no blankets, either.  Lucky
+we shot those partridges."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But when they came to the spot where they had dropped the partridges, a
+fresh disappointment awaited them.  The famished sledge dogs had found
+them.  There was nothing left of the fourteen grouse except a litter of
+feathers and a few blood-stains on the snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Their night was to be supperless as well as cold, it seemed.  Darkness
+was already falling, with the weird desolation that the winter night
+always brings down on the wilderness.  It had been always impressive,
+but now, as they faced the night without food or shelter, it was
+appalling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Destitute of an axe, they would have to make a camp where they could
+find fuel, and they scattered to look for it.  It was rapidly growing
+too dark to search, but Fred presently came upon a large, dead spruce,
+lying half buried in snow, but spiked thickly with dry branches.  He
+was breaking these off by the armfuls when the other boys came up in
+answer to his calls.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They trampled down the snow, gathered birch bark and spruce splinters,
+and laid the kindling against the big back log.  Maurice set about
+pulling twigs for a couch, in case the temperature permitted them to
+sleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How about matches?  I haven't one on me," said Fred, in sudden anxiety.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Macgregor discovered four rather damp ones in his pockets; Maurice had
+a dozen or more, but the snow had got into his pocket, and wet them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They used up five matches in lighting the fire, but finally the birch
+bark flared up, curling, and the spruce twigs began to crackle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were sure, at any rate, of a fire, and this little success raised
+their spirits wonderfully.  They started at once to bring in all the
+loose wood they could find; but it proved to be little, for snow
+covered everything except the largest logs.  However, they counted on
+the big spruce trunk to burn all night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without an axe, it was impossible to build any sort of shelter; so they
+sat down close beside the fire, and huddled together to escape the
+cold, which was growing hourly more piercing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In spite of all their efforts, the fire was a poor one.  The spruce
+trunk proved rotten and damp, and merely smouldered and smoked.  The
+dead branches went off in a rapid flame, and they had to economize them
+to make them last the night out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That was a terrible night.  The temperature must have gone far below
+zero.  A foot away from the fire, they could hardly feel its warmth;
+their backs and feet were numb, and their faces smoked and scorching.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two of the boys were tired with a long snowshoe tramp, and all of them
+were hungry.  Macgregor's feet were still far from being in a condition
+to stand further exposure; they would have frozen again easily, and he
+kept them as close to the wretched fire as possible.  Sleep was out of
+the question, for they would have frozen to death at six feet away from
+the fire.  They sat with their arms round each other, as close to the
+blaze as possible, and turned now their faces and now their backs to
+the warmth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fortunately, there was no wind.  About midnight a pallid moon came up
+behind light clouds.  Far in the woods they heard strange, lugubrious
+noises, moans, hootings, and once a shrill, savage scream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now and then they talked, but they were too miserable from the cold to
+say much.  In spite of the cold, they grew drowsy.  Fred could have
+gone dead asleep if he had allowed himself to.  He got up, stamped, and
+engaged in a rather spiritless bout of wrestling with Peter.  Then they
+all straggled off to try to find more wood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Finally, that night of horror wore itself away.  The light of a pale,
+cold dawn began to show.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Feeling twenty years older, they scattered to bring wood again.  They
+built up the fire to a roaring blaze that gave some real warmth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aren't those fellows likely to make off the first thing this morning,
+and take all our outfit with them?" said Maurice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They're almost certain to.  We must keep watch on the cabin," said
+Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must hope they don't," added Peter.  "We'd have to follow
+them&mdash;follow them till we dropped or captured them.  For they'd be
+taking away our lives with them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In view of this danger, they sent Maurice at once to reconnoiter the
+place, which was not more than a quarter of a mile distant.  He was
+gone nearly half an hour, and on his return reported that smoke was
+rising from the cabin, but that there were no signs that the men
+intended to depart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And he had had a stroke of luck.  A couple of partridges had flown up
+and perched stupidly on a log, so close to him that he had been able to
+knock one of them over with a cleverly thrown club.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In less than a minute that partridge's feathers were scattered on the
+snow, and it was cut up and roasting on sharp sticks before the fire.
+Too ravenous to wait until it was thoroughly cooked, the boys began to
+eat it, but Maurice made a wry face at his second mouthful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No salt!" he remarked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The half-cooked flesh was nauseous without salt, and hungry though they
+were, they got it down with difficulty.  It did them good, however, and
+they all felt more capable of facing the situation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The first thing we must do," said Peter, "is to find a better
+camping-place, put up some sort of shelter, and gather plenty of wood."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, you don't expect to live like this long?" cried Fred, looking
+startled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's hard to say.  You know we're fearfully handicapped.  Our only
+chance is to get those fellows off their guard, for if we strike once
+and fail, we'll probably never get another chance.  We must lie low,
+and make them think that we've gone away, or that we're dead.  We'll
+put our new camp half a mile away, or more, and one of us must keep
+watch near the cabin from sunrise to sunset."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It sounded disheartening, but they could think of no other plan.
+Eventually, Maurice went to stand guard, while Fred and Macgregor
+searched for a camp-site.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They could not find what they wanted.  Dead timber in any quantity was
+scarce.  At the end of a couple of hours Fred went to relieve Maurice,
+and found him walking round and round a tree in order to keep from
+freezing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I thought I might get a chance to collar the axe," said Maurice, with
+chattering teeth.  "But they've carried it inside.  They've taken in
+the rest of the venison, too, and they've even got the dogs inside the
+shanty.  Afraid we'd shoot them, I suppose."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Maurice tramped off to aid Peter in his search, while Fred stamped
+about in the trees.  No one was in sight about the hut, but after a
+long time one of the French Canadians came out and went down to the
+river with a pail for water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It made Fred's blood boil to think of the warmth and comfort in that
+cabin, from which they had been so treacherously turned out.  He
+puzzled his brain to devise some plan of retaliation, but he could
+think of nothing except setting fire to the place, and that would
+destroy the supplies of friend and foe alike.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His feet grew numb, and he adopted Maurice's plan of running round in a
+circle.  He fancied that his ears and nose were frosted, and he rubbed
+them with snow.  A long time passed; he wondered what had become of his
+companions.  It was nearly noon when Maurice hurried up with his face
+full of consternation.  "The fire is out," he said, "and we've used the
+last match!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VI
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+At this crushing news, Fred left his post and went back with Maurice,
+who explained what had happened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had found a good camping-ground, where wood was abundant, and had
+tried to light a fire.  But the remaining matches proved to have been
+badly dampened; the heads were pasty or entirely soaked off.  One by
+one they fizzled and went out.  As a last hope, Maurice had hurried
+back to their night camp for fire, only to find that the wet log had
+smouldered down and gone dead out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The spot was about two thirds of a mile away, south from the river.  A
+great windrow of hemlocks and jack-pines had fallen together, and
+afforded plenty of wood.  On one of the logs sat Macgregor, with his
+elbows on his knees, and his chin in his hands, the picture of despair;
+and at his feet was a litter of bark and kindling, and a dozen burnt
+matches.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They all sat down together in silence, and nobody found a word of
+comfort.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a brilliantly clear day, but the temperature had certainly not
+risen to zero, and a slight, cutting wind blew from the west.  The sun
+shone in an icy blue sky, but there was no heat in its rays.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If we only had a cartridge," said Fred, "we might make a fire with the
+gun flash."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They all made another vain search of their pockets, in the faint hope
+of finding a cartridge or an overlooked match head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If we don't find some way to make a fire before sunset," said
+Macgregor gloomily, "we'll have to attack the cabin to-night.  I really
+don't believe we could live through a night without fire, with nothing
+to eat, especially as we had no sleep last night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Surely if we went up to the cabin, they'd give us some fire," Maurice
+protested.  "They wouldn't let us die in the snow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's just what they count on us to do," said the Scotchman bitterly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No one said anything about renewing the guard on the cabin.  Nothing
+seemed to matter much&mdash;nothing except the cold.  The morsels of
+half-raw food they had eaten that morning did not keep them from being
+ravenously hungry again, and an empty stomach is poor protection
+against Arctic cold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Like the rest of them, Fred was heavily clad, but the cold seemed to
+find his skin as if he were naked.  He began to feel numb to the bone,
+lethargic, incapable of moving.  Then he realized his danger, forced
+himself awake, and tried to think of some expedient for making a fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Flints could not be found under three feet of snow.  A
+burning-glass&mdash;if they only had one!  It should have been included in
+the outfit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then an idea flashed upon him.  He jumped up suddenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait here for me, fellows!" he cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He rushed off toward the river, and came back in a few minutes with a
+piece of clear ice, almost as large as his palm, and an inch or two
+thick.  He slipped off his mittens, and began to rub it between his
+hands, so as to melt it down with the heat of his skin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"See what it is?  Burning-glass!" he exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But you can't make a burning-glass of <I>ice</I>!" said Maurice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why not?  Anyhow, I'm going to try."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But before he had worked the ice long, he had to stop, for his hands
+seemed freezing.  While he beat and rubbed them, Maurice, incredulous
+but willing, took the lump of ice, and shaped it down while the heat
+lasted in his hands.  He then passed it on to Macgregor, who in turn
+handed it to Fred again.  He finally succeeded in melting and curving
+it roughly into the proper shape.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He tried it on the back of his hand.  An irregular but small and
+intensely hot spot of light concentrated itself there.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do believe it will work!" Peter cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They hastily collected a handful of fine, dry hair moss from the fir
+branches, and peeled filmy shreds of birch bark.  Fred brought the
+"glass" to bear on the little heap.  His numbed hands trembled so that
+he could hardly hold it still.  For some time there was no result.
+Then a thin thread of smoke began to arise.  The boys held their
+breath.  The hair moss suddenly sparkled and flamed.  A shred of bark
+caught.  Peter interposed a large roll.  It flared up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hurrah!  We've got it!" cried Macgregor.  "Fred, you've saved our
+lives, I do believe."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They piled on twigs, branches, and heavy lumps of wood, and soon had a
+brisk fire going.  Better still, they were now assured of having always
+the means of making one&mdash;at least, whenever the sun shone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The magical influence of the fire gave back to them a little of their
+cheerfulness.  They warmed themselves thoroughly, and then started to
+have another look at the outlaws, and to see whether they could find
+any small game.  For now that they no longer suffered from the cold,
+their stomachs cried loudly for food.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Leaving the empty rifles by the fire, they armed themselves with clubs
+and poles for hunting, and had good hopes of being able to knock over a
+partridge or a hare.  But the grouse seemed to have turned wild.  They
+saw only two at a great distance.  No hares showed themselves, nor
+could they find any trace of porcupines on the trees.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Skulking within sight of the cabin, they perceived one of the Frenchmen
+carrying in logs of wood for the fire&mdash;some of those that Fred himself
+had cut.  Mitchell stood by, smoking his pipe, with a rifle under his
+arm.  Fred fancied he could smell frying venison as the door was opened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Plainly the outlaws were on the alert still.  The boys crouched, unseen
+and unheard, among the hemlocks; but if they had been armed, they could
+easily have picked off the two men at the door.  And they had come to
+such a state of rage and desperation that they would very likely have
+done it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They found no comfort in the fact that the robbers showed no
+inclination to leave the place.  The boys were perplexed at their
+staying, but probably the men had no reason to hurry, and, finding
+themselves comfortably placed, had decided to remain where they were
+while the extreme cold snap lasted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In spite of the cold, the boys remained on watch for some time after
+the men had gone indoors.  Suddenly Peter laid his hand on Fred's
+shoulder, and nodded backward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A deer had come out of the thickets within thirty yards of where they
+lay,&mdash;a fine, fat buck,&mdash;and stood looking uneasily, sniffing, and
+cocking its ears in their direction.  Then, without showing any
+particular alarm, it walked on, and passing within twenty yards of
+them, disappeared again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had to let it go; it was perhaps the cruelest moment they had
+lived through.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Deer might be out of the question, but if they were to keep alive, it
+was absolutely necessary that they should find something, and they
+separated in order to look for small game.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the course of an hour or two they all straggled back to the camp
+fire, half frozen and empty-handed.  Macgregor indeed had seen a
+partridge, but his muscles had been so benumbed that he missed his
+throw.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After warming themselves, they made another expedition&mdash;all but
+Maurice, who had neuralgic pains in his face, and who remained by the
+fire.  But again Peter and Fred came back without game.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sun had set by this time, and it was hopeless to try again.  A
+hungry night was inevitable, but they tried so to arrange matters that
+at any rate they would be warm.  They gathered all the wood that they
+could break off or lift.  Then with their snowshoes they dug down to
+the ground, heaping the snow up in a rampart behind them, and piled in
+balsam twigs, and trusted that in this pit they would be able to sleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It grew dark rapidly, and the wind rose.  The fire, flaring and
+smoking, drove smoke and sparks into their faces until their eyes
+streamed.  It made the leeward side of the fire almost unbearable,
+whereas the windward side was freezingly cold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The temperature was perhaps not quite so low as the night before, but
+the gale made it far more disagreeable.  Regardless of smoke and
+sparks, they had to sit as near the fire as they dared, or risk
+freezing.  Sleep was impossible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All three of them were faint and sick with starvation, but the plight
+of Maurice was the most wretched.  His neuralgia had grown agonizing;
+his face was badly swollen, and he sat with his head buried in his
+arms, and his inflamed cheek turned to the heat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Much as they sympathized with him, they could do nothing to relieve
+him, except to try to keep up the fire.  This task caused them endless
+trouble.  The high wind made it burn furiously fast, and the small
+branches they had gathered were licked up like magic.  They had thought
+there was enough fuel for the night, but soon after midnight Fred and
+Peter were foraging about in the deep snow and the storm for a fresh
+supply.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Toward morning their endurance broke down.  They piled on all the rest
+of the wood, and went to sleep huddled up by the fire, reckless whether
+they froze or not.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred was awakened from a painful and uneasy slumber by Peter's shaking
+his arm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your ears are frozen," the Scotchman was saying.  "Rub them with snow
+at once."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While asleep, Fred had fallen back beyond the range of heat.  It was
+broad daylight, and snowing fast.  The fire was low.  All of them were
+covered with white, and Maurice was still asleep, sitting up, with his
+head fallen forward on his knees.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Never in his life did Fred feel so unwilling to move.  He did not feel
+cold; he hardly felt anything.  All he wanted was to stay as he was and
+be let alone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Macgregor insisted on rousing him, dragged him up, protesting, and
+rubbed snow on his ears.  Fred was very angry, but the scuffle set his
+blood moving again.  His ears were not badly frozen, but the skin came
+off as he rubbed them.  They bled, and the blood froze on as it ran,
+and made him a rather ghastly spectacle.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-106"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-106.jpg" ALT="DRAGGED HIM UP, PROTESTING, AND RUBBED SNOW ON HIS EARS" BORDER="2" WIDTH="472" HEIGHT="600">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 472px">
+DRAGGED HIM UP, PROTESTING, AND RUBBED SNOW ON HIS EARS
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+Maurice was awakened by the disturbance, and sat up stiffly.  He
+declared that his neuralgia was much better.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They built up the fire again, and sat beside it, shivering.  Fred felt
+utterly incapable either of action or of thought, and even his hunger
+had grown numbed.  Maurice obviously felt no better, and Macgregor, who
+seemed to retain a little energy, looked at them both with a face of
+the gravest concern.  Presently he rose, put on his snowshoes, took a
+long pole, and started away with an air of determination.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Maurice and Fred remained sitting by the fire in a sort of lethargy,
+and exchanged hardly a word.  Macgregor was gone almost an hour; then
+he came back at a run, covered with snow, and carrying a dead hare.  He
+skinned the animal, cleaned it, cut it into pieces, and set it to
+roast.  At the odor of the roasting meat, the boys' appetites revived,
+and they began to take the fragments from the spits before they were
+half cooked.  The scorched, unsalted meat was even more tasteless and
+nauseating than that of the grouse, but they all bolted it voraciously,
+and washed it down by eating snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Almost immediately afterward they were taken with distressing cramps
+and vomiting, which left both Maurice and Fred in a state of weak
+collapse.  Macgregor suffered least, perhaps because he had eaten less
+incautiously.  He alone bore the burden of the rest of that day.  He
+brought wood, kept the fire up, and propped Fred and Maurice up on
+piles of hemlock branches.  There were some small pieces of the hare
+remaining, and he finally made the boys chew them, and swallow the
+juice.  It seemed to do them good; at any rate, the nausea did not
+return.  Then the Scotchman spoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look here," he said, "we've got to do it this very night&mdash;get back
+into the cabin, I mean.  We've gone almost too far now, and by another
+day we'll be too weak to move."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But how'll we do it, Peter?" asked Fred weakly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's only one way.  We'll wait till after midnight, when they'll be
+asleep, and then burst in the door, aim our rifles at them, and get
+hold of their guns before they can recover their wits."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They'll have the door barricaded.  We'll be shot down before we can
+break in."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know it's a long chance, but we're living by a succession of
+miracles as it is.  It can't last, and I'd as soon be shot as frozen to
+death.  I'm most afraid of the dogs.  They'll make an awful uproar, and
+probably spring at us as soon as we get in."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As far as Fred was concerned, he felt ready for the attempt, or rather,
+perhaps, that it made no difference what he did.  Maurice also
+assented, but their force seemed a pitifully small one with which to
+oppose four able-bodied, well-armed men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was then late in the afternoon.  Peter began to work energetically
+at gathering wood enough to last until they should try their desperate
+chance, and Fred and Maurice tried to help him.  It had stopped snowing
+and had cleared.  The night promised to be intensely cold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly, faint and far, but very distinct, the sound of a rifle-shot
+resounded through the trees.  They listened, and looked at one another.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One of those ruffians has gone hunting," Maurice remarked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So he has," said Peter.  "And see here," he added, with a suddenly
+brightening face, "this gives us a chance.  Let's ambush that fellow as
+he comes in.  We'll knock him down and stun him.  That'll make one less
+against us, and we'll have his rifle and cartridges.  Perhaps he'll
+have something to eat on him.  Boys, it doubles our chances."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The plan did look promising.  At any rate, it would, if successful,
+give them a firearm.  The shot must have been fired fully a mile away;
+but they put on their snowshoes at once, and hastened in the direction
+of the cabin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The light was failing fast as they stopped about two hundred yards from
+the hut, trying to guess just where the returning hunter would pass.
+It was very still, and they would be able to hear his footsteps for a
+long way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But they waited for nearly half an hour, and the woods were dusky when
+at last their strained ears caught the regular creak, crunch, and
+shuffle of snowshoes in the distance.  They were posted too far to the
+right, and they had to run fifty yards in order to cross the man's
+path.  There they crouched behind the hemlocks, in great fear lest
+their enemy had heard their steps.  But in another minute they caught
+sight of him.  The man was alone, muffled in a great <I>capote</I>, carrying
+a rifle over his shoulder, and something on his back&mdash;possibly his
+game.  His face was indistinguishable, but he looked like one of the
+French Canadians.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On he came with a steady stride, now in sight, and now concealed by the
+thickets.  He passed within ten feet of the ambush where the boys
+crouched palpitating.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now!  Tackle him!" Macgregor cried.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VII
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The three boys plunged at the man together.  He stopped short, and made
+a motion to lower his rifle; but he was too late.  The boys had
+fastened on him as wolves fasten on a deer.  He uttered a single,
+stifled cry; then they all went down together in a mass of kicking
+snowshoes and struggling limbs.  The hunter's efforts were feeble, and
+the boys had no trouble in over-powering him.  Fred pinioned his arms,
+and Maurice sat on his legs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Macgregor peered into the man's face.  "Why, this isn't one of that
+gang!" he cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It had grown almost dark.  Fred bent forward to look at the man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's my brother!" he cried.  "It's Horace!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What?  It can't be!" cried Peter and Maurice together.  They let go
+their hold on their prisoner in order to look closer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I declare, I believe it is!" said Macgregor, stupefied.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It really was Horace Osborne, but he was almost unrecognizable in his
+muffling <I>capote</I>, long hair, and a three months' growth of beard.  He
+had no idea who had thus attacked him, and he was in a towering rage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you mean by all this?  Who are you, anyway?" he exclaimed,
+sitting up in the snow.  Then he looked more closely at his brother,
+who was trying to say something, inarticulate, half laughing and half
+crying.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fred!" he cried, in amazement.  "Is that you?  What on earth are you
+doing here?  Who's that with you?  Peter Macgregor&mdash;and Maurice Stark!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We thought you might be dead!" Fred cried, and Peter and Maurice cut
+in alternately:&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Heard you were sick with smallpox&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Came up to find you&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Came in on skates, and&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A gang of outlaws turned us out of the cabin&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Found your diamonds."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't half understand it all," said Horace, "but I see that you
+fellows have acted like good friends.  We can't get in the cabin, you
+say?  Well, you've a camp somewhere, haven't you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They started for the camp in the snow, and on the way Fred gave his
+brother a somewhat incoherent account of what had taken place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You fellows certainly have acted like friends to me&mdash;like brothers,
+rather!" said Horace.  "I'll never forget it, boys!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And he shook hands with them all round.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not a bit!" said Maurice, in embarrassment.  "We were hoping that
+you'd let us in on the ground floor of a diamond mine.  Fred says there
+was a whole bagful of diamonds that you had hidden in the cabin.  What
+do you suppose they're worth?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If they're all diamonds, perhaps a hundred thousand dollars," replied
+Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Gracious!" gasped Maurice, and said no more.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Fred's attention had been fixed on the pack that his brother
+carried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What have you there, Horace?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Grub.  Bacon, hardtack, tea, cold boiled beans.  Why, I never thought
+of it, but you must all be as hungry as wolves.  Well, there's enough
+for a square meal here, anyhow, and to-morrow we'll find some way of
+getting those rascals out of the camp."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They built up the camp-fire, and Horace got out his provisions,
+together with a couple of partridges he had shot late that afternoon.
+But Macgregor, as medical adviser, refused to let them eat as much as
+they wanted.  A little tea and a few mouthfuls of meat were all he
+permitted them to have; he promised, however, that they should have a
+full meal in a couple of hours.  He took the same ration himself; but
+Horace ate heartily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But where have you been since you left the cabin?" Fred asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At a lumber camp on the Abitibi, about forty miles from here," Horace
+replied.  "I've been convalescing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If we'd only known that there was anything of the sort so near,"
+remarked Peter, "we'd have made for it ourselves."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I stumbled on it by chance.  However, I'd better explain in detail.
+As you seem to have heard, I came sick to this trappers' shack.  I'd
+been in an Indian camp a week before, on the Nottaway River, where they
+had had smallpox, but I've been vaccinated four or five times, and
+never dreamed of danger.  I didn't know what the matter with me was, in
+fact, till the red spots began to appear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course the trappers were badly scared, especially after one of them
+caught the disease and died.  I can't tell you how sorry I was for that
+death.  I suppose I wasn't to blame, but I felt somehow responsible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Indian cleared out, and I couldn't blame him.  But I couldn't
+afford to let the third man go.  I was over the worst of it by that
+time, but I was as weak as a kitten, and could hardly feed myself.  If
+he'd deserted me I should have died.  I offered him any sum of money if
+he would stick to me, and told him that I'd shoot him if I saw any sign
+of his making off.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I couldn't have aimed straight enough to hit him at a yard just then,
+and I suppose he knew it.  Anyhow, he disappeared one morning before I
+was awake.  He didn't take much with him except his gun and ammunition.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was gaining strength fast, and I was able to stagger about a little.
+I could get water, and there was some grub in the shack.  I knew that I
+must get out at once, lest snow should come.  I stayed four days; then
+I took what grub I could carry, my rifle and a dozen cartridges, and
+started.  I left all my specimens, notebooks and everything, for I
+didn't dare to carry an ounce more than I could help."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But the diamonds?  They didn't weigh many ounces," interrupted Maurice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I struck for the Abitibi," went on Horace, paying no attention to the
+question, "and I was so weak that I couldn't make much speed.  I had
+been out five days, and my grub was pretty nearly gone, when I stumbled
+into the lumbermen.  They treated me like real Samaritans, took me in
+and fed me, and I've been there convalescing ever since.  Day before
+yesterday I started back here to get my things.  I had to travel
+slowly, for I'm not overstrong yet, and I was hurrying on to get to the
+cabin to-night when you pounced on me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you had only taken the diamonds with you!" Fred lamented.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I did," said Horace.  He looked at the boys with a smile, and then
+went on:&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Those stones, my boy, that you saw in the cabin aren't diamonds.  They
+are quartz crystals and rather curious garnets, worth a few dollars at
+the most.  Here are the diamonds!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He took a small leather pouch from an inner pocket; the boys jumped up
+in excitement to look.  From the pouch he took a small paper package,
+unfolded it, and revealed nine small lumps, which ranged in size from a
+small shot to a large pea.  They looked like lumps of gum arabic, but
+their edges and angles reflected brilliant sparks in the firelight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Those little things?  Are they diamonds?" cried Fred, in some
+disappointment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Little things?  Why, if they were all perfect stones, they'd be worth
+a small fortune.  Unfortunately, the biggest has a flaw in it that you
+can see even without cutting it, and some of the others are yellowish
+and off color.  It will take an expert to say what they 're worth.  But
+the great triumph is to have found diamonds up here at all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, and there must be more where these came from," said Maurice,
+brightening.  "If you've discovered the beds&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I haven't, though," Horace returned.  "Three of these stones I bought
+from a camp of Ojibwas.  The rest I found in the gravel of the
+creek-beds, mostly along the Nottaway River, but none of them within a
+quarter of a mile of another.  Whenever I thought the gravel looked
+promising, I sifted some of it.  But I didn't find a trace of the blue
+soil that always forms the diamond-beds; if there are diamond-beds up
+here, they must be somewhere beyond the region that we have explored."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But they must be here somewhere," cried Peter, "and there must be more
+diamonds where you found those!  I'll certainly come up here next
+summer and try my own luck."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've thought of doing so myself; that is, if this lot turns out to be
+any good.  But getting back to town is the present problem, and we've
+got to consider how to recapture the cabin and your outfit of supplies."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But not before we eat again," said Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Macgregor, who was as famished as any of them, consented, and they
+prepared such a banquet as the three castaways had not seen since they
+left the cabin.  It almost exhausted the supplies that Horace had
+brought, but it did them all a great deal of good.  With a new feeling
+of being able to grapple with the problem, they settled down to
+consider the question of war.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We might set fire to the cabin," Fred suggested, "and try to capture
+the fellows when they rush out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Out of the question," declared Peter, "for, even if it worked, the
+provisions would be burned up.  I had thought of stopping up their
+chimney during the night.  The smoke would suffocate them in their
+sleep, and we could go in and drag them out insensible."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am afraid it would waken them first," said Horace.  "We'd have them
+coming out with rifles.  Now I'd been thinking that if we only had some
+of your formaldehyde fumigator we could get them under control very
+easily."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So we could.  A can of that stuff let through the roof would put them
+into a dead stupor without waking them.  The only risk would be that of
+killing them all outright.  There was a can of it left, too, but it's
+in the cabin."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, it isn't!" cried Fred.  "I put it outside in a hollow tree, so as
+not to have the stuff in the house.  I could get it in ten minutes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fred, you're a diamond yourself!" Peter exclaimed.  "If it's as you
+say, we'll have them out of that cabin in a jiffy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Shall we try it to-night?" Maurice asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why not?  It's nearly midnight, and they must be asleep," said Horace.
+"I've no fancy for spending another night and day shivering here in the
+snow.  Besides, we're out of grub."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After some consultation, they put on their snowshoes and tramped off
+toward the cabin.  It was intensely cold, and very still and clear; a
+brilliant moon had come up over the pines.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred easily found the hollow tree in which he had hidden the
+disinfectant, and came back with the apparatus.  There was an unopened
+tin of formaldehyde complete with its little lamp almost full of spirit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For some time they reconnoitered the cabin cautiously.  A faint glow
+shone through the skin window, but no sound either of man or dog could
+be heard within.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It would not be possible to introduce the fumigator through the door or
+window, and if it were lowered down the chimney, the draft would carry
+the gas out again.  But Maurice recollected the hole he had patched in
+the roof; it could easily be opened again.  He volunteered to set the
+"smoker" going.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was really the most dangerous part of the undertaking, for a
+slight sound might bring out the ruffians, who would probably shoot
+without much hesitation.  Maurice took off his snowshoes, and carrying
+the fumigator, plunged through the drifts toward the cabin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Twenty yards away the party watched him from the thickets; Horace kept
+the door covered with his rifle.  The snow had drifted so deep that
+Maurice climbed easily to the roof, crawled up the slope on hands and
+knees, groped about, and began to scrape away the snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A moment later, he drew out the deer-hide patch, peered down the hole,
+and then waved his hand reassuringly toward the woods.  He struck a
+match, lighted the spirit lamp, and then lowered the can cautiously by
+a string about a yard long.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In another minute he was back with his friends.  "They're dead asleep,"
+he said, joyfully.  "I could hear them snore.  The formaldehyde began
+to smell strong before I let it down.  How long shall we leave it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We don't want to kill them," said Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No danger," Peter remarked.  "The draft from the big chimney will keep
+clearing the air.  I'd leave it till all the stuff is vaporized&mdash;say, a
+couple of hours.  The only thing I dread is that some one may wake up;
+but then, he wouldn't know what the smell was, and the spirit flame is
+so pale that it's almost invisible."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They watched the cabin intently.  All remained deathly quiet.  It was
+very cold as they crouched there in the snow.  Horace kept his rifle
+ready, but finally his vigilance slackened.  They walked about to keep
+from freezing, talked in whispers, and still watched the silent hut.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly Horace clutched Fred's arm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look!" he cried.  "The cabin's on fire!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VIII
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A thin stream of smoke was rising from the hole in the roof of the
+cabin.  From the chimney volumes of vapor had suddenly begun to pour
+out into the moonlight.  The dim glow at the window now and then flared
+up brightly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That spirit lamp must have set fire to something.  Those men will be
+burned to death.  Come, we must try to get them out!" Horace cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They rushed together to the cabin door.  It was barricaded on the
+inside; they battered it with kicks and blows for a good half-minute,
+and at last it yielded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A gush of smoke and suffocating fumes burst out into their faces, and
+the boys staggered back.  The inside of the cabin appeared to be all in
+flames, but it was so obscured by smoke that they could see nothing
+clearly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With the opening of the door the fire seemed to burn more fiercely.  It
+seemed impossible that anything could be alive in that place; but Fred
+shut his eyes and dashed blindly in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He stumbled over the body of a dog, and kicked it outside the door.
+Choking with the smoke and the formaldehyde fumes, he took another
+step, and his foot struck something soft; it was the body of a man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred stooped and tried to pick the body up by the shoulders.  Suddenly
+through the smoke Peter appeared at his side, and helped him; together
+they got the man out and laid him down on the snow.  He was one of the
+French Canadians, apparently lifeless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is he dead?" gasped Fred to Macgregor, who bent over the prostrate
+form.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The medical student peered under the man's eyelids, and felt his wrist.
+"No," he said, "he'll come round all right in the fresh air.  It's the
+smoke more than the gas."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace came out at that moment, dragging Mitchell's limp body.  The
+red-bearded ruffian was alive, but unconscious; the boys placed him on
+the snow beside his companion.  Then all four of them rushed into the
+cabin together, and succeeded in getting out the remaining two French
+Canadians.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now the dogs!  We must get them out!" cried Peter.  That was not hard
+to do, for the animals were lying close to the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The strong draft from the door to the chimney had by this time cleared
+the atmosphere a good deal, and the boys saw that the fire was burning
+chiefly among the couches of balsam boughs.  The spirit lamp must have
+scorched through the cord by which it hung, and dropped into a heap of
+dry twigs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys had no means of putting the fire out; the immediate need was
+to rescue the provisions.  They rushed in again, and each dragged out
+an armful of supplies.  They took a breath of fresh air, and then
+hastened in again.  Fred was reaching for a slab of bacon, when
+suddenly something exploded almost under his hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He jumped back, almost fancying he had been shot at.  <I>Crack! crack!
+bang!</I> went several other reports in quick succession, and this time he
+realized what it must be.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Run!  The ammunition's going off!" he shouted, and rushed for the
+open; as he ran, however, he caught up the piece of bacon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Some of the rifle cartridges were exploding, one by one, and then two
+or three together, and suddenly, with a tremendous bang, a whole box
+seemed to go off.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the firing ceased, and after a short interval, the boys set to
+work again to get out more provisions.  The cabin was stifling now from
+powder smoke, but they got what they could lay their hands on&mdash;a bag of
+flour, a quantity of canned stuff, a kettle, a rifle; soon a great heap
+of rescued supplies lay on the snow outside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The flames, unable to ignite the solid logs of the cabin, were now
+dying; evidently they would soon burn themselves out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mitchell at this moment gave signs of returning life.  He opened his
+eyes, stirred, and began to cough violently.  They placed him in a more
+comfortable position, and at the same time took the precaution of tying
+his wrists and ankles securely with strips of deer-hide.  The man
+seemed dazed; he looked at the boys in amazement, and did not utter a
+word.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two of the French Canadians were also reviving, and the boys tied them
+up in the same way.  The fourth was in bad shape, and it took vigorous
+rubbing to restore him to consciousness: if he had been neglected a
+little longer he might have died.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They laid the captives out in a row on a pile of hemlock branches, and
+lighted a roaring fire to keep them from freezing.  Horace then went
+through Mitchell's pockets, and recovered the sack of stones that Fred
+had seen.  He poured the glittering crystals into his hand, while
+Mitchell looked on in black disappointment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My friend," said Horace, "you've taken a vast amount of trouble,
+risked committing murder, and almost lost your own life for these
+pebbles.  Here, I'll give them to you."  He poured the crystals back
+into the pouch, and then flung the sack into the man's lap.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-128"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-128.jpg" ALT="FLUNG THE SACK INTO THE MAN'S LAP" BORDER="2" WIDTH="626" HEIGHT="488">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 626px">
+FLUNG THE SACK INTO THE MAN'S LAP
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+The outlaw looked utterly bewildered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ain't them diamonds?" he exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fool's diamonds," Horace replied.  "Maybe you can get five dollars for
+the lot.  If they were real diamonds, you might be a millionaire now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mitchell was evidently convinced, for he swore bitterly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm curious to know," Horace said, "how you came to hear that you
+might expect to find diamonds hereabouts?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One of these breeds," said Mitchell sullenly, "got it from a brother
+of his down by Hickson that a prospector had died here with a pocketful
+of shiny stones that he'd picked up.  I've prospected some myself.  I
+thought what these stones likely was, and I got together this crowd,
+and&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We know the rest," said Peter.  "You came on the same false scent that
+we did."  Then he turned to Horace, and whispered, "What in the world
+are we going to do with these fellows?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace wrinkled his brows in perplexity, and shook his head.  "I don't
+know," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But whatever they did, they must first of all sleep.  The fire in the
+cabin had indeed burned out, but the place was so charred and smoky as
+to be uninhabitable; so they built a huge camp-fire of logs on the
+snow.  Here they all passed the night,&mdash;there was not much left of
+it,&mdash;and Peter, Fred, and Maurice took turns in staying awake in order
+to watch the prisoners.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next morning the boys prepared a great breakfast from the
+recaptured provisions.  They released the right hands of the captives,
+to enable them to eat; the men showed no hostile spirit.  Mitchell only
+was sullen, as usual; the three French Canadians chattered gayly; they
+had quite recovered from their suffocation.  Four of the dogs were
+lively, too; but one was dead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After breakfast the boys inspected the cabin, and carried out the rest
+of the supplies.  Most of these were badly damaged.  All the blankets
+had been destroyed; the rifles were charred about the stocks, but could
+still be used; the kettles and tinware were not much injured; but the
+boys found only one box of cartridges that had not exploded.
+Mitchell's dog harness was burned to pieces.  Both the sledges had been
+left outdoors, and were unhurt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As they looked over the outfit, the boys discussed their plans.  They
+agreed that they should start for home at once.  They were all anxious
+to have the diamonds appraised, and there was not the slightest reason
+for remaining.  But the question what to do with the prisoners
+perplexed them.  They could not take them along, could not leave them
+bound, and did not dare to set them free and restore their weapons.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Finally, however, the boys found a way out of the difficulty.  They
+divided the provisions and ammunition into two equal parts, and loaded
+their toboggan with one of them.  Peter then cut the four men loose.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We'll treat you better than you did us," he said.  "We're leaving you
+half the grub, and there are some old deerskins here from which you can
+make a new dog harness.  We'll carry your snowshoes with us for two
+miles down the river, and leave them there.  We'll carry your rifles
+three miles farther, and leave them in a conspicuous place, too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the boys set out on their homeward journey.  One of the Frenchmen
+immediately started after them in order to pick up the snowshoes and
+the rifles, but the boys soon left him far behind.  They saw no more of
+any of the outlaw gang, although, for fear of an attack, they kept
+watch for the next two nights in camp.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+None of the boys were in condition for fast travel, and the question of
+supplies was a serious one.  Horace thought it best to make straight
+for the lumber camp where he had been so kindly received, and they
+reached it on the third day.  Here they spent a couple of days in rest
+and recuperation, and were lucky enough to be able to buy enough beans,
+flour, and bacon to last them to the railway.  Again they set off, and,
+after four days of hard tramping in bitter cold weather, they heard the
+whistle of a train, faint and far away through the trees.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They all yelled with joy.  It was like a voice from home.  They began
+to run, and in a short time they came to iron rails running north and
+south through the snowy forest.  Following up the line, they found
+themselves at Ringwood, three stations north of Waverley, where they
+had gone in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next train took them down to that point, and they went back to the
+hotel, recovered their suit-cases, and put on town clothes again.  It
+seemed a long time since they had passed that way before, and collars
+and cuffs were hard to wear.  A great many curious eyes followed them
+about the little hotel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Find any gold?" the landlord asked them, in an offhand manner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," said Maurice.  If he had inquired about diamonds, the boys would
+have been puzzled what to say.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the last time they packed their dunnage sacks on the battered
+toboggan, and shipped it to the city.  They traveled on the same train
+themselves, and were in Toronto the next morning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys parted with hearty farewells&mdash;Maurice going home, Macgregor to
+his rooms, and Horace accompanying Fred to his boarding-house, where he
+intended to find quarters for himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And now for the great question!" said Horace, when they were once
+indoors.  "Are the diamonds worth anything, or are they not?  I can't
+think of anything else till I find out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, I thought you were sure&mdash;" began Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So I am&mdash;in a general sort of way.  But I'm not a diamond expert, and
+I may be deceived.  It's just possible that the things may not be real
+diamonds at all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But don't worry," he added, seeing his brother's startled face.  "I'm
+pretty sure they 're all right.  But I'm going to take them at once to
+Wilson &amp; Keith's and get them appraised.  They're the best diamond firm
+in the city, and they'll treat me honestly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace dressed himself very carefully, took his little sack of jewels,
+and departed.  He was gone fully three hours, and Fred waited in almost
+sickening impatience.  At last he heard Horace's step on the stairs,
+and rushed out to meet him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What luck?" he cried eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"S-sh!" said Horace, drawing him back into the room.  "It's all right.
+They're diamonds!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hurrah!" Fred shouted wildly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They were awfully keen to know where I got them, but of course I
+wouldn't tell, except that it was in Ontario.  They would have bought
+the lot, I think, but I wasn't anxious to sell at once.  They wanted me
+to make a price, and I wanted them to make an offer, and both of us
+were afraid, I guess.  However, they're going to take care of the
+stones for me and think it over."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must tell the other boys!" exclaimed Fred.  "Can you make the
+slightest guess at what the stones are worth?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hardly&mdash;at present.  Maybe a thousand or two.  Three of them are too
+small to be of any use at all, too small to be cut.  The biggest has a
+bad flaw in it; it could be used only for cutting up into what they
+call 'commercial diamonds,' for watch-movements, and such things.  Yes,
+give Peter and Maurice the news, certainly, but do it by word of mouth.
+Don't 'phone them.  You don't know who may be listening.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And be sure to warn them to keep the whole affair the closest kind of
+secret.  Wilson &amp; Keith are going to exhibit the stones in their show
+window, and you've no idea what an excitement will be stirred up.
+We'll all be watched.  People will try in every possible way to find
+out where we got them.  The newspapers will be after the story, and
+there'll be all kinds of underhand tricks to trap us into letting out
+something.  Not that it would do much good, for none of you know enough
+to be dangerous, but we don't want a dozen parties going up the
+Nottaway River next spring.  We 're going there ourselves."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred promised secrecy, and presently found that his brother had hardly
+exaggerated the sensation caused by the little pile of dull stones on a
+square of black velvet in the jeweler's window, labeled "Canadian
+Diamonds."  The newspapers were unremitting; Horace gave them a brief
+and circumspect interview, and thenceforth refused to add another word
+to his statement.  He was besieged with inquiries.  He had all sorts of
+proposals made to him by miners and mining firms.  One group of
+capitalists made him an offer that he thought good enough to consider
+for a day, but he ultimately rejected it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred had his share of glory too, as the brother of the diamond finder.
+It leaked out that Maurice and Peter had also been on the expedition,
+and they were so pestered with inquiries and interviewers that it
+seriously interfered with their collegiate work.  But by degrees the
+excitement wore off, for lack of anything further to feed upon.  The
+diamonds were withdrawn from exhibition, and the jewelers at last made
+up their minds to offer Horace seven hundred dollars for the lot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was rather a disappointing figure.  Horace took his diamonds to
+Montreal and submitted them to two jewel experts there, who advised him
+that they were probably worth little more, in their uncut form.  The
+cutting of them might develop flaws, or it might bring out unexpected
+luster; it was taking a chance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Returning to Toronto, he announced that he would take eight hundred and
+no less; and after some arguing Wilson &amp; Keith consented to pay that
+price.  The boys had a grand dinner at a downtown restaurant that night
+to celebrate it.  It was far from the fortune they had hoped to gain,
+but they still had great hopes of discovering that fortune.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's more than enough to cover the expenses of your trip into the
+woods this winter, and our next trip in the spring, too," said Horace,
+"for of course this eight hundred is going to be divided equally
+between us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not a bit of it!" protested Mac.  "You found the stones.  They're
+yours.  We won't take a cent of it, will we, Maurice?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I should think not!" Maurice exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace tried to insist, but the two boys stood firm.  At last he
+persuaded them to agree that the expenses of the expedition should be
+defrayed out of the diamond money.  As for their coming trip next
+season, the matter was left to be settled later.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was plenty of time to think of it, for it would be months before
+the woods would be open for prospecting.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IX
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Nearly the whole winter was before them, but it was none too long a
+time to consider their plans.  Horace had found diamonds, it is true,
+but they had been found miles apart, one at a time, in the river
+gravel.  This is not the natural home of diamonds, which are always
+found native to the peculiar formation known in South Africa as "blue
+clay."  Nobody had ever found a trace of blue clay in Ontario, yet
+Horace felt certain that the blue-clay beds must exist.  They were the
+only thing worth looking for.  To poke over the river gravel in hopes
+of finding a chance stone would be sheer waste of time.  Hundreds of
+men had done it without lighting on a single diamond.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace was a trained geologist, and that winter he spent much time in
+study, without saying a word even to Fred as to what he was meditating.
+He pored over geological surveys, and went to Ottawa to consult the
+departmental maps at the Legislative Library.  By slow degrees he was
+working out a theory, and at last, one February evening, he came into
+his brother's room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just look at this, Fred, and see what you think of it," he remarked
+casually.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a large pen-and-ink map, skillfully drawn, for Horace was a
+practiced map-maker.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's the country of the Abitibi and Missanabie Rivers," Horace
+explained.  "These red crosses show where I found my diamonds&mdash;see, in
+the Whitefish River, the Smoke River, and another river that hasn't any
+name, so far as I know.  Right here is the trappers' cabin where you
+boys found me.  My bones might have been up there now but for you, old
+boy!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And he thumped Fred's back affectionately.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you hadn't come along when you did I'm pretty certain our bones
+would be there, anyway," said Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, let's hope we all saved one another.  But see, most of these
+diamonds were found many miles apart.  They didn't grow where I found
+them.  They must have been washed down, perhaps from the very
+headwaters of the river.  Now look at the map.  Do you see, all these
+three rivers rise in pretty much the same region."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So they do," said Fred, his eyes fixed on the paper.  "Then you
+think&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The stones were probably all washed down from that region.  The
+blue-clay beds, the diamond field, must be up there, somewhere within
+this black circle I've drawn."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred's heart began to throb with excitement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But some prospector would have hit on them before now," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I doubt if any prospector has ever gone in there.  They say it's one
+of the roughest bits of country in the North, and no mineral strikes
+have ever been made in that region.  I've never been up there myself.
+It's up in the hills, you see; the rivers are too broken for a canoe,
+and the ground is too rough to get over on foot, except in the winter.
+The Ojibwas hunt there in the winter, they say, and I dare say there's
+plenty of game."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But if it's so rough to get into, how can we travel?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, often those bad places are not so bad when you get there.  I'd
+like to see the place I couldn't get into if there were diamonds there!
+We'll get into it somehow, for the diamond-beds must surely be there if
+they're anywhere.  But there's no doubt it'll be a rough trip."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Rough?  What of that?" cried Fred.  "If your theory is right we'll
+make our fortunes&mdash;millions, maybe!  Of course you'll let me go, won't
+you?  And Maurice, and Mac?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I couldn't manage without you.  But mind, not a word to anybody else!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They telephoned the other boys that day, and in the evening a meeting
+was held in Fred's room, like the previous time when the first
+expedition had been so hurriedly planned.  But this was to be a
+different affair, carefully thought out and equipped for all sorts of
+possibilities.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course you'll both be able to go?" said Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I certainly will," answered Peter.  "I've lost so much time this
+winter already, with our other trip, and then having my mind on the
+diamonds and dodging newspaper reporters and things, that I've got
+hopelessly behind.  My laboratory work especially has gone all to
+pieces.  I'm bound to fail on next summer's exams, anyway, so I'm going
+to let it slide and make the trip, on the chance that I'll make such a
+fortune that I won't have to practice medicine for a living at all.
+How about you, Maurice?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wouldn't miss it for anything&mdash;if I could help it," Maurice replied.
+"I don't know, though, whether I can afford it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Maurice's parents were not in rich circumstances, and Horace hastened
+to say&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm paying for this expedition, you know, out of the diamond money.
+There'll be plenty, and some to spare."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, it isn't exactly the cost," said Maurice, "but my father is
+awfully anxious for me to make an honor pass next summer.  I couldn't
+afford to fail, and have to take another year at the work.  I don't
+know, though,&mdash;I'll see.  I'd be awfully disappointed if I had to stay
+out of it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Under the circumstances they could not urge him to say more.  As for
+Horace and Fred, they had very few family ties.  Their closest
+relatives were an aunt and uncle in Montreal.  The trip was quite in
+the line of Horace's profession, and Fred did not mind resigning the
+post he held in the real estate office.  The firm was shaky; it was not
+likely to continue in business much longer, and he would be likely to
+have to look for another position soon in any event.  As they had
+feared, Maurice was obliged to announce his inability to go with them.
+His professors thought that an absence of two months would be a
+handicap that he could never make up.  In the eyes of his parents the
+expedition was no more than a hare-brained expedition into the woods,
+that would cost a whole year of collegiate work.  To his bitter
+disappointment, he had to give it up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred and Macgregor at once began to train as if for an athletic
+contest.  They took long cross-country runs in the snow and worked hard
+in the gymnasium.  They introduced a new form of exercise that made
+their friends stare.  They appeared on the indoor running track bent
+almost double; each carried on his back a sack of sawdust, held in
+place by a broad leather band that passed over the top of his forehead.
+Thus burdened they jogged round the track at a fast walk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were the butt of many jokes before the other men at the gymnasium
+discovered the reason for this queer form of exercise.  It had been
+Horace's idea.  He knew that there would be long portages where they
+would have to carry the supplies with a tumpline; and he also knew that
+nothing is so wearing on a novice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred and Peter found it so.  Strong as they were, they discovered that
+it brought a new set of muscles into play, and they had trouble in
+staggering over a mile with a fifty-pound pack; but they kept at it,
+and before the expedition started, Fred could travel five miles with a
+hundred pounds, and big Macgregor could do even better.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As soon as the ice on Toronto Bay broke up, they bought a large
+Peterboro canoe, which Horace inspected thoroughly.  He was a skilled
+canoeman; Fred and Peter could also handle a paddle.  When the ice went
+out of the Don and Humber Rivers, the boys began to practice canoeing
+assiduously.  The streams were running yellow and flooded, and they got
+more than one ducking, but it was all good training.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They decided to start as soon as the Northern rivers were navigable,
+for at that early season they would escape the worst of the black-fly
+pest, and the smaller streams would be more easily traveled than when
+shallow in midsummer.  Besides, they all felt anxious to get on the
+ground at once.  But although the streams were free in Toronto, in the
+Far North winter held them locked.  It was hard to wait; but not until
+May did Horace think it safe to start.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Since Maurice was not going, the boys decided to take only one canoe.
+It was impossible to say how long they might be gone, but Horace made
+out a list of supplies for six weeks.  It was rather a formidable list,
+and the outfit would be heavy to transport.  They carried a tent and
+mosquito-bar, and a light spade and pick for prospecting the blue clay,
+besides Horace's own regular outfit for mineralogical testing work.
+For weapons they decided upon a 44-caliber repeating rifle and a
+shotgun, with assorted loads of shells.  It was not the season for
+hunting, but they wished to live on the country as far as possible to
+save their flour and pork.  Fish should be abundant, however, and they
+took a steel rod with a varied stock of artificial flies and
+minnow-baits.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was warm weather, almost summery, when they took the northbound
+express in Toronto; but when Fred opened the car window the next
+morning, a biting cold air rushed in.  Rough spruce woods lined the
+track, and here and there he saw patches of snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was almost noon when they got off at the station that was a favorite
+starting-point for prospectors.  Here they had to spend two days, for
+Horace wished to engage Indian packers to help them portage over the
+Height of Land.  As it was early in the season, they had their pick of
+men, and obtained three French half-breeds, who furnished their own
+canoe and supplies.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys' canoe and duffel sacks had come up by freight.  All was ready
+at last.  The next morning they put the canoes into the water; the
+paddles dipped, and the half-dozen houses of the village dropped out of
+sight behind the pines.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The first week of that voyage was uneventful, except for hard work and
+considerable discomfort.  It rained four days in the seven, and once it
+snowed a little.  They were going upstream always, against a rushing
+current swollen with snow water.  Sometimes they could paddle, more
+often they had to pole, and frequently they were forced either to
+carry, or else to wade and "track" the canoes up the current.  The
+nearer they came to the head of the river, the swifter and more broken
+the stream became.  At last they could go no farther in the canoes.
+Then came the long portage.  In order to reach the head of the
+Missanabie River, which flowed in the opposite direction, they had to
+carry the canoe and over six hundred pounds of outfit for about twelve
+miles, across the Height of Land.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here they camped for one night.  At daylight next morning they started
+over the long portage, heavily burdened, and before the first hour had
+passed they were thankful that they had brought along the half-breed
+packers, who strode along sturdily under a load that made Fred stare.
+It is only fair to say, though, that the half-breeds were almost
+equally surprised at the performance of the boys, for their previous
+experience with city campers had not led them to expect anything in the
+way of weight-carrying.  Thanks to their gymnasium practice, however,
+Fred and Macgregor were able to travel under a sixty-pound load without
+actually collapsing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The trail was rough and wound up and down over rocky ridges, through
+tangles of swamp-alder and tamarack, but continually zigzagged up
+toward the hills.  It was a chilly day; the streams had been rimmed
+with ice that morning, but after a few miles the boys were dripping
+with perspiration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That was a killing march.  If it had not been for their weeks of hard
+training the boys could never have stood up under it, and they had all
+they could do to reach the topmost ridge of the Height of Land by the
+middle of the afternoon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred slipped the tumpline from his head, slung the sixty-pound pack on
+the ground, and sat down heavily on the pack.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That part's over, anyway!" he gasped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There won't be anything much rougher, old boy," replied Horace, as he
+came up and threw off his own burden.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Staggering through the underbrush, slipping on the wet, mossy stones of
+the slope, came a queer procession.  In front was a bronze-faced
+half-breed, bent double, with the broad tump-line over the top of his
+head, and a mountainous pack of blankets and food supplies on his back.
+Behind him came two more half-breeds, each with a heavy pack of camp
+outfit.  Macgregor brought up the rear; he carried a Peterboro canoe
+upside down on his shoulders, and steadied it with his hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They all sat down on the top of the hill to rest.  The three white
+boys, although trained athletes, were pretty well at the end of their
+strength; but the half-breeds seemed little the worse for their labor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were on the top of the Height of Land, which divides the flow of
+the rivers between the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay.  Behind them was the
+long, undulating line of hills and valleys they had just crossed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before them the land fell away sharply.  In the clear May sunshine they
+could see for miles over the tree-tops until the dark green of the
+spruce and tamarack faded to a hazy blue.  A great ridge showed a split
+face of gray granite; in the distance a lake glimmered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+About two miles away to the northwest a yellowish-green strip showed
+here and there through the trees.  It was a river&mdash;one of the
+tributaries of the Missanabie, which was to take them North.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The descent on the other side of the ridge was almost as hard as the
+ascent had been.  The northern slope was wet and rocky; in the hollows
+were deep banks of snow.  The rocks were loosened by the frost, which
+made the footing dangerous.  But it was only two miles now to the
+river, and they reached it in time to camp before dusk.  The next
+morning they paid off the half-breeds, who returned over the ridges
+southward.  The boys were left alone; the real expedition had begun.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The work now looked easy, but dangerous.  The river was narrow,
+swollen; its tremendous current, roaring over rocks and rapids, would
+carry them along at a rapid pace.  They would have to do some careful
+steering, however, if they did not wish to upset.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the most skillful canoeman, Horace took the stern; Macgregor sat in
+the bow, and Fred in the middle behind a huge pile of dunnage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a quarter of a mile they shot down the river; then they had to land
+and make a fifty-yard carry.  Another swift run in the canoe followed,
+and then another and longer portage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was like that for about fifteen miles.  Then they caught sight of
+wider water ahead, and the little river poured into a great, brown,
+swift-flowing stream a hundred yards wide.  It was the Missanabie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During the rest of that day they ran over forty miles.  The current
+carried them fast, and the river was so big and deep that it was seldom
+broken by dangerous rapids.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The country grew lower and less hilly; it was covered with a rather
+stunted growth of spruce, tamarack, and birch.  Ducks splashed up from
+the water as the canoe came in sight; and when the boys stopped to make
+camp for the night they found at the river's edge the tracks of a moose.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was wintry cold in camp that night, and there was ice in the pools
+the next morning.  Shortly after sunrise the boys launched the canoe
+again, and it was not much more than an hour later when a sound of
+roaring water began to grow loud in their ears.  With vast commotion
+and foam a smaller stream swept into the Missanabie from the southwest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hurrah!  I've been here before!" cried Horace.  "It's the Smoke River.
+Up here real work begins."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And up here," Peter said, gazing at the wild, swift stream, "is the
+diamond country."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER X
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The mouth of the Smoke River was so rough that the boys could not enter
+it in the canoe; and the dense growth of birch and willow along the
+shores would make portaging difficult.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We'll have to track the canoe up," Horace decided.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They got out the "tracking-line"&mdash;a long, stout, half-inch rope&mdash;and
+attached one end of it to the bow of the canoe.  Peter Macgregor
+harnessed himself to the other end, and started up the narrow, rocky
+strip of shore; Horace waded beside the canoe in order to fend her off
+the boulders.  Fred, carrying the fire-arms and a few other articles
+that a wetting would have ruined, scrambled through the thickets.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The water was icy cold, but it was never more than hip-deep.
+Fortunately, the very broken stretch of the river was only a hundred
+yards long; after that, they were able to pole for a mile or so, and
+once indeed, the stream broadened so much that they could use the
+paddles.  Then came a precipitous cascade, then a difficult carry, and
+then another stretch of poling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had gone about five miles up the river when Horace, who had been
+watching the shores carefully, pointed to a tree and gave a shout.  It
+was a large spruce, on the trunk of which was a blazed mark that looked
+less than a year old.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's my mark," said Horace.  "I made it last August.  Right here I
+found one of the diamonds."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must stop and do some prospecting!" cried Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No use," replied his brother.  "I prospected all round here myself,
+and for a mile or so up the river.  I didn't go any farther, but I've a
+notion that we'll have to go nearly to the head of the river to find
+the country we want."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On they went, shoving the canoe against the current with the iron-shod
+canoe poles.  They had all been looking up the kind of soil in which
+diamonds are usually found, and now they closely observed the eroded
+banks on both sides of the river.  According to Horace's theory, the
+river, or one of its tributary streams, must cut through the
+diamond-beds of blue clay.  But as yet the shores showed nothing except
+ordinary sand and gravel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two miles farther the river broadened into a long, narrow lake,
+surrounded by low spruce-clad hills and edged with sprouting lily-pads.
+It was a great relief to the boys to be able to paddle, and they dashed
+rapidly to the head of the lake.  There, rapids and a long carry
+confronted them!  They had made little more than fifteen miles that day
+when finally they went into camp; they were almost too tired to cook
+supper.  And they knew that that day's work was only a foretaste of
+what was coming, for from now on they would be continually "bucking the
+rapids."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next day they found rapids in plenty, indeed.  They seemed to come
+on an average of a quarter of a mile apart, and sometimes two or three
+in such close succession that it was scarcely worth while to launch the
+canoe again after the first portage.  It was slow, toilsome work; they
+grew very tired as the afternoon wore on, and shortly before sunset
+they came to one of the worst spots they had yet encountered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a pair of rapids, less than a hundred yards apart.  Over the
+first one the water rushed among a medley of irregular boulders, and
+then, after some ten rods of smooth, swift current, poured down a
+cataract of several feet.  Huge black rocks, split and tumbled, broke
+up the cataract, and the hoarse roar filled the pine woods with sound.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I move we camp!" said Fred, eyeing this obstacle with disgust.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's get over the carry first and camp at the top," Peter urged.
+"Then we'll have a clear start for morning."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred grumbled that they would certainly be fresher in the morning than
+they were then, but they unpacked the canoe, and began to carry the
+outfit around the broken water, as they had done so many times that
+day.  Once at the head of the upper rapid Horace began to get out the
+cooking-utensils.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll start supper," he said.  "You fellows might see if you can't land
+a few trout.  There ought to be big fellows between these two cascades."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It did look a good place for trout, and Mac had an appetite for fishing
+that no fatigue could stifle.  He took the steel fly-rod, and walked a
+little way down the stream past the upper rapid.  Fred cut a long,
+slender pole, tied a line to it and prepared to fish in a less
+scientific fashion.  As his rod and line were considerably shorter than
+Mac's, he got into the canoe, put a loop of the tracking-rope around a
+rock, and let himself drift for the length of the rope, nearly to the
+edge of the rough water.  Hung in this rather precarious position, he
+was able to throw his hook into the foamy water just at the foot of the
+fall, and had a bite almost instantly, throwing out a good half-pound
+fish whose orange spots glittered in the sunlight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Peter meanwhile was fishing from the shore lower down.  The thickets
+were farther back from the water than usual, and he had plenty of room
+for the back cast.  He was kept busy from the first, and when he had
+time to glance up Fred seemed to be having equally good luck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But at one of these hurried glances his eye caught something that
+appalled him.  The looped rope that held the straining canoe seemed to
+be in danger of slipping from its hold on the rock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He shouted, but the roar of the water drowned his voice.  He started up
+the bank, shouting and gesticulating, but Fred was busy with a fish and
+did not hear or see.  Horace was cutting wood at a distance.  And at
+that moment the rope slipped free.  The canoe shot forward, and before
+Fred could even drop his rod he was whirled broadside on into the rapid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Instantly the canoe capsized.  Fred went out of sight in the foam and
+water, and then Macgregor saw him floating down on the current below
+the rapid.  He was on his back, with his face just above water, and he
+did not move a limb.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mac yelled at him, but got no answer.  Fred had not been under long
+enough to be drowned.  He had evidently been stunned by striking his
+head against a rock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Mac realized the boy's new and greater danger.  Fred was drifting
+rapidly head first toward the second cataract, and no one could dive
+over that fall and live.  The rocks at the bottom would brain the
+strongest swimmer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mac instinctively dropped his rod and rushed into the water.  The
+strength of the swirling current almost swept him off his feet.  It was
+too deep to wade, and he was not a good swimmer.  He could never reach
+Fred in time.  They would go over the fall together.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred was more than thirty feet from shore.  Mac thought of a long pole,
+and splashed madly ashore again.  He caught sight of his fishing-rod,
+with its hundred yards of strong silk line on the reel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred was now about twenty yards above the cascade when Mac ran into the
+river again, rod in hand, as far as he dared to wade.  He measured the
+distance with his eye, reeled out the line, waving the rod in the air,
+and then, with a turn of his wrist, the delicate rod shot the pair of
+flies across the water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mac was an expert fly-caster.  The difficulty was not in the length of
+the cast; it was to hook the flies in Fred's clothing.  They fell a
+yard beyond the boy's body.  Mac drew them in.  The hooks seemed to
+catch for an instant on his chest, but came free at the first tug.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Desperately Mac swished the flies out of the water for another cast.
+He saw that he would have time to throw but this once more, for Fred
+was terribly near the cataract, and moving faster as the pull of the
+current quickened.  Mac waded a little farther into the stream, leaning
+against the current to keep his balance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The line whirled again, and shot out, and again the gut fell across
+Fred's shoulders with the flies on the other side.  With the greatest
+care Mac drew in the line.  The first fly dragged over the body as
+before.  The other caught, broke loose, and caught again in Fred's coat
+near the collar, and then the steel rod bent with the sudden strain of
+a hundred and fifty pounds drawn down by the strong current.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mac knew that the rod was almost unbreakable, but he feared for his
+line.  The current pulled so hard that he dared not exert much force.
+Fred's body swung round with his head upstream, his feet toward the
+cataract, and the current split and ripped in spray over his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The lithe steel rod bent hoop-like.  There was a struggle for a moment,
+a deadlock between the stream and the line, and Mac feared that he
+could not hold it.  The light tackle would never stand the strain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mac had fought big fishes before, however, and he knew how to get the
+most out of his tackle.  With the check on the reel he let out line
+inch by inch to ease the resistance; and meanwhile he endeavored to
+swing Fred across the current and nearer the shore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As he stood with every nerve and muscle strained on the fight he
+suddenly saw Horace out of the corner of his eye.  Horace was beside
+him, coat and shoes off, with a long hooked pole in his hands, gazing
+with compressed lips at his brother's floating body.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was not a word exchanged.  Under the steady pull Fred came over
+in an arc of a circle, but for every foot that was gained Mac had to
+let out more line.  His legs were swinging already within a few yards
+of the dangerous verge, but he was getting out of the center of the
+stream, and the current was already less violent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Inch by inch and foot by foot he came nearer, and all at once Horace
+rushed forward, nearly shoulder-deep, and hooked the pole over his
+brother's arm.  At the jerk the gut casting-line snapped with a crack,
+and the end flew back like a whip into Peter's face.  But Horace had
+drawn Fred within reach, had gripped him, and waded ashore carrying him
+in his arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll never forget this of you, Mac!" he ejaculated as he passed the
+medical student.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred had already come half to himself when they laid him on the bank.
+He had not swallowed much water, but had been merely knocked senseless
+by concussion with a boulder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's&mdash;matter?" he muttered faintly, opening his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Keep quiet.  You fell in the river.  Mac fished you out," said Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred blinked about vaguely, half-attempted to rise and fell back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Gracious!  What a head I've got!" he muttered dizzily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They carried him up to the camp, put him on the blankets and examined
+his cranium.  The back of his neck was skinned, there was a bleeding
+cut on the top of his head and a big bruise on the back, but Mac
+pronounced none of these injuries at all serious.  While they were
+examining him Fred opened his eyes again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fished me out, Mac?  Guess you saved my life," he murmured.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's all right, old fellow," replied Peter; and then he gave a
+sudden start.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The canoe!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the excitement over Fred's rescue they had entirely forgotten it.
+It had drifted downstream.  If lost or destroyed they would be left
+stranded in the wilderness&mdash;almost as hopelessly as castaways at sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without another word Mac began to run at full speed down the bank in
+the deepening twilight.  If the canoe had drifted right down the
+stream, he might never have overtaken it, but luckily he came upon it
+within a mile, lying stranded and capsized.  By the greatest good luck,
+too, it was not ruined.  It had several bruises and a strip of the rail
+was split off, but it was still water-tight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next morning Fred was fairly recovered of his hurts, but felt weak
+and dizzy, so that not much progress was made.  During the whole
+forenoon they remained in camp.  Horace went hunting with the shotgun
+and got a couple of ducks.  None of them felt much inclined for any
+more fishing in that almost fatal spot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the following day, however, Fred was able to take his share of the
+work again, and the party proceeded.  That day and many days after were
+much alike.  They tracked the canoe up long stretches of rough water,
+where two of them had to wade alongside in order to keep it from going
+over.  They made back-breaking portages over places where they had to
+hew out a trail for a quarter of a mile.  At night when they rolled
+themselves into their blankets they were too tired to talk.  But the
+hard training they had undergone before they started showed its results
+now.  Although they were dead tired at night, they were always ready
+for the day's work in the morning.  They suffered no ill effects from
+their wettings in the river, and their appetites were enormous.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The supplies, especially of bacon and flour, decreased alarmingly.
+Although signs of game were abundant, they did not like to lose time in
+hunting until they reached the prospecting grounds; but a couple of
+days later meat came to them.  They had reached the foot of the worst
+rapid they had yet encountered.  It was a veritable cascade, for the
+river, narrowing between walls of rock, leaped and roared over fifty
+yards of boulders.  The portage led up a rather steep slope.  The three
+boys, each heavily burdened, were struggling along in single file, when
+Horace, who was in front, suddenly sank flat, and with his hand
+cautioned the others to be silent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"S-s-h!  Lie low!" he whispered.  "Give me the rifle!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Macgregor passed the weapon to him, and then he and Fred wriggled
+forward to look.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Eighty yards away Fred saw the light-brown flank of a doe, and beside
+her, partly concealed by the underbrush, the head and large,
+questioning ears of a fawn.  The animals were evidently excited, for as
+Horace lowered his rifle, not wishing to kill a mother with young, they
+bounded a few steps nearer, and stood gazing back at the thicket from
+which they had come.  The wind blew toward the boys, and the roar of
+the cataract had drowned the noise of their approach.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly there was a commotion in the thicket, and two young bucks
+burst from the spruces and dashed past the doe and fawn toward the
+boys.  At the same instant the lithe, tawny form of a lynx leaped out.
+It struck like lightning at the fawn, but the little fellow sprang
+aside and bounded after its mother.  The lynx gave a few prodigious
+leaps and then stood, with tufted ears erect, glaring in
+disappointment.  It had all happened within a few seconds, and the deer
+were disappearing behind some rocks and stunted spruces fifty yards to
+the right before the boys thought again of their need of meat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that moment, one of the bucks wheeled at the edge of the tangle
+behind which the other deer had passed.  For an instant he presented a
+fair quartering shot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Shoot quick!" whispered Macgregor, excitedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the repeater in Horace's hands cracked, the buck whirled round in a
+half-circle, leaped once, and fell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred uttered a wild shout, slipped the tumpline from his head, and ran
+forward.  He was carrying the shotgun and held it ready; but the buck,
+shot behind the shoulder, was virtually dead, although he was kicking
+feebly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The lynx had vanished; there was no sign of the other deer.  Only the
+rush of the water in the river-bed now disturbed the forest stillness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dressing of the game was no small task.  It was late in the
+afternoon when the boys had finished it and had brought up the rest of
+their outfit to the head of the cataract.  "Buck Rapids" they named the
+place.  There was enough meat on the deer to last them for the next
+week at least.  The slices they cut and fried that night, although not
+tender, were palatable and nourishing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The weather had been warmer that day, and for the first time mosquitoes
+troubled them.  The boys slept badly, and got up the next morning
+unrefreshed and in no mood to "buck the river" again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why not stop here a couple of days and prospect?" Mac suggested at
+breakfast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The proposal struck them all favorably.  It was the real beginning of
+the search for fortune.  Fred in particular was fired with instant
+hope, and immediately after breakfast he set out to explore the country
+north of the river; he intended to make a wide circle back to the Smoke
+River and to come homeward down its bank.  He carried a compass, the
+shotgun, and a luncheon of cold flapjacks and fried deer meat.  Horace
+went off to the south; Macgregor remained in camp, to jerk the venison
+by smoking it over a slow fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a sunny, warm day.  Spring seemed to have come with a bound, and
+the warmth had brought out the black flies in swarms.  All the boys had
+smeared themselves that morning with "fly dope" that they had bought at
+the railway station, but even that black, ill-smelling varnish on their
+hands and faces was only partly effectual.  Great clouds of the little
+pests hovered round them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred struck straight north from the river, and then turned a little to
+the west.  He examined the ground with the utmost care.  The land lay
+in great ridges and valleys, and he soon found that prospecting was
+almost as rough work as fighting the river.  In the valleys the earth
+was mucky with melting snow water; on the hills it was rocky, with huge
+boulders, tumbled heaps of shattered stone, slopes of loose gravel;
+everywhere was a tangle of stunted, scrubby birch and poplar, spruce
+and jack-pine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After half an hour he came upon a small creek that flowed from the
+northwest.  With a glance at his compass, he started to follow it.  For
+nearly three hours he plodded along the creek, digging into the banks
+with a stick and examining every spot where there seemed a chance of
+finding blue clay; but he found nothing except ordinary sand and
+gravel.  At last, disappointed and disheartened, he turned back toward
+the Smoke River.  After a mile or so he stopped to eat his luncheon,
+and built a smudge to keep the flies away; then he proceeded onward
+through the rough, unprofitable country.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But if he did not find diamonds, he came on plenty of game.  Ruffed
+grouse and spruce partridges rose here and there and perched in the
+trees.  He saw many rabbits, and there were signs where deer or moose
+had browsed on the birch twigs.  Once, as he came over a ridge, he
+caught a glimpse of a black bear digging at a pile of rotten logs in
+the valley.  The animal evidently had not been long out of winter
+quarters, for it looked starved, and its fur was tattered and rusty.
+The moment the bear caught sight of him, it vanished like a dark streak.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred found no trace that afternoon of blue clay, or, indeed, of any
+clay, but he happened upon something that caused him some apprehension.
+It was a steel trap, lying on the open ground, battered and rusted as
+if it had been there for some time.  Scattered round it were some bones
+that he guessed had belonged to a lynx.  Apparently the animal had been
+caught in the trap, which was of the size generally used for martens,
+had broken the chain from its fastening, and had traveled until it had
+either perished from starvation or had been killed by wolves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Although rusty, the trap was still in working condition, and Fred,
+somewhat uneasy, took it along with him.  Some one had been trapping in
+that district recently, perhaps during the last winter; was the
+stranger also looking for diamonds?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With frequent glances at his compass Fred kept zigzagging to and fro,
+and finally came out on the river again; but he was still a long way
+from camp, and he did not reach the head of the cataract until nearly
+sunset.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace had already come in, covered with mud and swollen with fly bites.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What luck?" cried Fred, eagerly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His brother shook his head.  He had encountered the same sort of rough
+country as Fred; and to add to his troubles, he had got into a morass,
+from which he had escaped in a very muddy condition.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Fred produced the trap and told of his finding it and of his
+fears.  The boys examined it and tested its springs.  Horace took a
+more cheerful view of the matter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Ojibywas always trap through here in the winter," he said.  "The
+owner of that trap is probably down at Moose Factory now.  Besides, the
+lynx might have traveled twenty or thirty miles from the place where it
+was caught."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In spite of the failure of the day's work they all felt hopeful; but
+they resolved to push on farther before doing any more prospecting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next morning they launched the canoe, and for four days more faced
+the river.  Each day the work was harder.  Each day they had a
+succession of back-breaking portages; sometimes they were able to pole
+a little; they hauled the canoe for hours by the tracking-line, and in
+those four days they traveled scarcely thirty miles.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the last day they met with a serious misfortune.  While they were
+hauling the canoe up a rapid the craft narrowly escaped capsizing, and
+spilled out a large tin that contained twenty-five pounds of corn meal
+and ten pounds of rice&mdash;their entire stock.  What was worse, the cover
+came off, and the precious contents disappeared in the water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+About fifteen pounds of Graham flour and five pounds of oatmeal were
+all the breadstuffs they had left now, and they had to use it most
+sparingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But they were well within the region where Horace thought that the
+diamond-beds must lie.  On the map it had seemed a small area; but now
+they realized that it was a huge stretch of tangled wilderness, where a
+dozen diamond-beds might defy discovery.  Even Horace, the veteran
+prospector, admitted that they had a big job before them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"However, we'll find the blue clay if it's on the surface&mdash;and the
+supplies hold out," he said, with determination.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next morning each of the boys went out in a different direction.
+Late in the afternoon they came back, one by one, tired and fly-bitten,
+and each with the same failure to report.  The ground was much as they
+had found it before, covered with rock and gravel in rolling ridges.
+Nowhere had they found the blue clay.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They spent two more days here, working hard from morning to night, with
+no success.  The next day they again moved camp a day's journey
+upstream; that brought them into the heart of the district from which
+they had expected so much.  The river was growing so narrow and so
+broken that it would be almost impossible for them to follow it farther
+by canoe.  If they pushed on they would have to abandon their craft,
+and carry what supplies they could on their backs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But they intended to spend a week here.  They set out on the diamond
+hunt again with fresh energy.  A warm, soft drizzle was falling, which
+to some extent kept down the flies.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace came back to camp first; he had had no success.  He was trying
+to find dry wood to rekindle the fire when he saw Fred coming down the
+bank at a run.  The boy's face was aglow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look here, Horace!  What's this?" he asked, as he came up panting.  In
+his hand he held a large, wet lump of greenish-blue, clayey mud.
+Horace took it, poked into it, and turned it over.  Then he glanced
+sympathetically at his brother's face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm afraid it isn't anything, old boy," he said.  "Only ordinary mud.
+The real blue clay is more of a gray blue, you know, and generally as
+hard as bricks."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred pitched the stuff into the river and said nothing, but his face
+showed his disappointment.  He had carried that lump of clay for over
+four miles, in the conviction that he had discovered the
+diamond-bearing soil.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Macgregor came in shortly afterward with nothing more valuable than two
+ducks that he had shot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys were discouraged that evening.  After the rain they could find
+little dry wood.  It was nearly dark before Fred began to stir up the
+usual pan of flapjacks, and "Mac" set himself to the task of cutting up
+one of the ducks to fry.  They were too much depressed to talk, and the
+camp was quiet, when suddenly a crackling tread sounded in the
+underbrush.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's that?" cried Horace sharply.  And as he spoke, a man stepped
+out of the shadow, and advanced into the firelight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Bo' soir</I>!  Hello!" he said, curtly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hello!  Good evening!" cried Fred and Mac, much startled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sit down.  Grub'll be ready in a minute," Horace added.  Hospitality
+comes before everything else in the North.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Had grub," answered the man; but he sat down on a log beside the fire,
+and surveyed the whole camp with keen, quick eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All the boys looked at him with much curiosity.  He was apparently of
+middle age, with a tangled beard and black hair that straggled down
+almost to his shoulders.  He wore moccasins, Mackinaw trousers shiny
+with blood and grease, a buckskin jacket, and a flannel shirt.  He was
+brown as any Ojibwa, and he, carried a repeating rifle and had a belt
+of cartridges at his waist.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hunting?" he asked presently, with a nod at the deerskin that was
+hanging to dry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now and again," said Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, ye can't hunt here," said the man deliberately, after a pause.
+"Don't ye know that this is a Government forest reserve?  No hunters
+allowed.  Ye'll have to be out of here by to-morrow."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XI
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The boys were thunderstruck at the stranger's assertion.  They knew of
+several forest reserves in northern Ontario where timber and game are
+closely protected, but they had never heard of one in this district.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I guess you're wrong," said Horace.  "There isn't any Government
+reserve north of Timagami."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Made last fall," the stranger retorted.  "I ought to know.  I'm one of
+the rangers.  We've got a camp up the river, and we've been here all
+winter to keep out hunters and lumbermen."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace looked at him closely, but said nothing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Prospecting's allowed, isn't it?" Fred blurted out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Prospect all ye want to, but ye can't stake no claims."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where's the limit of this reserve?" asked Mac.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ten miles down the river from here.  Ye'll have to be down below there
+by to-morrow night.  Or, if ye want to stay, ye'll have to give up your
+guns.  No guns allowed here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose you've got papers to show your authority?" Mac inquired.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Course I have.  They 're back at camp.  Oh, ye'll get all ye want.
+Why," pointing to the fresh hide, "ye killed that there deer out of
+season.  Ye've got the law agin ye for that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was for our own food.  You can kill deer for necessary supplies."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not on this ground.  Now ye can do as ye like&mdash;give up your guns till
+ye 're ready to leave, or get out right away.  I've warned ye."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The "ranger" got up and glanced round threateningly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you can show us that you're really a Government ranger, we'll go,"
+Horace said.  "But I know the Commissioner of Crown Lands; I saw him
+before we started, and I didn't hear of any new reserve being made.  I
+don't believe in you or your reserve, and we'll stay where we are till
+you show us the proof of your authority."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll show you <I>this</I>!" exclaimed the man fiercely, slapping the barrel
+of his rifle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You can't bluff us.  We've got guns, too, if it comes to that!" cried
+Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've give ye fair warning," repeated the man.  "Ye'll find it mighty
+hard to buck agin the Gover'ment, and ye'll be sorry if ye try it.
+Ye'll see me again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Turning, he stepped into the shadows and was gone.  The boys looked at
+one another.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you make of it?" Peter asked.  "Is he a ranger&mdash;or a
+prospector?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They don't hire that kind of man for Government rangers," replied
+Horace.  "And I'm certain there's no forest reserve here.  Why, there's
+no timber worth preserving.  He's a hunter or a prospector, and from
+his looks he's evidently been in the woods all winter, as he said.
+Perhaps he belongs to a party of prospectors who found a good thing
+last fall, and got snowed in before they could get out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hunters wouldn't be so anxious to drive us away," said Fred.  "They
+must be prospectors.  Suppose they've found the diamond fields!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had all thought of that.  There was a gloomy silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One thing's certain," said Horace, "we must trail those fellows down,
+and see what sort of men they are and where they 're camped.  We'll
+scout up the river to-morrow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They all felt nervous and uneasy that evening.  They stayed up late,
+and when they went to bed they loaded their guns and laid them close at
+hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the night passed without any disturbance, and after breakfast they
+set out at once to trail the ranger.  They followed the river for about
+four miles, to a point where the stream broke through the hills in a
+succession of cascades and rapids; but although they searched all the
+landscape with the field-glass from the top of the hills, they saw no
+sign of man.  Beyond the ridges, however, the river turned sharply into
+a wooded valley.  They struggled through the undergrowth, found another
+curve in the river, rounded it&mdash;and then stepped hastily back into
+cover.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+About two hundred yards upstream stood a log hut on the shore, at the
+foot of a steep bluff.  A wreath of smoke rose from its chimney, but no
+one was in sight.  Talking in low tones, the boys watched it for some
+time.  Then they made a détour through the woods, and crept round to
+the top of the bluff.  Peering cautiously over the edge, they saw the
+cabin below them, not fifty yards away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It looked like a trappers' winter camp.  It was built of spruce logs,
+chinked with mud and moss.  A deep layer of scattered chips beside the
+remains of a log pile showed that the place had been used all winter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently a man came out of the door, stretched himself lazily, and
+carried a block of wood into the cabin.  It was not the man they had
+seen, but a slender, dark fellow, dressed in buckskin, who looked like
+a half-breed.  In a moment he came out again, and this time the ranger
+came with him.  There was a third man in the cabin, for they could hear
+some one speaking from inside the shack.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For some moments the men stood talking; their voices were quite
+audible, but the boys could not make out what they were saying.  The
+two men examined a pile of steel traps beside the door and a number of
+pelts that were drying on frames in the open air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"These aren't rangers.  They're just ordinary trappers," Mac whispered
+to Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They've certainly been trapping.  But why do they want to run us out
+of the country?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a few minutes both men went into the cabin, came out with rifles,
+and started down the river-bank.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They may be going down to our camp," Horace said, "and we must be
+there to meet them.  We'd better hurry back."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys started at as fast a pace as the rough ground would allow.
+Owing to dense thickets, swamps, and piled boulders, they could not
+make much speed.  In about twenty minutes Fred heard a sound of falling
+water in front, and supposed that they were approaching the river.  He
+was mistaken.  Within a few yards they came upon a tiny lake fed by a
+creek at one end and closed at the other by a pile of logs and brush.
+Curious heaps of mud and sticks showed here and there above the water.
+Horace uttered an exclamation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A beaver pond!" he cried.  "That explains it all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a moment the same thought flashed over Fred and Macgregor.  The
+killing of beaver is entirely prohibited in Ontario; but in spite of
+that, a good deal of illicit trapping goes on in the remote districts,
+and the poachers usually carry their pelts across the line into the
+Province of Quebec, where they can sell the fur.  Naturally, the
+trappers had resented the appearance of the three boys in the vicinity
+of the beaver pond; the men had no wish to have their illegal trapping
+discovered.  It was the first beaver pond the boys had ever met with,
+and in spite of their hurry they stopped to look at it.  They came upon
+two or three traps skillfully set under water, and one of them
+contained a beaver, sleek and drowned, held under the surface.
+Apparently the men intended to clean out the pond, for the season was
+already late for fur.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After a few minutes the boys hurried on.  They met no one on the way,
+and they found everything undisturbed in camp; they kept a sharp
+lookout all day, but no one came near them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the whole, they felt considerably relieved by the result of their
+scouting.  The lawbreakers had no right to order them off the ground.
+For their own part, the boys felt under no obligation to interfere with
+the beaver trappers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If we meet any of them again, we'll let them know plainly that we know
+how things stand," said Mac.  "We'll let them alone if they let us
+alone, and I don't think there'll be any more trouble."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It rained hard that evening&mdash;a warm, steady downpour that lasted almost
+until morning.  The tent leaked, and the boys passed a wretched night.
+But day came pleasant and warm, with a moist, springlike air; the
+leaves had unfolded in the night.  The warmth brought out the flies in
+increased numbers.  They smeared their skins with a fresh application
+of "fly dope," and with little thought for the fur poachers, started
+out again to prospect.  All that day and the next they worked hard;
+they saw nothing of the trappers, and found nothing even remotely
+resembling blue clay.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The condition of their footwear had begun to worry them.  The rough
+usage was beginning to tell heavily on their boots, which were already
+ripping, and which had begun to wear through the soles; they would
+hardly hold together for another fortnight.  But the boys bound them up
+and patched them with strips of the deerskin, and kept hard at work.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the course of the next two days they thoroughly examined all the
+country within five miles of their present camp.  On the evening of the
+second day they finished the last of the oatmeal, and Horace examined
+the remaining supply of Graham flour with anxiety.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just about enough to get home on, boys," he said, looking dubiously at
+his companions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But we're not going home!" cried Mac.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The flour and beans'll be gone in another week, and we're a long way
+from civilization.  Can we live on meat alone, Mac?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pretty sure to come down with dysentery if we do&mdash;for any length of
+time," admitted the medical student reluctantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was silence round the fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We didn't start this expedition right," said Horace, at last.  "I
+should have planned it better.  We ought to have come with two or three
+canoes and with twice as much grub, and we should have brought several
+pairs of boots apiece."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He thrust out his foot; his bare skin showed through the ripped leather.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Make moccasins," Mac suggested.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They wouldn't stand the rough traveling for any time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you think we ought to do, Horace?" asked Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I hate to retreat as much as any one," said Horace, after a
+pause.  "But I know&mdash;better than either of you&mdash;the risk of losing our
+lives if we try to run it too fine on provisions.  At the same time I
+do think that we oughtn't to give up till we've reached the head of
+this river.  It's probably not more than ten or fifteen miles up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After some discussion they decided that Macgregor and Fred should make
+the journey to the head of the river, carrying provisions for three
+days; that would give them one day in which to prospect at the source.
+Meanwhile, Horace was to strike across country to the northwest, to the
+headwaters of the Whitefish River, about fifteen miles away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next morning, therefore, they carefully cached the canoe, the tent,
+and the heavy part of the outfit, and started.  They were all to be
+back on the third evening at the latest, whether they found anything or
+not.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred and Mac made a wide détour to avoid the hut of the trappers.  They
+had a hard day's tramp over the rough country, but reached their
+destination rather sooner than they expected.  The river, shrunk to a
+rapid creek, ended in a tiny lake between two hills.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The general surface of the country was the same as that which had
+already grown so monotonously familiar, except that there was rather
+more outcrop of bedrock.  Nowhere could they see anything that seemed
+to suggest the presence of blue clay, and although they spent the whole
+of the next twenty-four hours in making wide circles round the lake,
+they found nothing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The following morning they started back, depressed and miserable.  If
+Horace's trip should also prove fruitless, the chances of their finding
+the diamonds would be slim indeed.  The Smoke River made a wide turn to
+the west and north, and they concluded that a straight line by compass
+across the wilderness would save them several miles of travel, and
+would also give them a chance to see some fresh ground.  They left the
+river, therefore, and struck a bee-line to the southeast.  The new
+ground proved as unprofitable as the old, and somewhat rougher.  The
+journey had been hard on shoe leather; Fred was limping badly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Late in the afternoon the boys stopped to rest on the top of a bare,
+rocky ridge, where the black flies were not so bad as in the valleys.
+They guessed that they were about four or five miles from camp.  The
+sun shone level and warm from the west, and the boys sat in silence,
+tired and discouraged.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm afraid we're not going to make a million this trip, Mac," said
+Fred, at last.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," Peter replied soberly.  "Unless Horace has struck something."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's too big a country to look over inch by inch.  If there really are
+any diamond-beds&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, there must be some.  Horace found scattered stones last summer,
+you know.  But of course the beds may be far underground.  In South
+Africa they often have to sink deep shafts to strike them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred did not answer at once.  He had taken out the field-glass that he
+carried, and was turning it aimlessly this way and that, when Mac spoke
+suddenly:&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's that moving in the ravine&mdash;see!  About a hundred yards up,
+below the big cedar on the rock."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ground hog, likely," said Fred, turning the glass toward the rocky
+gorge, through which ran a little stream that lay at the base of the
+ridge.  "I don't see anything.  Oh&mdash;yes, now I've got 'em.
+One&mdash;two&mdash;three&mdash;four little animals.  Why, they're playing together
+like kittens!  They look like young foxes, only they're far too
+dark-colored."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mac suddenly snatched the glass.  But Fred, now that he knew where to
+look, could see the moving black specks with his unaided eye.  Just
+behind them was a dark opening that might be the mouth of a den.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They are foxes!" said Mac.  "It's a family of fox cubs.  You're right.
+And&mdash;and&mdash;why, man, they're black&mdash;every one of them!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He lowered the glass, almost dropping it in his excitement, and stared
+at his companion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fred, it's a den of black foxes!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap12"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XII
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+"Black foxes!" cried Fred.  "Mac, give me the glass!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Black, all right," Macgregor said.  "Four of them, black as jet.  See
+the fur shine!  I can't see the old ones.  There, I believe I saw
+something move just inside the burrow!  Anyhow, all the cubs are going
+in."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He handed the glass to Fred, who raised it to his eyes just in time to
+see the black, bushy tail of the last cub disappear into the hole.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Black foxes!" he said, in an awed whisper.  "Four of them!  Why, Mac,
+they're worth a fortune, aren't they?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And probably two old ones," said the medical student.  "A fortune?
+Rather!  Why, in London a good black fox pelt sometimes brings two or
+three thousand dollars.  The traders here pay only a few hundreds, but
+if I had a couple of good skins I'd take them over to London myself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But we haven't got them.  And we've no traps."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One of us might watch here with the rifle for the old ones.  I could
+hit a fox from here, but the bullet would tear the skin awfully."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, and it's too late in the spring now for the fur to be any good,
+I'm afraid," said Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not first-class, that's a fact," Mac admitted sadly.  "But what can we
+do?  We can't wait here all summer for the cubs to grow up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's go down and take a look at the den," Fred proposed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Better not.  If the old foxes get suspicious they'll move the den and
+we'll never find it again.  I think we'd best go quietly away.  This is
+too big a thing for us to take chances on."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They took careful note of the spot before they left, and in order to
+make assurance doubly sure, Mac blazed a tree every ten paces or so
+until they struck the river again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had followed the river downward for about two miles when they saw
+the smoke rising from their camping-ground.  Hurrying up, they found
+that Horace had come in already.  He had brought out the supplies and
+was frying bacon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What luck?" cried Fred, forgetting the foxes for a moment in his
+anxiety to hear the result of Horace's trip.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"None," said Horace curtly.  He looked tired, dirty, and discouraged.
+"I went clear to the Whitefish&mdash;nothing doing.  But what are you
+fellows grinning about?  What did you find at the head of the river?
+You haven't&mdash;it isn't possible that you've hit it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, not diamonds," said Mac.  "But we 've found something valuable."
+And he told of their discovery of the black foxes.  "But the problem is
+how to get them," he finished.  "The only way I can see is to shoot
+them at long range."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Shoot them!  Are you crazy?" exclaimed Horace, who was even more
+stirred by the news than they had expected.  "Never!  Catch 'em alive!
+They're worth their weight in gold."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Alive!  I never thought of that!" exclaimed Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, their fur is no good now.  Besides, suppose you did get a
+wretched thousand dollars or so for the pelts&mdash;what's that?  Why, down
+in Prince Edward Island a pair of live black foxes for breeding was
+sold for $45,000."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Gracious!" gasped Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Down there every one is wild about breeding fur.  A big syndicate has
+a ranch that's guarded with watchmen and burglar alarms like a bank.
+Their great trouble is to get the breeding stock, and they'll pay
+almost any price for live, uninjured black foxes.  If we could manage
+to catch this pair of old ones and the four cubs without hurting them,
+they ought to bring&mdash;I'd be afraid to guess how much!  Maybe a hundred
+thousand dollars!  Kill them?  Why, you'd kill a goose that laid golden
+eggs!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's right!  I've heard of those fox ranches, of course," said Mac,
+"but I didn't think of them at the moment.  A hundred thousand dollars!
+But how on earth can we catch them?  We might dig the cubs out of their
+den, but we couldn't get the old ones that way.  If we only had a few
+traps!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, there's that trap I found in the woods!" exclaimed Fred suddenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had all forgotten it; they had dropped the trap into the dunnage,
+and had not seen or thought of it since.  Now, however, they eagerly
+rummaged it out, and examined it critically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was badly rusted, but not broken.  Mac knocked off the dirt and rust
+scales, rubbed it thoroughly with grease, and set it.  When he touched
+the pan with a stick the jaws snapped.  The springs were a little
+stiff, but after they had been worked several times and well greased,
+the trap seemed to be almost as good as new.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We should have three or four of them," said Peter.  "Having only one
+trap gives us a slim chance.  But suppose we do get them, what then?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, we'll have to have some sort of cage ready in which to carry
+them; then we'll make all the speed we can back to Toronto," replied
+Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And give up the diamond hunt?" cried Mac, in disappointment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What else can we do, anyhow?" replied Horace.  "The flour is almost
+gone and we're almost barefoot.  And see here, boys," he went on,
+earnestly, "I hate to admit it, but I'm afraid my calculations were
+wrong on these diamond-beds.  I thought it all out while I was coming
+home from Whitefish River.  Somewhere up here in the North there must
+be a place where those diamonds came from&mdash;but I'm beginning to believe
+it isn't in this part of the country.  You see, the geological
+formation is all different from the kind where diamond matrix is ever
+found.  Those stones I picked up may have been traveling for a thousand
+years down one creek and another.  They may have come down in the
+glacial drift.  I was altogether too hasty, I see now, in assuming that
+they originated in one of the rivers where I found them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They may have come from a river a hundred miles away.  Or perhaps from
+deep underground.  We should have made a study of the geological
+structure of this whole North Country, the direction of the glacial
+drift, and everything.  Then we should have come in here prepared to
+travel a thousand miles and stay all summer, or for two summers, if
+necessary."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hanged if I'll give it up," said Mac stubbornly.  "However," he added,
+"we must certainly try to catch these black diamonds, and we can keep
+on prospecting at the same time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They uncached their outfit, pitched the tent again, and prepared
+supper; meanwhile they talked of the foxes until they reached a high
+pitch of enthusiasm.  Even Mac admitted that the black foxes bade fair
+to be as profitable as a small diamond-bed would be.  As for Fred, it
+was almost with relief that he let the diamond hunt take second place
+in his mind.  The continual strain of labor and failure had robbed the
+search for the blue clay of much of its fascination.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Early the next morning they paddled up the river to the point where
+Mac's blazed trail came down to the shore, and set out to reconnoiter
+the den.  After half an hour's tramping across the woods they reached
+the rocky ridge; through the field-glass they scrutinized the lair,
+which was about two hundred yards away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not a hair of a fox was in sight, but the burrow looked as if it could
+be opened with spade and pick.  Horace thought they ought to do that
+first of all; in that way they could capture the cubs before there was
+any possible danger of the old foxes' moving the den.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On their way back to camp, Mac stopped at a marshy pool and cut a great
+armful of willow withes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's lucky that I once used to watch an old willow worker making
+baskets and chairs," he said.  "I'll see if I've forgotten the trick of
+it.  We've got to make a cage, for we'll need one the instant we
+capture one of those cubs."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He made a strong framework of birch, with bars as thick as his wrist,
+which he notched together, and lashed with deer-hide.  Then he had the
+framework of a box about three feet long, two feet wide, and two feet
+deep, through which he now began to weave the tough, pliable withes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He did not altogether remember the trick of it, and he had to stop
+frequently to plan it out.  He worked all that afternoon, and continued
+his labor by firelight.  He did not finish the cage until the middle of
+the next forenoon.  It was rough-looking, but light, and nearly as
+strong as an iron trunk, and had a door in the top.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All that remained for them to do now was to catch the game.  They ate a
+hasty luncheon, and carrying the cage, the trap, the axe, the spade and
+pick, two blankets, and the guns, started back along Mac's blazed
+trail.  So great was their eager hurry that they stumbled over roots
+and stones.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Clambering down the ravine, they cautiously approached the foxes' den.
+The opening to the burrow was a triangular hole between two flat rocks.
+From it came a faint odor of putrid flesh.  The ground in front was
+strewn with muskrat tails, small bones, and the beaks and feet of
+partridges and ducks.  From the rocks Fred picked off two or three
+black hairs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys looked into the dark hole and listened intently.  They could
+not hear a sound, but they knew that the cubs, at any rate, must be
+within.  Mac cut a sapling, trimmed it down and sharpened one end of
+it; with that as a lever the boys loosened the rocks at the entrance of
+the burrow, and rolled them aside.  The burrow ran backward and
+downward into the ground, but there seemed to be nothing in their way
+now except earth, gravel, and roots.  Horace picked up the spade and
+began to dig; occasionally he had to stop to cut a tree root or pick
+out a rock.  Meanwhile, Peter and Fred stood close behind him, ready to
+stuff the blankets into the hole in case the occupants should try to
+bolt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They uncovered the burrow for about four feet; then they had to
+dislodge another rather large stone.  There seemed to be a large, dark
+cavity down behind it.  When they stopped to listen, they could hear a
+slight sound of movement in the darkness, and a faint squeaking.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They're there," said Horace; "not a yard away.  Now who's going to
+reach in and pull 'em out?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Macgregor volunteered at once; he crept up to the hole and cautiously
+thrust in his arm.  There was a sound of scrambling inside and a sharp
+squeal.  Mac, with a strained expression on his face, groped about with
+his hand inside the hole.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When he withdrew his arm, there was blood on his hand, but he held by
+the neck a little jet-black animal with a bushy tail, as large as a
+kitten.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Open the cage&mdash;quick!" he cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred held the door up, and Mac dropped the cub in.  For a moment the
+animal rushed from side to side, and then crouched trembling in a
+corner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nipped me on the thumb," said Mac, examining his hand.  "They've got
+teeth like needles.  But the old one doesn't seem to be there now, and
+I can easily get the rest."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He fished the second out without being bitten, and caged it safely.
+But his hold on the third cub could not have been very secure, for the
+little creature managed by struggling frantically to squirm out of his
+hand.  It turned over in the air, landed on its four feet, and darted
+swiftly away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys shouted in dismay.  Fred flung himself sprawling upon the cub;
+but it evaded him like lightning, and bolted into the undergrowth.  It
+would have been useless to pursue it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys were greatly chagrined.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was my fault," said Peter, in disgust.  "But it can't be helped
+now, and there's another to come out."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had trouble in getting hold of the last of the cubs.  Twice he
+winced with pain as the animal bit him, but at last he hauled it into
+view.  It was a little larger than the others; it scratched and bit
+like a fury, and nearly broke away before they got it into the cage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys gathered round and gloated over their prizes.  With their
+glossy jet coats, bushy tails, prick-eared faces, and comical air of
+intense intelligence, the cubs were beautiful little creatures; but
+they were all in a desperate panic, and huddled together in the
+farthest corner of the cage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If we can only get them home in good condition they should be worth
+fifteen thousand," said Horace.  "But I'm much afraid they won't live
+unless we can get the mother to travel with them.  But now that we have
+the cubs it should be rather easy to catch her, and maybe the father,
+too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They set the cage back into the hollow made by the ruined burrow, and
+laid spruce branches over it so that it was well hidden.  Then they
+wrapped the jaws of the trap with strips of cloth so that they would
+not cut the fox's skin, and set it directly in front of the cage.
+Finally they scattered dead leaves over the trap.  The cubs themselves
+would act as bait.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A fox never deserts her young," Horace said.  "She's sure to come back
+to-night, probably along with her mate, to carry off the cubs, and
+we've a good chance to catch one or both of them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It seemed dangerous to go away and leave that precious cageful of
+little foxes at the mercy, perhaps, of the beaver trappers; perhaps
+prowling lynxes or wolves.  However, the boys had to take the risk.  As
+to the trappers, they had seen nothing of them for so long that they
+had little fear of them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They went back to camp and tried to pass the time; but they could talk
+of nothing except black foxes.  Fred conceived the idea of using their
+stock to start a breeding establishment of their own, and Macgregor was
+elaborating the plan, when suddenly he stopped with a frown.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it so certain that the parents of those cubs are black?" he asked.
+"I've heard that black foxes are an accident, a sport, and that the
+mother or father is very often red."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's something that naturalists have never settled," replied Horace.
+"Some think that the black fox is a distinct strain, others that it's
+merely a 'sport,' as you say.  However, when all the cubs in the litter
+are pure black, I think it's safe to assume that the parents are black
+also."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was scarcely daylight the next morning before the boys were hurrying
+along the blazed trail again.  Shaking with suppressed excitement, they
+approached the ravine of the foxes.  When they came in sight of the den
+and the cage their anticipation was succeeded by bitter disappointment.
+The trap was undisturbed.  Nothing had been caught.  The cubs were
+still in the cage, as frightened as ever.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But they found that one at least of the old foxes had visited the
+place, for the dry leaves were disturbed; there were marks of sharp
+teeth on the willows of the cage, and inside the cage were the tails of
+a couple of wood mice.  Unable to get her cubs out of the cage, the
+mother had brought them food.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It seemed too bad to take advantage of her mother love, but as Horace
+remarked, all they desired was to restore her to her family; once on
+the fox ranch, she would be treated like a queen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They put the cage farther back and piled rocks round it, so that it
+could be approached only by one narrow path.  In the path they placed
+the trap, and again covered it carefully with leaves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The cubs had to be left for another night, and the boys had another
+hard day of waiting.  None of them had the heart to try to prospect.
+Macgregor went after ducks with the shotgun; the others lounged about,
+and killed time as best they could.  They all went to bed early, and
+before sunrise again started for the den.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was fully light when they came to the hill over the ravine, and as
+they sighted the den, a cry of excitement broke from all three of them
+at once.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From where they stood they could see the cage, and the crouching form
+of a black animal beside it, evidently in the trap.  And over the beast
+with the dark fur stood a man in a buckskin jacket, with a club raised
+to strike.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap13"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIII
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Fred and Mac, who were carrying the guns, fired wildly at the man at
+the trap; they took no aim, for their only purpose was to startle him
+and to keep him from killing the fox.  When the shots rang out, the man
+straightened up, saw the boys rushing down the hill toward him, and
+dropped his club.  Stepping back, he picked up his rifle, and as they
+dashed up, held it ready to shoot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred gave a whoop when he saw that the animal in the trap was really a
+black fox; moreover, it was the mother fox.  Her black coat was glossy
+and spotless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace turned to the man.  "Let that fox alone!" he cried.  "That's our
+fox!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yours?  It's my fox!" retorted the man angrily.  "Why, that's my trap!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't believe it; we found it in the woods.  Anyway, you can have
+the trap if you like, but the fox is certainly ours.  We've been after
+her for some time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Me and my pardners have been after this fox all winter," declared the
+trapper.  "Now that we've got her we 're going to keep her&mdash;you can bet
+on that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He made a movement toward the fox.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"None of that!" cried Mac, sharply, and snapped a fresh cartridge into
+the rifle chamber.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You would, would you?" cried the trapper, and instantly covered Peter
+with his gun.  Fred had reloaded the shotgun, and he covered the man in
+his turn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So for a moment they all stood at a deadlock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Put down your guns!" said Horace.  "A fox pelt isn't worth killing a
+man for, and this pelt's no good, anyway.  It's too late in the season.
+We're going to take this fox away with us alive.  Stick to your
+beavers, for you can't steal this animal from us&mdash;and you can bet on
+that!" he added, with great emphasis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You might shoot one of us, but you'd have a hole in you the next
+minute," said Mac.  "You'd better drop it, now, and get out!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The trapper glared at them with a face as savage as a wildcat's.  For a
+second Fred really expected him to shoot.  Then, with a muttered curse,
+the man lowered his gun.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You pups won't bark so loud when I come back!" he snarled.  Then he
+turned, and started away at a rapid pace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bluffed!" Fred exclaimed, trembling now that the strain was over.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's gone for the rest of his gang!" Mac cried.  "Quick, we've got to
+get out of here!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, and far away, too," said Horace, "now that we've caught the
+mother fox.  We should never have got the male, anyway.  Let's get this
+beauty into her box."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The black fox was indeed a beauty, but there was no time to admire her.
+Snarling viciously, she laid back her ears and showed her white teeth.
+Her hind leg was in the trap, but did not appear to have been injured
+by the padded jaws.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace cut two strong forked sticks, with which the boys pinned her
+down by the neck and hips.  Fred opened the jaws of the trap; Mac
+picked the fox up firmly by the back of her neck, and in spite of her
+frantic struggles, thrust her into the cage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace and Mac then seized the box, one at either end, and started
+toward the river; Fred carried the guns and kept a sharp lookout in
+front.  The cage of foxes was not heavy, but it was so clumsy that the
+boys had hard work carrying it over the rough ground.  After stumbling
+for a few rods, they cut a long pole and slipped it through the handles
+in the ends of the cage.  After that they made somewhat better
+progress, although even then they could not travel at a very rapid pace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If those fellows have a canoe," panted Mac, "they'll be down the river
+before we can get to camp!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You may be sure they'll do their best," said Horace.  "These foxes are
+probably worth ten times their winter catch.  We'll have to break camp
+instantly and make for home as fast as we can."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They went plunging along through the thickets, and up and down the
+rocky hills; it was well that the cage was strong.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After more than an hour of this arduous tramping they heard the rush of
+the river.  "We'd best scout a little way ahead before we go any
+farther," Horace declared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They set down the cage, crept forward to the river and reconnoitered
+the bank.  Their canoe was where they had left it, concealed behind a
+cedar thicket, and no other canoe was in sight up or down the river.
+Horace swept the shore with the field-glass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nothing in sight," he reported.  "We may have time to pack our outfit
+and get off, after all.  Possibly those fellows haven't a canoe."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They quickly launched the canoe, and put the cage of black foxes
+amidships; Fred sat behind it in order to hold it steady.  Horace took
+the stern paddle, and Peter the bow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The river ran swift and rather shallow, but there were no dangerous
+rapids between them and camp.  They swept down the current, and in a
+few minutes the tent came in sight.  Horace took up the glass again,
+but he could see no sign of the trappers.  They paddled on, intending
+to land at their usual place, but when they were scarcely twenty yards
+from the tent, Fred uttered a suppressed cry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look!  A canoe&mdash;lower down!"  He spoke barely loud enough for his
+brother to hear him.  He had caught a glimpse of the bow of a birch
+canoe, which was thrust back almost out of sight behind a willow clump
+below the campground.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Run straight past!" Horace commanded, instantly.  "Dig in your paddle,
+Mac!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The canoe shot forward, and at doubled speed swept by the tent.  As
+they passed it a man rose from behind a thicket and yelled hoarsely:&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stop, there!  Halt!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>Bang!</I> went a rifle somewhere behind them, and then the rapid <I>crack!
+crack! crack!</I> of more than one repeater.  A bullet clipped through the
+sides of the canoe, fortunately well above the water-line.  Another
+glanced from a rock, and hummed past them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the boys whirled by the ambushed birch canoe, Fred snatched up the
+shotgun, and sent two loads of buckshot tearing through its sides.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That'll cripple them for a while!" he cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>Bang!</I>  A better-aimed bullet dashed the steering paddle from Horace's
+hands.  The canoe swerved, and heeled in the current.  Horace snatched
+the extra paddle that lay in the stern, and brought the craft round
+just in time to prevent it from upsetting.  As the paddle that had been
+hit floated past, Fred picked it up; it had a round hole through the
+handle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The canoe was a hundred yards from the tent now, and was going so fast
+that it offered no easy target to the men behind, who, however, still
+continued to shoot.  Another bullet nicked the stern.  Glancing over
+his shoulder, Fred saw the three trappers running down the shore, and
+firing as they ran.  But in another moment the canoe swept round a bend
+in the river, and was screened from the trappers by the wooded shore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Keep it up!  Make all the speed you can!" cried Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Down the fast current they shot like an arrow.  As they went round
+another curve, they heard the roar of rushing water ahead; a short but
+turbulent rapid confronted them.  There the river, foaming and surging,
+dashed down over the black rocks; the shore was rough and covered with
+dense thickets.  The boys remembered the hard work they had had making
+a portage here on the way up; but there was no time to make a portage
+now.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Down we go!  Look sharp for her bow, Mac!" Horace sang out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The rush of the rapid seemed to snatch up the canoe like a leaf.  Fred
+caught his breath; the pit of his stomach seemed to sink.  There was a
+deafening roar all around him, a chaos of white water, flying spray,
+and sharp rocks that sprang up and flashed behind.  Then, before he had
+recovered his breath, they shot out into the smooth river below.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Six inches of water was slopping in the bottom of the canoe, but they
+ran on without stopping to bale it out.  For over half a mile the
+smooth, swift current lasted; then came another rapid.  It was longer
+and more dangerous than the other, and the boys carried the canoe and
+the foxes round it.  They would not risk spilling the precious cage,
+and for the present they thought that they had outrun their pursuers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For another mile or two they descended the river, until they came to
+another carry.  They made the portage, and stopped at the bottom to
+discuss their situation and make their plans.  They had escaped the
+trappers, indeed, and they had the foxes; but except the canoe, a
+blanket, the guns, and the light axe that Mac had at his belt, they had
+nothing else.  "I guess this settles our prospecting, boys," said
+Horace.  "What are we to do now?  Shall we go on, or&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Or what?" Fred asked, as his brother stopped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hardly know.  But here we are, without supplies, and at least a
+hundred and fifty miles from any place where we can get them.  We all
+know what a hard road it is, and going back it'll be up-stream all the
+way, after we leave this river."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do we have to go back the way we came?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, instead of turning up the Missanabie River when we come to it,
+we might go straight down it to Moose Factory, the Hudson Bay Company's
+post at the mouth; but if we did that, these foxes would never live
+till we got back to Toronto.  It would be too long and hard a trip for
+them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That settles it.  We don't go that way," said Mac.  "Surely we can get
+home in ten or twelve days the way we came, and we ought to be able to
+kill enough to live on during that time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How many cartridges have we?" asked Horace dubiously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Macgregor had nineteen cartridges in his belt, and there were six more
+in the magazine of the rifle.  Fred had only ten shells in his pockets,
+and the shotgun was empty.  They had left the fishing tackle at camp,
+but luckily they had plenty of matches.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If we can get a deer within the next day or so, or even a few ducks or
+partridges, we may make it," said Horace.  "But I've noticed that game
+is always scarce when you need it most.  Now if we turned back and
+tried to recover our outfit, we should certainly have to fight the
+trappers, and probably we'd be worsted, for they outmatch us in
+weapons.  One of us might be killed, and we'd be almost certain to lose
+the foxes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Trade these foxes for some flour and bacon?  I'd starve first!" said
+Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So would I!" cried Macgregor.  "But we won't starve.  We didn't starve
+last winter, when we hadn't a match or a grain of powder, and when the
+mercury was below zero most of the time, too."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, we'll go on, if you say so," said Horace.  "It's a mighty
+dangerous trip, but I don't see what else we can do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Forward it is, then!" cried Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And hang the risk!" exclaimed Mac, springing up to push the canoe into
+the water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you think those men will really follow us, Horace?" asked Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sure to," replied his brother.  "It'll take them a few hours to patch
+up their canoe, but they 're probably better canoemen than we are, and
+we'll have to work mighty hard to keep ahead of them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred was more optimistic.  "They'll have to work mighty hard to keep up
+with us," he said, as they launched the canoe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Going down the river was very different from coming up it.  The current
+ran so swiftly that the boys could not add much to their speed by
+paddling; all they had to do was to steer the craft.  The water was so
+high that they could run most of the rapids, and stretches that they
+had formerly toiled up with tumpline or tracking-line they now covered
+with the speed of a bullet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Toward noon Fred became intolerably hungry; but neither of the others
+spoke of eating, and he did not mention his hunger.  Mac, in the bow,
+put the shotgun where he could easily reach it, and scanned the shores
+for game as closely as he could; but no game showed itself.  They
+traveled all day without seeing anything except now and then a few
+ducks, which always took wing while still far out of range.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last they came to "Buck Rapids," where they had shot the deer.  The
+river there was one succession of rapids, most of which were too
+dangerous to run through.  It was the place where, on the way up, they
+had made only four miles in a whole day; and they did not cover more
+than ten miles this afternoon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When they came to the long, narrow lake on the lower reaches of the
+river, the sun was setting.  They were all pretty much exhausted with
+the toil and excitement of the day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I vote we stop here," said Mac.  "There'll be a moon toward midnight,
+and we can go on then.  We ought to get some sleep."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm too hungry to sleep," said Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, so am I," Mac admitted.  "But we can rest, anyway."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So they drew up the canoe and lighted a fire, partly from force of
+habit and partly to drive away the mosquitoes.  They carefully lifted
+the fox cage ashore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We've nothing for them to eat," Horace said anxiously, "but they ought
+to have water, at any rate."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The difficulty was that they had nothing to put water into.  Mac made a
+sort of cup from an old envelope, and filled it with water, but the
+animals shrank away and would not touch it.  Feeling sure, however,
+that they must be thirsty, the boys carried the cage to the river, and
+set one end of it into the shallow water.  For a few minutes the mother
+fox was shy, but presently she drank eagerly; then the cubs dipped
+their sharp noses into the water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys spread their only blanket on a few hemlock boughs and lay
+down.  Although they were so thoroughly tired, none of them could
+sleep.  Fred's stomach was gnawed by hunger; he was still much excited,
+and in the rush of the river he fancied every minute or two that he
+heard the trappers approaching.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They lay there for some time, talking at intervals, and at last Mac got
+up restlessly.  He threw fresh wood on the fire, in order to make a
+bright blaze; then from an old pine log close by he began to cut a
+number of resinous splinters.  When he had collected a large handful of
+them, he went down to the canoe, and tried to fix them in the ring in
+the bow of the craft.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What in the world are you doing?" asked Fred, who had got up to see
+what Peter was about.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Peter hammered the bundle of splinters home.  "If we don't get meat in
+twelve hours we won't be able to travel fast&mdash;can't keep up steam," he
+said.  "There's only one way to shoot game at night, and that's&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jack light," said Horace, who recognized the device.  "It's a regular
+pot-hunter's trick, but pot-hunters we are, and no mistake about that.
+I only hope it works."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap14"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIV
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Here where deer were plentiful and hunters scarce, Mac's jack light
+should prove effective.  Sportsmen and the law have quite properly
+united in condemning killing deer by jack light; but the boys felt that
+their need of food justified their course.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After adjusting the torch, Mac cut a birch sapling about eight feet
+long, and trimmed off the twigs.  Bending it into a semicircle, he
+fitted the curve into the bottom of the canoe, close to the bow; then
+he hung the blanket by its corners upon the projecting tips of the
+sapling, and thus screened the bow from the rest of the canoe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As it had already become dark, and the shores were now black with the
+indistinct shadows of the spruces, Fred and Horace set the canoe gently
+into the water.  When it was afloat, Mac lighted the pine splinters,
+which crackled and flared up like a torch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'd make a better game poacher than I, Horace," he said.  "You take
+the rifle, and I'll paddle."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace accordingly placed himself just behind the blanket screen, with
+the weapon on his knees.  Mac sat in the stern, and Fred, who did not
+want to be left behind, seated himself amidships.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Keep a sharp lookout, both of you," Mac said.  "Watch for the light on
+their eyes, like two balls of fire."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The canoe, keeping about thirty yards from shore, glided silently down
+the long lake.  The "fat" pine flamed smoky and red, and it cast long,
+wavering reflections on the water.  Once an animal, probably a muskrat,
+startled them by diving noisily.  A duck, sleeping on the water, rose
+with a frantic splutter and flurry of wings.  Then, fifty yards
+farther, there was a sudden splash near the shore, then a crashing in
+the bushes, and a dying thump-thump in the distance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace swung his rifle round, but he was too late.  The deer had not
+stopped to stare at the light for an instant.  A jack light ought to
+have a reflector, but the boys had no means of contriving one.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Unspeakably disappointed, they moved slowly on again.  They started no
+more game, and at last reached the lower end of the lake.  Here Mac
+stopped to renew the torch, which had almost burned out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then they turned up the other side of the lake, on the home stretch.
+No living thing except themselves seemed to be on the water that night.
+The shore shoaled far out.  Once the keel scraped over a bottom of soft
+mud.  Lilies grew along the shore, and sometimes extended out so far
+that the canoe brushed the half-grown pads.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly Fred felt the canoe swerve slightly, and head toward the land.
+Horace raised the rifle.  Fred had seen nothing, but after straining
+his eyes ahead, he made out two faint spots of light in the darkness,
+at about the height of a man's head.  Could it be a deer?  The balls of
+light remained perfectly motionless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without a splash the canoe glided closer.  Fred thought that he could
+make out the outline of the animal's head, and clenched his hands in
+anxiety.  Why did not Horace shoot?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Suddenly a blinding flash blazed out from the rifle, and the report
+crashed across the water.  There was a splash, followed immediately by
+a noise of violent thrashing in the water near the land.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred and Mac shouted together.  With great paddle strokes, Mac drove
+the canoe forward, and at last Horace leaped out.  The others followed
+him.  The deer was down, struggling in the water.  It was dead before
+they reached it.  Horace's bullet had broken its neck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hurrah!" Fred cried.  "This makes us safe.  This'll last us all the
+way home."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a fine young buck&mdash;so heavy that they had hard work to lift it
+into the canoe.  Far up the lake they could see their camp-fire, and
+they paddled toward it with the haste of half-starved men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without stopping to cut up the animal, they skinned one haunch and cut
+off slices, which they set to broil over the coals.  A delicious odor
+rose; the boys did not even wait until the meat had cooked thoroughly.
+They had no salt, but the venison, unseasoned as it was, seemed
+delicious.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The food gave them all more cheerfulness and energy.  The prospect of a
+hard ten days' journey did not look so bad now.  At any rate, they
+would not starve.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wonder if the foxes would eat it.  They ought to have something,"
+said Fred, and he dropped some scraps of the raw venison into the cage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As he stooped to peer more closely at the animals, he made a startling
+discovery.  During their absence on the hunt, the mother fox had been
+gnawing vigorously at the willow cage, particularly at the rawhide
+lashings that bound the framework together.  She had loosened one
+corner, and if she had been left alone for another hour, she might have
+escaped with her cubs.  It gave the boys a bad fright.  Mac refastened
+the lashings with strips of deer-hide, and strengthened the cage with
+more willow withes.  But the boys realized that in the future one of
+them would have to stand guard over the cage at night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The foxes refused to touch the raw meat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I didn't expect them to eat for the first day or two," said Horace.
+"Don't worry.  They'll eat in time, when they get really hungry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's get this buck cut up," said Mac.  "It'll soon be moonrise, and
+we must be moving."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In order to get more light for their work, they piled pitch pine on the
+fire; then they hung the deer on a tree, and began the disagreeable
+task of skinning and dressing the animal.  When they had finished, they
+had a good deerskin and nearly two hundred pounds of fresh meat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They would gladly have slept now, but the sky was brightening in the
+east with the rising moon, and there was no time for rest.  No doubt
+the trappers were on their trail, somewhere behind them.  Hastily the
+boys loaded the foxes and the venison into the canoe, and as soon as
+the moon showed above the trees paddled down the lake.  They soon found
+that the moonlight was not bright enough to enable them to run rapids
+safely, and they consequently had to make frequent carries.  Between
+the rapids they shot swiftly down the current, but the river was so
+broken that they made no great progress that night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Northern summer nights are short, and soon after two o'clock the sky
+began to lighten.  By three o'clock the boys could see well, and they
+went on faster, shooting all except the worst stretches of rough water.
+Shortly after six o'clock they came out from the Smoke River into the
+Missanabie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stop for breakfast?" asked Mac.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not here," said Horace.  "We must be careful not to mark our trail,
+especially at this point.  They won't know for sure whether we turned
+up the Missanabie or down, and they may make a mistake and lose a lot
+of time.  A canoe doesn't leave any track, and we mustn't land until we
+have to."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now the hard work of "bucking the river" began again.  The Missanabie
+had lowered somewhat since the boys had come down it, but it still ran
+so strong that they could not make much progress by paddling.  Their
+canoe poles were far back on the Smoke River, and they did not dare to
+land in order to cut others, for in doing so they would mark their
+trail.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Straining hard at every stroke, they dug their paddles into the water;
+but they made slow work of it.  The least carelessness on their part
+would cause them to lose in one minute as much as they had gained in
+ten.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A stretch of slacker water gave them some respite; but then came a
+long, tumbling, rock-strewn rapid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We'll have to portage here," said Mac.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It'll be a long carry," Horace said.  "We'd lose a good deal of time
+over it.  I think we can track her up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mac and Horace carried the cage of foxes along the shore to the head of
+the broken water, and Fred carried up the guns.  Returning to the foot
+of the rapid, they prepared to haul the canoe against the stream.
+Luckily the tracking-line had always been kept in the canoe.  Horace
+tied it to the ring in the bow, took the end of the rope and, bracing
+himself firmly, waded into the water; Macgregor and Fred, on either
+side, held the craft steady.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The bed of the river was very irregular.  Sometimes the water was no
+more than knee-deep; sometimes it reached their hips.  The water was
+icy cold, and the rush and roar of the current were bewildering.  Once
+Mac lost his footing, but he clung to the canoe and recovered himself.
+Then, when halfway up the rapid, Horace stepped on an unsteady stone
+and plunged down, face forward, into the roaring water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the towline slackened, the canoe swung round with a jerk against
+Macgregor, and upset him.  Fred tried to hold it upright, but the
+unstable craft went over like a shot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Out went the venison and everything else that was in her.  Fred made a
+desperate clutch at the stern of the canoe, caught it and held on.  As
+the canoe shot down the rapid, he trailed out like a streamer behind
+it.  He heard a faint, smothered yell:&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The venison!  Save the meat!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Almost before he knew it, Fred, half choked, still clinging to the
+canoe, drifted into the tail of the rapid.  He found bottom there, for
+the water was not deep, and managed to right the canoe.  By that time
+Macgregor had got to his feet, and was coming down the shore to help
+Fred.  They were both dripping and chilled; but they got into the
+canoe, and poling with two sticks, set out to rescue what they could.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They must, above everything else, recover the venison, but they could
+see no sign of it.  Some distance down the stream they found both
+paddles afloat, and they worked the canoe up and down below the rapid.
+On a jutting rock they found the deerskin.  Finally they came upon one
+of the hindquarters floating sluggishly almost under water.  They
+rescued it joyfully; but although they searched for a long time, they
+found no more of the meat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had left the axe in the canoe, and it was now somewhere at the
+bottom of the river.  They could better have spared one of the guns,
+but they were thankful that their loss had been no greater.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If we had left the foxes in the canoe," said Fred, "they'd have been
+drowned, sure!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace had waded ashore, and now had a brisk fire going.  Fred and
+Macgregor joined him, and the three boys stood shivering by the blaze,
+with their wet clothes steaming.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We're well out of it," said Horace, with chattering teeth.  "The worst
+is the loss of the axe.  It won't be easy to make fires from now on."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Once more the problem of supplies loomed dark before the boys.  They
+had nothing now except the haunch of venison, which weighed perhaps
+twenty-five pounds; unless they could pick up more game, that would
+have to last them until they reached civilization.  However, they were
+fairly confident that they could find game soon, and meanwhile they
+could put themselves on rations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We've marked our trail all right now," said Mac.  "These tracks and
+this fire will give it away.  We may as well portage, after all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Their clothing was far from dry, but they were afraid to delay longer.
+None of them felt like trying to wade up the rapid again, and so they
+carried the canoe round it.  At the head of the portage they cut
+several strong poles to use in places where they could not paddle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They soon found that without the poles they could hardly have made any
+progress at all; and even with them they moved very slowly.  About noon
+they landed, broiled and ate a small piece of venison, and after a
+brief rest set out on their journey again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By five o'clock they were all dead tired, wet, and chilled, and Mac and
+Fred were ready to stop.  Horace, however, urged them to push on.  He
+felt that perhaps the beaver trappers were not many miles behind.
+After another day or two, he said, they could take things more easily,
+but now they ought to hurry on at top speed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Just before they were ready to land in order to make camp, three ducks
+splashed from the water just in front of the canoe.  Fred managed to
+drop one of them with each barrel of the shot gun.  Thus the boys got
+their supper without having to draw on their supply of venison; but the
+roasted ducks proved almost as tough as rawhide and, without salt,
+extremely unpalatable.  But they were all so hungry that they devoured
+the birds almost completely; they put the heads into the willow cage,
+but the foxes would not touch them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For three hours more they pushed on up the river, tired, silent, but
+determined.  At last it began to grow dark.  The boys had reached the
+limit of their endurance, for they had had no sleep the night before.
+They landed and built a fire.  It was hard work to get enough wood
+without the axe, but fortunately the night was not cold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Exhausted as the boys were, they knew that one of them would have to
+stand watch to see that the foxes did not gnaw their way out of the
+cage, and that the trappers did not attack the camp.  They drew lots
+for it; Macgregor selected the short straw and Fred the long one, and
+they arranged that Mac should take the watch for two hours, then
+Horace, and lastly Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The mosquitoes were bad, and there were no blankets, but Fred seemed to
+go to sleep the moment he lay down on the earth.  He did not hear
+Horace and Mac change guard at midnight, and it seemed to him that he
+had scarcely done more than close his eyes when some one shook him by
+the arm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wake up!  It's your turn to watch!" Horace was saying.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Half dead with sleep, Fred staggered to his feet.  Moonlight lay on the
+forest and river.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take the rifle," said Horace.  "There's not been a sign of anything
+stirring, but keep a sharp eye on the foxes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace lay down beside Mac and seemed to fall asleep at once.  Fred
+would have given black foxes and diamonds together to do likewise, but
+he walked up and down until he felt less drowsy.  The foxes were not
+trying to get out, and he saw that they had gnawed the duck heads down
+to the bills.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He sat down against a tree, close to the cage, with the loaded repeater
+across his knees.  For some time the mosquitoes, as well as the
+responsibility of his position, kept him awake.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Every sound in the forest startled him; through the dash of the river
+he imagined that he heard the sound of paddles.  But by degrees he grew
+indifferent to the mosquitoes, and his strained attention flagged.
+Drowsiness crept upon him again; he was very tired.  He found himself
+nodding, and roused himself with a shock of horror.  He thought that he
+would go down to the river and dip his head into the water.  He dozed
+while he was thinking of it&mdash;dozed and awoke, and dozed again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then after what seemed a moment's interval he was awakened by a harsh
+voice shouting:&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hands up!  Wake up, and surrender!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap15"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XV
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Half awake, Fred made a blind snatch at the rifle that had been across
+his lap.  It was gone.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sky was bright with dawn.  Ten feet away stood three men with
+leveled rifles.  Horace and Mac were sitting up, holding their hands
+above their heads and looking dazed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I said you pups wouldn't bark so loud next time," remarked one of the
+newcomers.  It was the man that had pretended to be a ranger.  With him
+was the slim, dark fellow whom they had seen outside the trappers'
+shack, and the third was a tall, elderly, bearded man, who looked more
+intelligent and more vicious than the others.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+None of the boys said anything, but Horace gave Fred a reproachful
+glance that almost broke his heart.  It was his fault that this had
+happened, and he knew it.  Tears of rage and shame started to his eyes.
+He looked about desperately for a weapon.  He would gladly risk his
+life to get his companions out of the awkward scrape into which his
+negligence had plunged them.  But the ranger had taken the boys' rifle,
+and the half-breed had picked up the shotgun.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With a grin of triumph the trappers went to the fox cage, peered at the
+animals, and talked eagerly in low voices.  The boys watched them in
+suspense.  Were they going to kill the foxes?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently two of the men picked up the cage and carried it down to the
+river.  The light was strong enough now so that Fred could see the bow
+of a bark canoe drawn up on the shore.  They put the cage into the
+canoe.  Then the half-breed laid his rifle and the stolen shotgun
+beside it, and paddled down the river.  The other two men lifted the
+boys' Peterboro into the water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You aren't going to rob us of our firearms and our canoe, too, are
+you?" cried Horace desperately.  "You might as well murder us!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Guess you won't need the guns," said the third trapper.  "You've got
+grub, I see, and we durstn't leave you any canoe to foller us up in."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The two men pushed off the Peterboro and followed the birch canoe down
+the river at a rapid pace.  In two minutes they were out of sight round
+a bend.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a dead silence.  Fred could not meet the eyes of his
+companions.  He turned away, pretended to look for something, and
+fairly broke down.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Brace up, Fred!" said his brother.  "It can't be helped, and we're not
+blaming you.  It might have happened to any of us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you'd been awake you might have got shot," said Mac, "and that
+would have been a good deal worse for every one concerned."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Fred was inconsolable.  Through his tears, he stammered that he
+wished he had been shot.  They had lost the foxes, they were stranded
+and destitute, and they stood a good chance of never getting out alive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nonsense!" said Mac, with forced cheerfulness.  "We were in a far
+worse fix last winter, and we came out on top."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The first thing to do is to have some grub," added Horace.  "Then
+we'll talk about it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Looking with calculating eyes at the lump of meat, he cut the slices of
+venison very thin.  There was about twenty pounds left.  They roasted
+the meat he had cut off, and ate it; then Horace unfolded his pocket
+map and spread it on the ground.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were probably forty miles from the Height of Land.  It was twelve
+miles across the long carry, and at least forty more to the nearest
+inhabited point&mdash;almost a hundred miles in all.  There was a chance,
+however, that they might meet some party of prospectors or Indians.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's terribly rough traveling afoot," said Horace.  "We could hardly
+make it in less than two weeks.  Besides, our shoes are nearly gone
+now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And that piece of venison will never last us for two weeks!" cried
+Macgregor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, you can often knock down a partridge with a stick," said Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If we only had a canoe!" Mac exclaimed, with a burst of rage.  "I'd
+run those thieves down if I had to follow them to Hudson Bay!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They all agreed on that point, but it was useless to think of following
+them without a canoe.  The boys would have all they could do to save
+their own lives; a hundred-mile journey on foot across that wilderness,
+without arms and with almost no provisions, was a desperate undertaking.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, we've got no choice," said Horace, after a dismal silence.  "We
+must put ourselves on rations of about half a pound of meat a day, and
+we'll lay a bee-line course by the compass for the trail over the
+Height of Land."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He marked the course on the map, and the boys studied it in silence.
+The sun had risen by this time, but the boys were not anxious to break
+camp and start on that journey which would perhaps prove fatal to all
+of them.  They lingered, talking, discussing, hesitating, reluctant to
+make the start.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred had not contributed a single word to the discussion.  He had
+barely managed to swallow a little breakfast, and was too miserable to
+join in the talk.  He knew how slim their chances were; he imagined how
+the party would struggle on, growing weaker daily, until&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If only they had a canoe!  If only they could run the robbers down and
+ambush them in their turn!  And as he puzzled on the problem, an
+idea&mdash;an inspiration&mdash;flashed into his mind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He bent over, and studied the map intently for a second.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look!  Look here!" he cried, wildly.  "What fools we are!  We can
+overtake those fellows&mdash;catch 'em&mdash;cut 'em off before they get
+anywhere&mdash;and get back our grub, and the foxes, and the
+canoe&mdash;everything&mdash;why&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's that?  What do you mean?" cried Horace and Mac together.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred placed a trembling finger on the map.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"See, this is where we are, isn't it?  Those thieves will go down here
+to the mouth of the Smoke River, and turn up it to their camp.  They
+didn't have much outfit with them; so they'll go back to their shanty.
+It's about fifty miles round by the way they'll go, but if we cut
+straight across country&mdash;this way&mdash;we'd strike the Smoke in twenty-five
+miles, and be there before them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do believe you've hit something, Fred!" Mac exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In fact, the Smoke and the Missanabie Rivers made the arms of an acute
+angle.  Between twenty and thirty miles straight to the northwest would
+bring them out on the former stream somewhere in the neighborhood of
+"Buck Rapids."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's see!" calculated Horace hurriedly.  "They can run down to the
+mouth of the Smoke in a few hours from here.  After that it'll be
+slower work, but they'll have the portage trails that we cut, and they
+ought to get up beyond the long lake by this evening.  Can we get
+across in time to head 'em off?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must.  Of course we can!" Fred insisted.  "It's our only chance,
+and you both know it.  We never could get home with our boots gone, and
+with the food we have, but this venison will last us across to the
+Smoke."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Patch our boots up with the deerskin!" cried Mac.  "We'll ambush 'em.
+We'll catch 'em on a hard carry.  Only let me get my hands on 'em!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then we haven't a minute to lose!" said Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let's be off!" cried Fred, springing up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+First of all, however, they repaired their tattered boots by folding
+pieces of the raw deerhide round them and lashing them in place with
+thongs.  It was clumsy work at the best; but Mac rolled up the rest of
+the hide to take with him, in case they should have to make further
+repairs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace consulted the map and the compass again, and picked up the lump
+of venison, which, with the deerskin, constituted their only luggage.
+In less than half an hour from the time Fred had hit upon his plan they
+were off, running through the undergrowth on the twenty-five-mile race
+to the Smoke River.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+None of them knew what sort of country the course would pass over.  The
+map for that part of the region was incomplete and no more than
+approximately accurate, so that the boys were not at all sure that
+their guess at the distance to the Smoke River was correct.  But they
+did know that now that they had started on the race, their lives
+depended upon their winning it.  Fred took the lead at once, tearing
+through the thickets, tripping, stumbling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Easy, there!" called Horace.  "We mustn't do ourselves up at the
+start."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred slackened his pace somewhat, but continued to keep in front.  For
+nearly a mile from the river the land sloped gently upward through
+dense thickets of birch.  Then the birches thinned, and finally gave
+way to evergreen, and the rising ground became rough with gravel and
+rock.  The slope changed to undulating billows of hills, covered with
+stone of every size, from gravel to small boulders, and over it all
+grew a stubbly jungle of cedar and jack-pine, seldom more than six feet
+high.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a rough, broken country, and the boys had to slacken their pace
+somewhat; to make things worse, it presently began to rain.  First came
+a driving drizzle, then a heavy downpour, with a strong southwest wind.
+The rocks streamed with water, and the boys were drenched; but the
+heavy rain presently settled again to a soaking drizzle that threatened
+to continue all day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Through the rain they struggled ahead; sometimes they found a clear
+space where they could run; sometimes they came upon wet, tangled
+shrubbery that impeded them sadly.  They kept hoping for easier
+traveling; but those broken, rocky hills stretched ahead for miles.  At
+last the trees became even more sparse, and the boys encountered a
+whole hillside covered with a mass of split rock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Over this litter of sandstone they crawled and stumbled at what seemed
+a snail's pace.  They were desperately anxious to hurry, but they knew
+that a slip on those wet rocks might mean a broken leg.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A rain-washed slope of gravel came next; they went down it at a trot,
+and then encountered another hillside covered with huge, loose stones.
+They scrambled over it as best they could, and ran down another slope;
+then trees became more abundant, and soon they were again traveling
+over low, rolling hills clothed in jack-pine scrub.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With marvelous endurance Fred still held the lead.  He went as if
+driven by machinery, with his head down and his lips clenched; he did
+not speak a word.  He was supposed to be the weakest of the party, but
+even Macgregor, a trained cross-country runner, found himself falling
+farther and farther behind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At eleven o'clock Horace called a halt.  The rain had almost stopped,
+and the boys, lighting a small fire, roasted generous slices of
+venison.  There was no need of sparing the meat now.  Either plenty of
+food or death was at the end of the journey.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No sooner had they eaten it than Fred sprang up again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How you fellows can sit here I can't understand!" he exclaimed,
+nervously.  "I'm going on.  Are you coming?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mac and Horace followed him.  The land seemed to be sloping continually
+to lower levels; the woods thickened into a sturdy, tangled growth of
+hemlock and tamarack that they had hard work to penetrate.  They
+presently caught a glimpse of water ahead, and came to the shore of a
+small, narrow lake that curved away between rounded, dark hillsides.
+They had to go round the lake, and lost two or three miles by the
+détour.  As they hurried up the shore a bull moose sprang from the
+water, paused an instant to look back, and crashed into the thickets.
+It would have been an easy shot if they had had the rifle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Round the end of the lake low hills rose abruptly from the shore.
+After scrambling up the slippery slope of the hills they reached the
+top, and saw ahead of them an endless stretch of wild hills and
+forests; there was not a landmark that they recognized.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace guessed that they had come about fifteen miles.  Mac thought
+that it was much more.  They agreed that they had broken the back of
+the journey, and that if their strength held out, they could reach the
+Smoke that day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Suppose we were&mdash;to find the diamond-beds now!" said Mac, between
+quick breaths.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't talk to me about diamonds!" said Horace.  "I never want to hear
+the word again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On they went, up and down the hills, through the thickets and over the
+ridges; but they no longer went with the energy they had shown in the
+morning.  With every mile their pace grew slower, and they were all
+beginning to limp.  Fred still kept in front, with his face set in grim
+determination.  About the middle of the afternoon Horace came up with
+him, stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, and looked into his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred's eyes were bright and feverish.  His face was pale and spotted
+with red blotches, and he breathed heavily through his open mouth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You've got to stop!" said his brother firmly.  "You're going on your
+nerves.  A little farther, and you'll collapse&mdash;go down like a shot."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I&mdash;I'm all right!" said Fred thickly.  "Got to get on&mdash;got to make it
+in time!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Horace was firm.  First they built a smudge to keep off the flies;
+then they made fresh repairs to their shoes; and finally they stretched
+themselves flat to rest.  But in spite of their fatigue, they were too
+highly strung to stay quiet.  They knew that a delay of an hour might
+lose the race for them.  After resting for less than half an hour, they
+got up and went plunging through the woods again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They believed now that the Smoke River could not be more than five or
+six miles away.  From every hilltop they hoped to catch sight of it, or
+at least to see some spot that they had passed while prospecting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But although all the landscape seemed strange, they doggedly continued
+the struggle.  The sun was sinking low over the western ridges now;
+toiling desperately on, they left mile after mile behind, but still the
+Smoke River did not come into sight.  At last Macgregor sat down
+abruptly upon a log.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'd just as soon die here as anywhere," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're right.  We'll stop, and go on by moonrise," said Horace.
+"Grub's what we need now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, we're almost at the end!  We can't stop now!" Fred cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We won't lose anything," said his brother.  "The trappers will be
+camping, too, about this time.  If we don't rest now we'll probably
+never get to the Smoke at all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Staggering with fatigue, he set about getting wood for a fire.  Mac and
+Fred helped him, and when they had built a fire they broiled some of
+the deer meat.  Fred could hardly touch the food.  Horace and Macgregor
+ate only a little, and almost as they ate they nodded, and dropped
+asleep from sheer fatigue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred knew that he, too, ought to sleep, but he could not even lie down.
+His brain burned, his muscles twitched, and he felt strung like a taut
+wire.  Leaving his companions asleep, he started to scout ahead.  He
+went like one in a dream, hardly conscious of anything except the
+overwhelming necessity of getting forward.  His course took him over a
+wooded ridge and down a hillside, and at last he came upon a tiny
+creek.  Stumbling, sometimes falling, but always pushing on, he
+followed the course of the creek for a mile or two; suddenly he found
+himself on the shore of a large and rapid river, into which the creek
+emptied.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Furious at the obstacle, he looked for a place where he could cross the
+river.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was too deep for him to wade across it, and too swift for him to
+swim it.  He hurried up the bank, looking for a place where he could
+ford it, and at last came to a stretch of short, violent rapids.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was about to turn back when he caught sight of axe marks in the
+undergrowth.  Some one had cut a trail for the carry round the rapid.
+He stared at the axe marks, and then at the river.  Suddenly his dazed
+brain cleared.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He recognized the spot.  He recognized the trail that he himself had
+helped to cut.  He had found the Smoke River!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap16"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVI
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Fred never quite knew how he got back to camp after he had found the
+river.  He found his companions still sound asleep, but it did not take
+him long to rouse them and to tell them the news.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I couldn't see any tracks on the shore.  I don't think any one has
+passed," Fred said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In less than a minute the boys, wild with joy, were hurrying through
+the woods again.  It was almost dark when they reached the river;
+peering close to the ground they examined the trail carefully, to make
+sure that the trappers had not already passed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The heavy rain had washed the shores, and no fresh tracks showed in the
+mud.  The men had not been over the portage that day, and they could
+hardly have passed the rapids without making a carry.  They had
+evidently camped for the night at some point below, and would not come
+up the river until morning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After piling up some hemlock boughs for a bed, the boys lay down, and
+dropped into a heavy sleep.  Now that the strain was over, Fred slept,
+too.  In fact, for the last quarter of an hour he had hardly been able
+to stay on his feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the gray dawn Horace awakened them.  They were stiff from their
+thirty-mile race of the day before, and their feet were swollen.  Hot
+food&mdash;especially hot tea&mdash;was what they longed for; but they were
+afraid to make a fire, and they had to content themselves with a little
+raw venison for their breakfast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace thought that they could make their ambush where they were as
+well as anywhere else.  The portage was about thirty yards long, and
+the narrow trail passed over a ridge and ran through dense hemlock
+thickets.  If the trappers came up the trail in single file, carrying
+heavy loads, they could not use their rifles against a sudden attack.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys armed themselves each with a hardwood bludgeon; then they
+ensconced themselves in the thickets where they could see the reaches
+of the river below&mdash;and waited.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An hour passed.  It was almost sunrise, and there was no sign of the
+trappers on the river.  The boys grew nervous with dread and anxiety.
+The tree-tops began to glitter with sunlight.  It was almost six
+o'clock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Could they have gone some other way?" asked Fred uneasily, staring
+upstream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At that very moment Macgregor grasped his arm and pointed down the
+river.  Two small objects had appeared round a bend, half a mile below.
+They were certainly canoes, making slow headway against the stiff
+current, but they were too far away for the boys to make them out
+plainly.  Minute by minute they grew nearer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The front one's a Peterboro!" said Mac.  "There's one man in it, and
+two in the other.  I think I can see the fox cage."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without doubt it was the trappers.  The young prospectors slipped back
+through the thickets, almost to the upper end of the trail, and
+concealed themselves in the hemlocks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Above all things, try to get hold of their guns!" said Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a long while they waited in terrible suspense.  They could not see
+the landing, nor at first could they hear anything, for the tumbling
+water of the rapids roared in their ears.  After what seemed almost an
+hour, stumbling footsteps sounded near by on the trail, and the bow of
+the Peterboro hove in sight.  A man was carrying it on his head; he
+steadied it with one hand, and in the other grasped a gun&mdash;Horace's
+repeating rifle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When he was almost within arm's reach, Mac sprang and tackled him low
+like a football player.  The trapper dropped the gun with a startled
+yell, and went over headlong into the hemlocks&mdash;canoe and all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace leaped out to seize the gun that the man had dropped.  Before he
+could touch it, the second trapper rushed up the trail with his rifle
+clubbed.  Fred struck out at him with his bludgeon.  The blow missed
+the fellow's head, and fell on his arm.  Down clattered the rifle,
+discharging as it fell.  The trapper made a frantic leap aside, and
+disappeared into the bushes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As Fred snatched up the rifle, he caught a glimpse of the third
+trapper, the wiry half-breed, hastening up the path.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Halt!  Hands up!" shouted Horace, raising the repeater.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man stopped, fired a wild shot, turned and bolted back toward the
+landing.  Fred and his brother rushed after him; they reached the
+landing just in time to see him leap into the birch canoe, which still
+held the fox cage, shove off, and digging his paddle furiously into the
+water, shoot down the stream.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"After him!  The canoe!  Quick!" shouted Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They dashed back.  The man that Fred had struck was nowhere to be seen.
+Macgregor had pinned his antagonist to the ground, and seemed to have
+him well subdued.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Never mind him, Mac!" Fred cried.  "Pick up that canoe in a hurry!
+One of the scoundrels has got away with the foxes!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All three of them seized the canoe and rushed it down to the landing.
+There they found the shore strewn with articles of camp outfit where
+the men had unloaded the canoes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Load it in, boys!" cried Horace.  "Take what we need.  We're not
+coming back."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They pitched an armful or two of supplies into the canoe.  Fred's
+shotgun was there, and several other articles that the boys recognized
+as their own.  The rest was a fair exchange for the outfit that they
+had abandoned in their tent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They shoved the canoe off.  The half-breed had gained a long lead by
+this time.  He was nearly a quarter of a mile ahead, paddling
+frantically; he did not even stop to fire at the boys.  But there were
+three paddles in pursuit, and the boys began to gain on him noticeably.
+More than two miles flashed by, and then the roar of rapids sounded
+ahead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Got him!" panted Mac.  "He'll have to land now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Round another bend shot the birch canoe, with the Peterboro three
+hundred yards behind, and now the broken water came in sight.  It was a
+long, rock-staked chute, and the boys thought it would be suicidal to
+try to run it.  But the half-breed kept straight on in mid-channel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's going to try to run through!" Horace cried.  "He'll drown himself
+and the foxes!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys yelled at him; but the next instant the man's canoe had shot
+into the broken water.  For a moment they lost sight of him in a cloud
+of spray; then they saw him half-way down the rapids, going like a
+bullet.  With incredible skill, he was keeping his craft upright.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boys drove their canoe toward the landing, and still watched the
+man.  When he was almost through the rapids, they saw his canoe shoot
+bow upward into the air, hang a moment, and then go over.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Shouting with excitement, they dragged the canoe ashore, picked it up,
+and went over the portage at a run.  Far down the stream they saw the
+birch canoe floating on its side, near the fox cage.  They had just
+launched the Peterboro at the tail of the rapids, when they saw
+something black bobbing in the swirling water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was the head of the half-breed.  He was swimming feebly, and when
+they hauled him into the canoe, was almost unconscious.  He had a great
+bleeding gash just above his ear, where he had struck a rock; but he
+was not seriously injured.  The boys paid little attention to him, but
+hastened to rescue their treasure.  When they came up with the birch
+canoe, they found that the fox cage had been lashed to it with a strip
+of deerskin, and, to their great relief, that the foxes were there, all
+four of them, alive and afloat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They got the cage ashore as quickly as possible.  The foxes were
+dripping with water, but looked as lively as ever.  To all appearances,
+the ducking had not hurt them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The canoe itself had not come off so well.  It had a great rent in the
+bottom, and Horace stamped another hole through the bow.  Then the boys
+examined their new outfit.  From their own former store they had a
+kettle, a frying-pan, a box of rifle-cartridges, and a sack of tea.
+They had taken from the trappers' supplies half a sack of flour, a lump
+of salt pork, two blankets, and two rifles.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The half-breed had recovered his wits by this time; sitting on the
+bank, he glared savagely at them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'll find your partners waiting for you up the river," Horace said
+to him.  "We've got what we need, and you'll find the rest of your kit
+on the shore where you unpacked it.  As for your rifles&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He picked them up and tossed them into six feet of water.  "By the time
+you've fished them out and mended your canoe I guess you won't want to
+follow us.  If you do, you won't catch us napping again, and we'll
+shoot you on sight.  <I>Savez</I>?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The half-breed muttered some sullen response.  The boys loaded the fox
+cage into the Peterboro, got in themselves, and shot down the river
+again in a fresh start for home.  They left the trapper sitting on the
+rock, glaring after them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now that the strain was over and the fight won, the boys felt utterly
+exhausted.  They kept on at as fast a pace as they could, however, and
+reached the Missanabie River a little after noon.  There they stopped
+to cook dinner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Once more they had hot, black <I>voyageurs'</I> tea, and fried flapjacks,
+and salt pork.  It seemed the most delicious meal they had ever eaten;
+but when they had finished, they felt too weary to start up the
+Missanabie, and reckless of consequences, they lay down and slept for
+almost two hours.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then they continued their journey with double energy, and made good
+progress for the rest of the day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were entirely out of fresh meat, and had nothing whatever to give
+the foxes, but fortunately Mac shot three spruce grouse that evening.
+They dropped the heads of the birds into the cage; the foxes devoured
+them with a voracity that indicated that the trappers had fed them
+nothing.  Early the next morning Horace by a long shot killed a deer at
+the riverside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a rough journey up the Missanabie, but not nearly so hard as the
+trip up the Smoke River had been.  For eight days they paddled, poled,
+tracked, and portaged, until they came at last to the point where they
+had first launched the canoe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The "long carry" over the Height of Land now confronted them.  It is
+true that they had by no means so much outfit to carry now, but, on the
+other hand, they had no packers to help them.  They had to make two
+journeys of it, and, as a further difficulty, one of the boys had to
+remain with the fox cage.  As they reached the top of the ridge on
+their first journey, Macgregor turned and looked back over the wild
+landscape to the northwest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Somewhere over there," he murmured, "is the diamond country."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Shut up!" exclaimed Horace, in exasperation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I never want to hear the word 'diamond' again," added Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They left the foxes together with the rest of their loads at the end of
+the "carry," and Fred remained to guard them, while Peter and Horace
+went back for the remainder of the outfit.  While they were gone Fred
+noticed that one of the cubs was not looking well.  It refused to eat
+or drink; its fur was losing its gloss, and it lay in a sort of a doze
+most of the time.  Plainly captivity did not agree with it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace and Peter were much concerned about its condition when they came
+back.  None of them had any idea what to do; in fact it is doubtful if
+the most skilled veterinary surgeon could have prescribed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The real trouble is their cramped quarters, of course," said Horace.
+"We must get home as quickly as possible, and get them out of this and
+into a larger cage.  Some of the others will sicken if we don't look
+sharp."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They made all the speed they could, and, now that they were fairly on
+the canoe route south of the Height of Land, they felt that they were
+well toward home.  It was downstream now, and portages grew less and
+less frequent as the river grew.  They did not stop to hunt or fish;
+the paddled till dusk, and were up at dawn.  They felt that it was a
+race for the life of the valuable little animal, and they did not spare
+themselves.  Two days afterward, late in the afternoon, they came to
+the little railway village that had been their starting-point.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The cub seemed no better&mdash;worse, if anything.  There was a train for
+Toronto at eight o'clock that night.  The boys hurried to the hotel
+where they had left their baggage, and changed their tattered woods
+garments for more civilized clothing.  There was time to eat a
+civilized supper, with bread and vegetables and jam,&mdash;almost forgotten
+luxuries,&mdash;and time also to send a telegram to Maurice Stark.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They carried the cage of foxes to the hotel with them, for they were
+determined henceforth not to let the animals out of their sight for a
+moment.  The unusual spectacle of the three boys with their burden
+attracted much attention, and when the contents of the cage became
+known, nearly the whole population of the village assembled to have a
+look.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The crowd followed them to the depot, and saw the foxes put into the
+baggage-car.  They had secured permission for one of them to ride with
+the cage and stand guard, and the boys took turns at this duty.  The
+other two tried to snatch a few hours of rest in the sleeper; but the
+berths seemed stifling and airless.  Accustomed to the open camp, they
+could not sleep a wink, and were rather more fatigued the next morning
+than when they had started.  It was still four hours to Toronto, but
+they reached the city at noon.  Macgregor was standing the last watch
+in the baggage-car, and as Fred and Horace came down the steps of the
+Pullman they saw Maurice Stark pushing through the crowd.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What luck?" Maurice demanded anxiously, lowering his voice as he shook
+hands.  "Did you find the&mdash;the&mdash;?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not any diamonds," replied Fred, with a laugh.  "But we brought back
+some black gold.  Come and see it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They went forward to the platform where the baggage was being unloaded.
+Macgregor was helping to hand out the willow cage.  It looked strangely
+wild and rough among the neat suit-cases and trunks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What in the world have you got there?" cried Maurice, peering through
+the bars.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fred and Horace were also looking anxiously to learn the condition of
+the sick cub.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, he's dead!" exclaimed Fred, in bitter disappointment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Mac; "the little fellow keeled over just after I came on
+guard.  I didn't send word to you fellows, for I knew there was nothing
+to be done."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The rest of the family were alive and looked in good condition.  The
+boys had already decided what they would do immediately, and, calling a
+cab, they drove with the foxes to the house of a well-known naturalist
+connected with the Toronto Zoölogical Park.  He was as competent as any
+one could be, and he readily agreed to take care of the foxes till they
+should be sold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Naturally, however, he declined to be responsible for their safety, and
+Horace at once attempted to insure their lives.  No insurance company
+would accept the risk, but after much negotiation he at last managed to
+effect a policy of two thousand dollars for one month, on payment of an
+exorbitant premium.  He was more successful in getting insurance
+against theft, and took out a policy for ten thousand dollars with a
+burglar insurance company, on condition of a day and night watchman
+being employed to guard the animals.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was plain that the foxes were going to be a source of terrible
+anxiety while they remained on the boys' hands.  Horace at once
+telegraphed to the manager of one of the largest fur-breeding ranches
+in Prince Edward Island, and received a reply saying that a
+representative of the company would call within a few days.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man turned up three days later, and inspected the foxes in a casual
+and uninterested way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We'd hardly think of buying," he remarked.  "We've got about all the
+stock we need.  I was coming to Toronto just when I got your wire, and
+I thought I'd look in at them.  What are you thinking of asking for
+them?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fifty thousand dollars," said Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The fur-trader laughed heartily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'll be lucky if you get a quarter of that," he said.  "Why, we
+bought a fine, full-grown black fox last year for five hundred.  Your
+cubs are hardly worth anything, you know.  They 're almost sure to die
+before they grow up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Professor Forsythe doesn't think so," replied Horace.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, I'm glad I saw them," said the dealer.  "If I can hear of a
+buyer for you I'll send him along, but you'll have to come away down on
+your prices.  You might let me have your address, in case I hear of
+anything."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It doesn't look as if we were going to sell them!" said Fred, who was
+not used to shrewd business dealing.  "Perhaps we can't get any price
+at all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Horace laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, that was all bluff.  I saw the fellow's eyes light up when he saw
+these black beauties.  He'll be back to see us within a day or two."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sure enough, the man did come back.  He scarcely mentioned the foxes
+this time, but took the boys out motoring.  As they were parting he
+said carelessly, "I think I might get you a buyer for your foxes, but
+he couldn't pay over fifteen thousand."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No use in our talking to him then," replied Horace, with equal
+indifference.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That was the beginning of a series of negotiations that ran through
+fully a week.  It was interspersed with motor rides, dinner parties,
+and other amusements to which the parties treated one another
+alternately.  The Prince Edward Island man brought himself to make a
+proposal of twenty thousand, and Horace came down to thirty-five
+thousand, and there they stuck.  Finally Horace came down to thirty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll give you twenty-five," said the furbreeder at last, "but I think
+I'll be losing money at that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll meet you halfway," replied Horace.  "Split the difference.  Make
+it twenty-seven thousand, five hundred."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Both parties were well wearied with bargaining by this time, and the
+buyer gave in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All right!" he agreed.  "You'll make your fortune, young man, if you
+keep on, for you 're the hardest customer to deal with that I've met
+this year."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dealer went back next day to the east, taking the foxes with him,
+and leaving with the boys a certified check for $27,500.  It was not as
+much as they had hoped to clear, but it was a small fortune after all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Comes to nearly seven thousand apiece," Fred remarked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not at all," remonstrated Maurice.  "I don't see where I have any
+share in it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, come!  We're rolling in money.  You must have something out of it.
+Mustn't he, Horace?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They knew that Maurice really needed the money, and it was not by his
+own will that he had failed to go with the expedition.  In the end he
+was persuaded to accept the odd five hundred dollars, but he refused to
+take a cent more.  The remainder made just nine thousand dollars apiece
+for each of the three other boys.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I've lost a year's varsity work," said Peter, "but I guess it was
+worth it.  Nine thousand is more than I ever expect to make in a year
+of medical practice.  Besides, we know there are diamonds in that
+country.  Horace found them.  Why can't we&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Shut up!" cried Fred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take his money away from him!" exclaimed Horace.  "I don't want to
+hear any more of diamonds."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"&mdash;And why can't we make another expedition," continued Peter, "and
+prospect for&mdash;"  But Fred and Horace pounced on him, and after a
+violent struggle got him down on the couch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Prospect for what?" cried Fred, sitting on his chest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ow&mdash;let me up!" gurgled Mac.  "Why, for&mdash;for more black foxes!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="finis">
+THE END
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+The Riverside Press
+<BR>
+CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
+<BR>
+U . S . A
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<HR>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap17"></A>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+Dr. Tomlinson's Books
+</H2>
+
+<P>
+The American boy will never tire of reading tales of the early colonial
+days and especially of the desperate encounters and struggles of the
+colonists with the natives of the forest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dr. Tomlinson has read widely and has collected a mass of incident
+through family tradition and otherwise, which he has skillfully
+incorporated in the historical frameworks of several exceedingly
+interesting and instructive stories.  He has the knack of mixing
+history with adventure in such a way as to make his young readers
+absorb much information while entertaining them capitally.  His
+historical tales are filled with an enthusiasm which it is well to
+foster in the heart of every healthy-minded and patriotic American boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The plots are all based upon events that actually occurred; and the boy
+heroes play the part of men in a way to capture the hearts of all boy
+readers.  Dr. Tomlinson shows scrupulous regard for the larger truths
+of history, and the same care that would naturally go into a book for
+older readers.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+The Boys of Old Monmouth
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A story of Washington's campaign in New Jersey in 1778.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+A Jersey Boy in the Revolution
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+This story is founded upon the lives and deeds of some of the humbler
+heroes of the American Revolution.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+In the Hands of the Redcoats
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A tale of the Jersey ship and the Jersey shore in the days of the
+Revolution.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+Under Colonial Colors
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The story of Arnold's expedition to Quebec; of war, adventure, and
+friendship.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+A Lieutenant Under Washington
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A tale of Brandywine and Germantown.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+The Rider of the Black Horse
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A spirited Revolutionary story following the adventures of one of
+Washington's couriers.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+The Red Chief
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A story of the massacre at Cherry Valley, of Brant, the Mohawk chief,
+and of the Revolution in upper New York state.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+Marching Against the Iroquois
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+An exciting story based on General Sullivan's expedition into the
+country of the Iroquois in 1779.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+Light Horse Harry's Legion
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A stirring story of fights with marauding Tories on the Jersey Pine
+Barrens.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+The Camp-Fire of Mad Anthony
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+This story covers the period between 1774 and 1776 and follows the
+adventures of the Pennsylvania troops under "Mad Anthony" Wayne.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+Mad Anthony's Young Scout
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A story of the winter of 1777-1778.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+The Champion of the Regiment
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+An absorbing story of the Siege of Yorktown, with Noah Dare, so well
+known to Tomlinson readers, for hero.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+The Young Minute-Man of 1812
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The young hero joins the garrison at Sacket's Harbor, is sent on an
+expedition down the St. Lawrence, and takes part in McDonough's victory
+on Lake Champlain.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+The Young Sharpshooter
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The experiences of a boy in the Peninsular Campaign of 1862, under
+McClellan.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+The Young Sharpshooter at Antietam
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Deals with Lee's invasion of Maryland in 1862, relating further
+exciting adventures of Noel, the young sharpshooter.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+Prisoners of War
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The experiences of the heroes of "The Young Sharpshooter" and "The
+Young Sharpshooter at Antietam," during the course of the war from
+Antietam to Appomattox.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Each volume, illustrated, crown 8vo, $1.35 net.
+<BR>
+Houghton Mifflin Company
+<BR>
+Boston and New York
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+BOOKS BY
+<BR>
+ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER
+</H2>
+
+<P>
+"Some of the best boys' stories of the time carry Mr. Pier's name on
+the title page.  His Boys of St. Timothy's books have always been
+popular with young readers.  They are wholesome, lively, entertaining
+tales of schoolboy life and sports."&mdash;<I>Detroit Free Press</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+THE JESTER OF ST. TIMOTHY'S
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Illustrated.  12mo, $1.00 net.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+THE CRASHAW BROTHERS
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Illustrated.  12mo, $1.25 net.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+THE NEW BOY
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Illustrated, 12mo, $1.25 net.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Illustrated.  12mo, $1.25 net.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3>
+GRANNIS OF THE FIFTH
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Illustrated, 12mo, $1.25 net.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+<BR>
+BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Northern Diamonds, by Frank Lillie Pollock
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@@ -0,0 +1,6522 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Northern Diamonds, by Frank Lillie Pollock
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Northern Diamonds
+
+Author: Frank Lillie Pollock
+
+Release Date: October 8, 2010 [EBook #32323]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHERN DIAMONDS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: LOWERED THE CAN CAUTIOUSLY BY A STRING]
+
+
+
+
+
+NORTHERN DIAMONDS
+
+
+BY
+
+FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK
+
+
+
+_With Illustrations_
+
+
+
+
+BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+
+The Riverside Press Cambridge
+
+1917
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1914 AND 1915, BY PERRY MASON COMPANY
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK
+
+
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+_Published September 1917_
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+This book has appeared in the _Youth's Companion_ in the form of a
+serial and sequel, and my thanks are due to the proprietors of that
+periodical for permission to reprint.
+
+FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+LOWERED THE CAN CAUTIOUSLY BY A STRING . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+THE OTHER BOYS HAD BEEN BUSY
+
+"THAT IS OUR CABIN.  LET US COME IN, I SAY"
+
+DRAGGED HIM UP, PROTESTING, AND RUBBED SNOW ON HIS EARS
+
+FLUNG THE SACK INTO THE MAN'S LAP
+
+
+_From drawings by Harry C. Edwards_
+
+
+
+
+NORTHERN DIAMONDS
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock at night when some one knocked at the door
+of Fred Osborne's room.  He was not in the least expecting any caller
+at that hour, and had paid no attention when he had heard the doorbell
+of the boarding-house ring downstairs, and the sound of feet ascending
+the steps.  He hastened to open the door, however, and in the dim
+hallway he recognized the dark, handsome face of Maurice Stark, and
+behind it the tall, raw-boned form of Peter Macgregor.
+
+Both of them uttered an exclamation of satisfaction at seeing him.
+They were both in fur caps and overcoats, for it was a sharp Canadian
+December night, and at the first glance Fred observed that their faces
+wore an expression of excitement.
+
+"Come in, boys!" he said.  "I wasn't going to bed.  Here, take your
+coats off.  What's up?  You look as if something was the matter."
+
+"Is Horace in town?" demanded Peter.
+
+Fred shook his head.  Horace was his elder brother, a mining engineer
+mostly employed in the North Country.
+
+"He's still somewhere in the North Woods.  I haven't heard from him
+since October, but I'm expecting him to turn up almost any day now.
+Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"The matter?  Something pretty big," returned Maurice.
+
+Maurice Stark was Fred's most intimate friend in Toronto University,
+from which he had himself graduated the summer before.  He knew
+Macgregor less well, for the big Scotch-Canadian was in the medical
+school.  His home place was somewhere far up in the North Woods, but he
+had a great intercollegiate reputation as a long-distance runner.  It
+was, in fact, chiefly in a sporting way that Fred had come to know him,
+for Fred held an amateur skating championship, and was even then
+training for the ice tournament to be held in Toronto in a few weeks.
+
+"It's something big!" Maurice repeated.  "I wish Horace were here,
+but--could you get a holiday from your office for a week or ten days?"
+
+"I've got it already," said Fred.  "I reserved my holidays last summer,
+and things aren't busy in a real estate office at this time of year.  I
+guess I could get two weeks if I wanted it.  I'm spending most of my
+time now training for the five and ten miles."
+
+"Could you skate a hundred and fifty miles in two days?" demanded
+Macgregor.
+
+"I might if I had to--if it was a case of life and death."
+
+"That's just what it is--a case of life and death, and possibly a
+fortune into the bargain!" cried Maurice.  "You see--but Mac has the
+whole story."
+
+The Scottish medical student went to the window, raised the blind and
+peered out at the wintry sky.
+
+"No sign of snow yet," he said in a tone of satisfaction.
+
+"What's that got to do with it?" demanded Fred, who was burning with
+curiosity by this time.  "What's going on, anyway?  Hurry up."
+
+"Spoil the skating," said Macgregor briefly.  "Well," he went on after
+a moment, "this is how I had the story.
+
+"I live away up north of North Bay, you know, at a little place called
+Muirhead.  I went home for a little visit last week, and the second day
+I was there they brought in a sick Indian from Hickson, a little
+farther north--sick with smallpox.  The Hickson authorities wouldn't
+have him at any price, and they had just passed him on to us.  The
+people at Muirhead didn't want him either.  It wasn't such a very bad
+case of smallpox, but the poor wretch had suffered a good deal of
+exposure, and he was pretty shaky.  Everybody was in a panic about him;
+they wanted to ship him straight down to North Bay; but finally I got
+him fixed up in a sort of isolation camp and looked after him myself."
+
+"Good for you, Mac!" Fred ejaculated.
+
+"Oh, it was good hospital training, and I'd been recently vaccinated,
+so I didn't run any danger.  It paid me, though, for when I'd pulled
+him around a bit he told me the story, and a queer tale it was."
+
+Macgregor paused and went to look out of the window again with anxiety.
+Fred was listening breathlessly.
+
+"It seems that last September this Indian, along with a couple of
+half-breeds, went up into the woods for the winter trapping, and built
+a cabin on one of the branches of the Abitibi River, away up northeast
+of Lake Timagami.  I know about where it was.  I suppose you've never
+been up in that country, Osborne?"
+
+"Never quite as far as that.  Last summer I was nearly up to Timagami
+with Horace."
+
+Fred had made a good many canoeing trips into the Northern wilderness
+with his brother, and Horace himself, as mining engineer, surveyor, and
+free-lance prospector, had spent most of the last five years in that
+region.  At irregular and generally unexpected times he would turn up
+in Toronto with a bale of furs, a sack of mineralogical specimens, and
+a book of geological notes, which would presently appear in the
+"University Science Quarterly," or even in more important publications.
+He was an Associate of the Canadian Geographical Society, and always
+expected to hit on a vein of mineral that would make his whole family
+millionaires.
+
+"Well, I've been up and down the Abitibi in a canoe," Macgregor went
+on, "and I think I know almost the exact spot where they must have
+built the cabin.  Anyhow, I'm certain I could find it, for the Indian
+described it as accurately as he could.
+
+"It seems that the three men trapped there till the end of October, and
+then a white man came into their camp.  He was all alone, and
+complained of feeling sick.  They were kind enough to him; he stayed
+with them, but in a few days they found out what the matter was.  He
+had smallpox.
+
+"Now, you know how the Indians and half-breeds dread smallpox.  They
+fear it like death itself, but these fellows seem to have behaved
+pretty well at first.  They did what they could for the sick man, but
+pretty soon one of the trappers came down with the disease.  It took a
+violent form, and he was dead in a few days.
+
+"That was too much for the nerve of the Indian, and he slipped away and
+started for the settlements south.  But he had waited too long.  He had
+the germs in him.  He sickened in the woods, but had strength enough to
+keep going till he came to the first clearings.  Somebody rushed him in
+to Hickson, and so he was passed on to my hands."
+
+"And what became of the white man and the other trapper?" demanded Fred.
+
+"Ah, that's what nobody knows.  The Indian said that the remaining
+half-breed was falling sick when he left.  The white man may be dead by
+this time, or perhaps still living but deserted, or he may be well on
+the road to recovery.  But I left out the sensational feature of the
+whole thing.  My Indian said that the white man had a buckskin sack on
+him full of little stones that shone like fire.  He seemed to set great
+store by them, and threatened to blow the head off anybody who touched
+the bag."
+
+"Shining stones?  Perhaps they were diamonds!" ejaculated Fred.
+
+"It looks almost as if he might have found the diamond fields, for a
+fact," said Peter, with sparkling eyes.
+
+Canada was full of rumors of diamond discoveries just then.  Every
+Canadian must remember the intense excitement created by the report
+that diamonds had been found in the mining regions of northern Ontario.
+Several stones had actually been brought down to Toronto and Montreal,
+where tests showed them to be real diamonds, though they were mostly
+small, flawed, and valueless.  One, however, was said to have brought
+nine hundred dollars, and the news set many parties outfitting to
+prospect for the blue-clay beds.  But they met with no success.  In
+every case the stones had either been picked up in river drift or
+obtained from Indians who could give no definite account of where they
+had been found.
+
+Could it be that this strange white man had actually stumbled on the
+diamond fields--only to fall sick and perhaps to die with the secret of
+his discoveries untold?  Fred gazed from Peter to Maurice, almost
+speechless.
+
+"Naturally, my first idea was to get up a rescue party to bring out the
+sick prospector," Maurice went on.  "But the woods are in the worst
+kind of shape for traveling.  The streams are all frozen hard, but
+there has been remarkably little snow yet--not near enough for
+snowshoes or sledges.  It would be impossible to tramp that distance
+and pack the supplies.  Besides, when I came to think it over it struck
+me that the thing was too valuable to share with a lot of guides and
+backwoodsmen.  If we find that fellow alive, and he has really
+discovered anything, it would be strange if he wouldn't give us a
+chance to stake out a few claims that might be worth thousands--maybe
+millions.  And it struck me that there was a quicker way to get to him
+than by snowshoes or dogs.  The streams are frozen, the ice is clear,
+and the skating was fine at Muirhead."
+
+"An expedition on skates?" cried Fred.
+
+"Why not?  There's a clear canoe way, barring a few portages, and that
+means a clear ice road till it snows.  But it might do that at any
+moment."
+
+"A hundred and fifty miles in two days?" said Fred.  "Sure, we can do
+it.  I'll set the pace, if you fellows can keep up."
+
+"Anyhow, I came straight down to the city and saw Maurice about it.  He
+said you'd be the best third man we could get.  But I had hoped we
+could get Horace, so as to have his expert opinion on what that man may
+have found."
+
+"The last time I heard from Horace he was at Red Lake," said Fred, "but
+I wouldn't have any idea where to find him now.  He always comes back
+to Toronto for the winter, and he can't be much later than this."
+
+"Well, we can't wait for him," said Maurice regretfully.  "I'm sorry,
+but maybe next spring will do as well, when we go to prospect our
+diamond claims."
+
+"Yes, but we've got to get them first," said Peter, "and there's a
+man's life to be saved--and it might snow to-night and block the whole
+expedition."
+
+"Then we'd get dogs and snowshoes," Maurice remarked, "but it would be
+far slower traveling than on skates."
+
+"We must rush things.  Could we get away to-morrow?" Fred cried.
+
+"We must--by the evening train.  Maurice and I have been making out a
+list of the things we need to buy.  Have you a gun?  Well, we have two
+rifles anyway, and that'll be more than enough, for we want to go as
+light as possible.  You'll need a sleeping-bag, of course, and your
+roughest, warmest woolen clothes, and a couple of heavy sweaters.
+We'll carry snowshoes and moccasins with us, in case of a snowfall.
+I'll bring a medicine case and disinfectants."
+
+"Will we have to pack all that outfit on our shoulders?" Fred asked.
+
+"No, of course not.  I have a six-foot toboggan, which I'll have fitted
+with detachable steel runners to-morrow, good for either ice or snow.
+We'll haul it by a rope.  But here's the main thing--the grub list."
+
+Fred glanced over the scribbled rows of the carefully considered
+items,--bacon, condensed milk, powdered eggs, beans, dehydrated
+vegetables, meal, tea, bread,--and he was astonished.
+
+"Surely we won't need all this for a week or ten days?"
+
+"That's a man-killing country in the winter," responded the Scotchman
+grimly.  "I know it.  You have to go well prepared, and you never can
+depend on getting game after snow falls.  Besides, we'll have no time
+for hunting.  Yes, we'll need every ounce of that, and it'll all have
+to be bought to-morrow.  And now I suppose we'd better improve the last
+chance of sleeping in a bed that we'll have for some time."
+
+He went to the window and again observed the sky, which remained clear
+and starry, snapping with frost.
+
+"No sign of snow, certainly.  We can count on you, then, Osborne?  Of
+course it's understood that we share expenses equally--they won't be
+heavy--and share anything that we may get out of it."
+
+"Count on me?  I should rather think so!" cried Fred fervently.  "Why,
+I'd never have forgiven you if you hadn't let me in on this.  But we'll
+have to do a lot of quick shopping to-morrow, won't we?  Where do we
+meet?"
+
+"At my rooms, as soon after breakfast as possible," replied Mac.  "And
+breakfast early, and make all the preparations you can before that."
+
+At this they went away, leaving Fred alone, but far too full of
+excitement to sleep.  He sorted out his warmest clothing, carefully
+examined and oiled his hockey skates and boots, wrote a necessary
+letter or two, and did such other things as occurred to him.  It was
+long past one o'clock when he did go to bed, and even then he could not
+sleep.  His mind was full of the dangerous expedition that he had
+plunged into within the last hours.  His imagination saw vividly the
+picture of the long ice road through the wilderness, a hundred and
+fifty miles to the lonely trappers' shack, where a white man lay sick
+with a bag of diamonds on his breast--or perhaps by this time lay dead
+with the secret of immense riches lost with him.  And the ice road
+might close to-morrow.  Fred tossed and turned in bed, and more than
+once got up to look out the window for signs of a snowstorm.
+
+But he went to sleep at last, and slept soundly till awakened by the
+rattle of his alarm-clock, set for half-past six.  He had an early
+breakfast and packed his clothes.  At nine o'clock he telephoned the
+real estate office where he was employed, and had no difficulty in
+getting his holidays extended another week.  Business was dull just
+then.
+
+At half-past nine he met Maurice and Peter, who were waiting for him
+with impatience.  Macgregor had already left his toboggan at a
+sporting-goods store to be equipped with runners for use on ice.  But
+there remained an immense amount of shopping to do, and all the things
+had to be purchased at half a dozen different places.  Together they
+went the rounds of the shops with a list from which they checked off
+article after article,--ammunition, sleeping-bags, moccasins, food,
+camp outfit,--and they ordered them all sent to Macgregor's rooms by
+special delivery.
+
+At four o'clock in the afternoon the boys went back, and found the room
+littered with innumerable parcels of every shape and size.  Only the
+toboggan had not arrived, though it had been promised for the middle of
+the afternoon.
+
+"Gracious!  It looks like a lot!" exclaimed Maurice, gazing about at
+the packages.
+
+"It won't look like so much when they're stowed away," replied Peter.
+"Let's get them unwrapped, and, Fred, you'd better go down and hurry up
+that toboggan.  Stand over them till it's done, for we must have it
+before six o'clock."
+
+Fred hurried downtown again.  The toboggan was not finished, but the
+work was under way.  By dint of furious entreaties and representations
+of the emergency Fred induced them to hurry it up.  It was not a long
+job, and by a quarter after five Fred was back at Mac's room,
+accompanied by a messenger with the remodeled toboggan.
+
+The toboggan was of the usual pattern and shape, but the cushions had
+been removed, and a thirty-foot moose-hide thong attached for hauling.
+It was fitted with four short steel runners, only four inches high,
+which could be removed in a few minutes by unscrewing the nuts, so that
+it could be used as a sledge on ice or as a toboggan on deep snow.
+
+During Fred's absence the other boys had been busy.  All the kit was
+out of the wrappers, and the room was a wilderness of brown paper.
+Everything had been packed into four canvas dunnage sacks, and now
+these were firmly strapped on the toboggan.  The rifles and the
+snowshoes were similarly attached, so that the whole outfit was in one
+secure package.  They hauled this down to the railway station
+themselves to make sure that there would be no delay, and dispatched it
+by express to Waverley, where they intended to leave the train.  It was
+then a few minutes after six.
+
+[Illustration: THE OTHER BOYS HAD BEEN BUSY]
+
+"Well, we're as good as off now," remarked Maurice, with a long breath.
+"Our train goes at eight.  We've got two hours, and now I guess I'll go
+home and have supper with my folks and say good-bye.  We'll all meet at
+the depot."
+
+Neither Fred nor Macgregor had any relatives in the city and no
+necessary farewells to make.  They had supper together at a downtown
+restaurant, and afterwards met Maurice at the Union Depot, where they
+took the north-bound express.
+
+Next morning they awoke from uneasy slumbers to find the train rushing
+through a desolate landscape of snowy spruces.  Through the frosted
+double glass of the windows the morning looked clear and cold, but they
+were relieved to see that there was only a little snow on the ground,
+and glimpses of rivers and lakes showed clear, shining ice.  Evidently
+the road was still open.
+
+It was half-past ten that forenoon when they reached Waverley, and they
+found that it was indeed cold.  The thermometer stood at five above
+zero; the snow was dry as powder underfoot, and the little backwoods
+village looked frozen up.  But it was sunny, and the biting air was
+full of the freshness of the woods, and the spirits of all the boys
+rose jubilantly.
+
+The laden toboggan had come up on the same train with them, and they
+saw it taken out of the express car.  Leaving it at the station, they
+went to the village hotel, where they ate an early dinner, and changed
+from their civilized clothes to the caps, sweaters, and Hudson Bay
+"duffel" trousers that they had brought in their suit-cases.
+
+They had been the only passengers to leave the train, and their arrival
+produced quite a stir in Waverley.  It was not the season for camping
+parties, nor for hunting, and no one went into the woods for pleasure
+in the winter.  The toboggan with its steel runners drew a curious
+group at the station.
+
+"Goin' in after moose?" inquired an old woodsman while they were at
+dinner.
+
+"No," replied Peter.
+
+"Goin' up to the pulpwood camps, mebbe?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What might ye be goin' into the woods fer?" he persisted, after some
+moments.
+
+"We might be going in after gold," answered Maurice gravely.
+
+He did not mean it to be taken seriously, but he forgot that gold is
+mined in several parts of northern Ontario.  Before many hours the word
+spread that a big winter gold strike had been made up north, and a
+party from the city was already going to the spot, so that for several
+weeks the village was in a state of excitement.
+
+The boys suspected nothing of this, but the public curiosity began to
+be annoying.
+
+"Can't we start at once?" Fred suggested.
+
+"Yes; there's no use in stopping here another hour," Peter agreed.  "We
+ought to catch the fine weather while it lasts, and we can make a good
+many miles in the rest of this day."
+
+So they left their baggage at the hotel, with instructions to have it
+kept till their return, secured their toboggan at the depot, and went
+down to the river.  The stream was a belt of clear, bluish ice, free
+from snow except for a little drift here and there.
+
+Half a dozen curious idlers had followed them.  Paying no attention,
+the boys took off their moccasins and put on the hockey boots with
+skates attached.  They slid out upon the ice and dragged the toboggan
+after them.
+
+The spectators raised a cheer, which the three boys answered with a
+yell as they struck out.  The ice was good; the toboggan ran smoothly
+after them, so that they scarcely noticed its weight.  In a moment the
+snowy roofs of the little village had passed out of sight around a bend
+of the river, and black spruce and hemlock woods were on either side.
+The great adventure had begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"Don't force the pace at first, boys," Fred warned his companions.
+"Remember, we've a long way to go."
+
+As the expert skater, he had taken the leading end of the drag-rope.
+His advice was hard to follow.  The ice was in perfect condition; the
+toboggan ran almost without friction on its steel shoes, and in that
+sparkling air it seemed that it would be easy to skate a hundred miles
+without ever once resting.
+
+For a little way the river was bordered with stumpy clearings; then the
+dark hemlock and jack-pine woods closed down on the shores.  The
+skaters had reached the frontier; it might well be that there were not
+a dozen cultivated fields between them and the North Pole.
+
+Here the river was about a hundred feet wide, the long ice road that
+Fred had imagined.  Comparatively little snow had yet fallen, and that
+little seemed to have come with high winds, which had swept the ice
+clear.  More, however, might be looked for any day.
+
+But for that day they were safe.  They rushed ahead, forcing the pace a
+little, after all, in a swinging single file, with the toboggan gliding
+behind.  In great curves the river wound through the woods and frozen
+swamps, and only twice that day had they to go ashore to get round
+roaring, unfrozen rapids.  Each of those obstructions cost the boys
+half an hour of labor before they could get the toboggan through the
+dense underbrush that choked the portage.  But they had counted on such
+delays.
+
+Not a breath of wind stirred, and the forest was profoundly still.
+Full of wild life though it undoubtedly was, not a sign of it was
+visible, except now and then a chain of delicate tracks along the shore.
+
+Evening comes early in that latitude and season.  At sunset Macgregor
+estimated that they had covered thirty miles.
+
+"Time to camp, boys!" he shouted from the rear.  "Look out for a good
+place--shelter and lots of dry wood."
+
+Two or three miles farther on they found it--a spot where several large
+spruce trees had fallen together, and lay dry and dead near the shore.
+They drew up the toboggan and exchanged their skating-boots for
+moccasins.  Maurice began to cut up wood with a small axe; the others
+trampled down the snow in a circle.
+
+Dusk was already falling when the fire blazed up, making all at once a
+spot of almost home-like cheerfulness.  Fred chopped a hole in the ice
+in order to fill the kettle, and while it was boiling, they cut down a
+number of small saplings, and placed them in lean-to fashion against a
+ridgepole.  The balsam twigs that they trimmed off they threw inside,
+until the snow was covered with a great heap of fragrant boughs.  On it
+they spread the sleeping-bags to face the fire.
+
+They supped that night on fried bacon, dried eggs, oatmeal cakes, and
+tea--real _voyageur's_ tea, hot and strong, flavored with brown sugar
+and wood smoke, and drunk out of tin cups.
+
+Leaning back on the balsam couch, they made merry over their meal,
+while the stars came out white and clear over the dark woods.  There
+was every prospect now of their reaching the trappers' cabin in two
+days more, at most.  There were only the two serious dangers--a
+snowstorm might spoil the ice, and Macgregor might not be able to hit
+upon the right place.
+
+The boys were tired enough to be drowsy as soon as they had finished
+supper.  Little by little their conversation flagged; the chance of
+finding diamonds ceased to interest them, and presently they built up
+the fire and crawled into their sleeping-bags.  It was a cold night,
+and except for the occasional cry of a hunting owl or lynx, the
+wilderness was silent as death.
+
+The boys were up early the next morning; smoke was rising from their
+fire before the sun was well off the horizon.  The weather seemed
+slightly warmer, and a wind was rising from the west, but it was not
+strong enough to impede them.
+
+After breakfast, they repacked the kit on the toboggan.  The spot had
+been home for a night; now nothing was left except a pile of crushed
+twigs and a few black brands on the trampled snow.
+
+The travelers were fresh again; now they settled down to a long, steady
+stroke that carried them on rapidly.  Three times they had to land to
+pass round open rapids or dangerous ice, but about eleven o'clock
+Macgregor saw what he had been looking for.  It was a spot where
+several trees had been cut down on the shore.  A rather faint trail
+showed through the cedar thickets.  It was the beginning of the main
+portage that ran three miles northwest, straight across country to the
+Abitibi River.  They had been mortally afraid of overrunning the spot.
+
+They boiled the noon kettle of tea to fortify themselves for the long
+crossing.  Then they unshipped the runners from the toboggan, put on
+their moccasins and snowshoes, and started ashore across a range of
+low, densely wooded hills.
+
+The trail was blazed at long intervals, but not cleared, and it was
+hard, exasperating work to get the toboggan through the snowy tangle.
+After two hours they came out on the crest of a hill overlooking a
+great river that ran like a gleaming steel-blue ribbon far into the
+north.
+
+"The Abitibi!" cried Macgregor.
+
+They had come a good seventy miles from Waverley.  At that rate, they
+might expect to reach their destination the next day; and, greatly
+encouraged, they coasted on the toboggan down to the ice, and set out
+again on skates.
+
+During the tramp the sky had grown hazy, and the northwest wind was
+blowing stronger.  For some time it was not troublesome, for it came
+from the left, but it continued to freshen, and the clouds darkened
+ominously.
+
+Late in the afternoon the travelers came suddenly upon the second of
+the known landmarks.  From the west a smaller river, nameless, as far
+as they knew, poured past a bluff of black granite into the Abitibi,
+making a fifty-yard stretch of open water that tumbled and foamed with
+a hoarse uproar among ice-bound boulders.  Here they had to change
+their course, for according to Macgregor's calculation, it was about
+fifty miles up this river that the cabin stood.
+
+Again they went ashore, and after struggling through two hundred yards
+of dense thickets reached the little nameless river from the west.
+
+The change in their course brought them squarely into the eye of the
+wind, and they felt the difference instantly.  The breeze had risen to
+half a gale; the whole sky had clouded.  It was only an hour from
+sunset, but no one mentioned camping; they were resolved to go on while
+the light lasted.  And suddenly Fred, struggling on with bent head
+against the wind, saw that the front of his blue sweater was growing
+powdered with white grains.
+
+"We're caught, boys!" he exclaimed; and they stopped to look at the
+menacing sky.
+
+Snow was drifting down in fine powder, and glancing over the ice past
+their feet.  Straight down from the great Hudson Bay barrens the storm
+was coming, and the roar of the forest, now that they stopped to
+listen, was like that of the tempestuous sea.
+
+"'Snow meal, snow a great deal,'" Macgregor quoted, with forced
+cheerfulness.
+
+"Let's hope not!" exclaimed Maurice.
+
+And Fred added: "Anyhow, let's get on while we can."
+
+On they went, skating fast.  As yet the snow was no hindrance, for it
+spun off the smooth ice as fast as it fell.  It was the wind that
+troubled them, for it roared down the river channel with disheartening
+force.
+
+It was especially discouraging to be checked thus on the last lap, but
+none of them thought of giving up.  They settled doggedly to the task,
+although it took all their strength and wind to keep going.  But all
+three were in pretty good training, and they stuck to it for more than
+an hour.  The forest was growing dark, and the snow was coming faster.
+Then Maurice, rather dubiously, suggested a halt.
+
+"Nonsense!  We're good for another ten miles, at least!" cried Peter,
+who seemed tireless.
+
+They shot ahead again.  Evening settled early, with the snow falling
+thick.  The ice was white now; skates and toboggan left black streaks,
+immediately obliterated by fresh flakes.  Just before complete darkness
+fell, the boys made a short halt, built a fire, and boiled tea.  No
+more was said of camping.  They had tacitly resolved to struggle on as
+long as they could keep going, for they knew that they would have no
+chance to use their skates after that night.
+
+It grew dark, but never pitch dark, for the reflection from the snow
+gave light enough for them to see the road.  Even yet the snow lay so
+light that the blades cut it without an effort.
+
+The wind, however, was hard to fight against.  In spite of his amateur
+championship, Fred was the first to give out.  For some time he had
+felt himself flagging, dropping behind, and then recovering; but all at
+once his legs gave way, and he collapsed in a heap on the ice, half
+unconscious from fatigue.
+
+Macgregor and Stark bent over him.
+
+"Got to put him on the toboggan," declared the Scotchman.
+
+Maurice felt that it was madness for two of them to try to haul the
+greater load, but without protest he helped to roll the dazed youngster
+in the blankets, and to strap him on the sledge.  The next stage always
+seemed to him a sort of waking nightmare; he never quite knew how long
+it lasted.  The wind bore against him like a wall; the drag of the
+toboggan seemed intolerable.  Half dead with exhaustion and fatigue, he
+fixed his eyes on Macgregor's broad back, and went on with short,
+forced strokes, with the feeling that each marked the extreme limit of
+his strength.
+
+Suddenly his leader stopped.  A great black space seemed to have opened
+in the white road ahead.
+
+"Another portage!" Macgregor shouted in Maurice's ear.
+
+A long, unfrozen rapid was thundering in the gloom.  With maddening
+difficulty, Maurice and Macgregor hacked a road through willow thickets
+and got the toboggan past.
+
+Again they were on the ice, with the rapid behind them.  It seemed to
+Maurice that the horror of that exertion would never end; then suddenly
+the night seemed to turn pitch black, and he felt himself shaken by the
+shoulder.
+
+"Get on the toboggan, Maurice!  Come, wake up!" Macgregor was saying.
+"Wake up!"
+
+Dimly he realized that he was sitting on the ice--that they had
+stopped--that Fred was up again.  Too stupefied to question anything,
+he rolled into the blanket out of which Fred had crawled, and instantly
+went sound asleep.
+
+It seemed only a moment until he was roused again.  Drunk with sleep,
+he clutched the towrope blindly, while Fred, who was completely done
+this time, again took his place on the sledge.  Only Macgregor seemed
+proof against fatigue.  Bent against the gale, he skated vigorously at
+the forward end of the line, and his strong voice shouted back
+encouragements that Maurice hardly heard.
+
+The snow was now growing so deep on the ice that the skates ploughed
+through it with difficulty.  Still the boys labored on, minute after
+minute, mile after mile.  Maurice felt numb with fatigue and half
+asleep as he skated blindly, and suddenly he ran sharply into
+Macgregor, who had stopped short.  There was another break just
+ahead--a long cascade this time, where snowy pocks showed like white
+blurs on the black water.
+
+"Going to portage?" mumbled Maurice.
+
+"No use trying to go any farther," replied the medical student, and his
+voice was hoarse.  "Fred's played out.  Snow's getting too deep,
+anyway.  Better camp here."
+
+Maurice would have been glad to drop where he stood.  But they dragged
+the toboggan ashore somehow, caring little where they landed it.  Peter
+rolled Fred off into the snow.  The boy groaned, but did not waken, and
+they began to unpack the supplies with stiffened hands.
+
+"Got to get something hot into us quick," said Peter thickly.  "Help me
+make a fire."
+
+Probably they were all nearer death than they realized.  Maurice wanted
+only to sleep.  However, in a sort of daze, he broke off branches,
+peeled bark, and they had a fire blazing up in the falling snowflakes.
+The wind whirled and scattered it, but they piled on larger sticks, and
+Macgregor filled the kettle from the river.  When the water was hot he
+poured in a whole tin of condensed milk, added a cake of chocolate, a
+handful of sugar and another of oatmeal, too stiffened to measure out
+anything.
+
+Maurice had collapsed into a dead sleep in the snow.  Peter shook him
+awake, and between them they managed to arouse Fred with great
+difficulty.  Still half asleep they swallowed the rich, steaming mess
+from the kettle.  It set their blood moving again, but they were too
+thoroughly worn out to think of building a camp.  They crept into their
+sleeping-bags, buttoned the naps down over their heads and went to
+sleep regardless of consequences.
+
+Fred awoke to find himself almost steaming hot, and in utter darkness
+and silence.  All his muscles ached, and he could not imagine where he
+was.  A weight held him down when he tried to move, but he turned over
+at last and sat up with an effort.  A glare of white light made him
+blink.  He had been buried under more than two feet of snow.
+
+It was broad daylight.  All the world was white, and a raging snowstorm
+was driving through the forest.  The tree-tops creaked and roared, and
+the powdery snow whirled like smoke.  Fred felt utterly bewildered.
+There was no sign of the camp-fire, nor of the toboggan, nor of any of
+his companions, nothing but a few mounds on the drifted white surface.
+
+Finally he crawled out of his sleeping-outfit and dug into one of these
+mounds.  Two feet down he came upon the surface of a sleeping-bag, and
+punched it vigorously.  It stirred; the flap opened, and Macgregor
+thrust his face out, blinking, red and dazed.
+
+"Time to get up!" Fred shouted.
+
+Mac crawled out and shook off the snow, looking disconcerted.
+
+"Snowed in, with a vengeance!" he remarked.  "Where's the camp--and
+where's Maurice?"
+
+After prodding about they located the third member of their party at
+last, and dug him out.  As for the camp, there was none, and they could
+only guess at where the toboggan with their stores might be buried.
+
+"This ends our skating," said Maurice.  "It'll have to be snowshoes
+after this.  Good thing we got so far last night."
+
+"No thanks to me!" Fred remarked.  "I was the expert skater; I believe
+I said I'd set the pace, and I was the first to cave in.  I hope I do
+better with the snowshoes."
+
+"Neither snowshoes nor skates to-day," said Peter.  "We can't travel
+till this storm blows over.  Nothing for it but to build a camp and sit
+tight."
+
+After groping about for some time they found the toboggan, unstrapped
+the snowshoes, and used them as shovels to clear away a circular place.
+In doing so they came upon the black brands of last night's fire, with
+the camp kettle upon them where they had left it.  Fred ploughed
+through the snow and collected wood for a fresh fire, while Peter and
+Maurice set up stakes and poles and built a roof of hemlock branches to
+afford shelter from the storm.  It was only a rude shed with one side
+open to face the fire, but it kept off the snow and wind and proved
+fairly comfortable.  Fred had coffee made by this time, and it did not
+take long to fry a pan of bacon.  They seated themselves on a heap of
+boughs at the edge of the shelter and ate and drank.  They all were
+stiff and sore, but the hot food and coffee made a decided improvement.
+
+"What surprises me," remarked Maurice, "is that we didn't freeze last
+night, sleeping under the snow.  But I never felt warmer in bed."
+
+"It was the snow that did it.  Snow makes a splendid nonconductor of
+heat," replied Macgregor.  "Better than blankets.  I remember hearing
+of a man who was caught by a blizzard crossing a big barren up north
+with a train of dogs.  The dogs wouldn't face the storm; he lost his
+directions; and finally he turned the sledge over and got under it with
+the dogs around him, and let it snow.  He stayed there a day and a
+half, asleep most of the time, and wouldn't have known when the storm
+was over, only that a pack of timber wolves smelt him and tried to dig
+him out.  They ran when they found out what was there, but he bagged
+two of them with his rifle."
+
+"I don't believe even timber wolves would have wakened me this morning.
+I never was so stiff and used up in my life," Maurice commented on this
+tale of adventure.
+
+"Yes, we need the rest," said Mac.  "We overdid it yesterday, and we
+couldn't have gone far to-day in any case."
+
+"But meanwhile that man at the cabin may be dying," exclaimed Fred.
+
+"If he's dead it can't be helped," responded the Scotchman.  "We're
+doing all that's humanly possible.  But if he's alive, don't forget
+that he can't get away while this storm lasts, any more than we can."
+
+"Well, it looks as if the storm would last all day," said Fred, gazing
+upwards.
+
+The blizzard did last all that day, reaching its height toward the
+middle of the afternoon, but it was not extremely cold, and the boys
+were fairly comfortable.  They lounged on the blankets in the shelter
+of the camp, and recuperated from their fatigue, discussing their
+chances of still reaching the cabin in time to do any good.  None of
+them could guess accurately how far they had come in that terrible
+night, but at the worst they could not think the cabin more than forty
+miles farther.  This distance would have to be traveled on snowshoes,
+however, not skates, and none of the boys were very expert snowshoers.
+It would be certainly more than one day's tramp.
+
+Toward night the wind lessened, though it was still snowing fast.  The
+boys piled on logs enough to keep the fire smouldering all night in
+spite of the snowflakes, and went to sleep under cover of the hemlock
+roof.  Maurice awoke toward the middle of the night, and noticed
+drowsily that it had stopped snowing, and that a star or two was
+visible overhead.
+
+Next morning dawned sparkling clear and very cold, with not a breath of
+wind.  Everything was deep and fluffy with the fresh snow, and when the
+sun came up the glare was almost blinding.  It would be good weather
+for snowshoe travel, and the boys all felt fit again for another hard
+day.
+
+After breakfast, therefore, they packed the supplies upon the toboggan,
+unscrewed the steel runners, and put on the new snowshoes.
+
+"We'd better stick to the river," Peter remarked.  "It may make it a
+little farther, but it gives us a clear road, and if we follow the
+river we can't miss the cabin."
+
+"No danger of going through air-holes in the ice?" queried Fred.
+
+"Not much.  An air-hole isn't generally big enough to let a snowshoe go
+through.  We'll pull you out if you do.  Come along."
+
+Off they went again.  But they had not gone far before discovering that
+travel was going to be less easy than they had thought.  The snow was
+light and the snowshoes sank deep.  They moved in a cloud of puffing
+white powder, and the heavy toboggan went down so that it was difficult
+to draw it.  Without the smooth, level road of the river they could
+hardly have progressed at all.
+
+They braced themselves to the work and plodded on, taking turns at
+going first to break the road.  The sun shone down in a white dazzle.
+There was no heat in it, but the glare was so strong that they had to
+pull their caps low over their eyes for fear of snow-blindness--the
+most deadly enemy of the winter traveler in the North.  During the
+forenoon they thought they made hardly more than ten miles, and at noon
+they halted, made a fire and boiled tea.
+
+The hot drink and an hour's rest made them ready for the road again.
+Twice that afternoon they had to make a long detour through the woods
+to avoid unfrozen rapids, and once the brush was so dense that they had
+to cut a way for the toboggan with the axe.  Once, too, the ice
+suddenly cracked under Fred's foot, and he flung himself forward just
+in time to avoid the black water gushing up through the snowed-over
+air-hole.
+
+The life of the wilderness was beginning to emerge after the storm.
+Along the shores they saw the tracks of mink.  Once they encountered a
+plunging trail across the river where several timber wolves must have
+crossed the night before, and late in the afternoon Maurice shot a
+couple of spruce grouse in a thicket.  He flung them on the toboggan,
+and they arrived at camp that night frozen into solid lumps.
+
+It was plainly impossible to reach the cabin that day.  Peter, who was
+keenly on the lookout, failed to recognize any of the landmarks.
+
+"We'd better camp early, boys," he said.  "We can't make it to-day, and
+there's no use in getting snowshoe cramp and being tied up for a week."
+
+They kept on, however, till the sun was almost down.  A faint but
+piercing northwest breeze had arisen, and they halted in the lee of a
+dense cedar thicket close to the river.  A huge log had fallen down the
+shore, and this would make an excellent backing for the fire during the
+night.
+
+Drawing up the toboggan, the boys took off their snowshoes and began to
+shovel out a circular pit for the camp.  The snow had drifted deep in
+that spot.  Before they came to the bottom the snow was heaped so high
+that the pit was shoulder-deep.  It was all the better for shelter, and
+they cut cedar poles and roofed one side of it, producing a most cozy
+and sheltered nook.
+
+Fred continued to pull cedar twigs for bedding, while Peter and Maurice
+unpacked the toboggan and lighted the fire against the big log.  Now
+that it was laid bare this log proved to be indeed a monster.  It must
+have been nearly three feet in diameter, and was probably hollow, but
+would keep the fire smouldering indefinitely.  Fred plucked the frozen
+grouse with some difficulty, cut them up and put them into the kettle
+to thaw out and stew.
+
+This consumed some time, and it was rather late when supper was ready.
+A bitterly cold night was setting in.  The icy breeze whined through
+the trees, but the sheltered pit of the camp was a warm and cozy place,
+casting its firelight high into the branches overhead.
+
+Snowshoe cramp had attacked none of the boys, but the unaccustomed
+muscles were growing stiff and sore.  By Macgregor's advice they all
+took off moccasins and stockings and massaged their calves and ankles
+thoroughly, afterwards roasting them well before the fire.  One side of
+the big log was a glowing red ember now, and they piled fresh wood
+beside it, laid the rifles ready, and crept into their sleeping-bags
+under the shelter.
+
+Fred did not know how long he had slept when he was awakened by a sort
+of nervous shock.  He raised his head and glanced about.  All was still
+in the camp.  His companions lay motionless in their bags.  The fire
+had burned low, and the air of the zero night cut his face like a
+knife.  He could not imagine what had awakened him, but he felt that he
+ought to get up and replenish the fire and he was trying to make up his
+mind to crawl out of his warm nest when he was startled by a sort of
+dull, jarring rumble.
+
+It seemed to come from the fire itself.  Fred uttered a scared cry that
+woke both the other boys instantly.
+
+"What's the matter?  What is it?" they both exclaimed.
+
+Before Fred could answer, there was a sort of upheaval.  The fire was
+dashed aside.  Smoke and ashes flew in every direction, and they had a
+cloudy glimpse of something charging out through the smoke--something
+huge and black and lightning quick.
+
+"Jump!  Run!" yelled Peter, scrambling to get out of his sleeping-bag.
+
+At the shout and scramble the animal wheeled like a flash and plunged
+at the side of the pit, trying to reach the top with a single leap.  It
+fell short, and came down in a cloud of snow.
+
+Fred had got clear from the encumbering bag by this time, and
+floundered out of the pit without knowing exactly how he did it.  He
+found Maurice close behind him.  Peter missed his footing and tumbled
+back with a horrified yell, and Maurice seized him by the leg as he
+went down and dragged him back bodily.
+
+Before they recovered from their panic they bolted several yards away,
+plunging knee-deep in the drifts, and then Peter stopped.
+
+"Hold on!" he exclaimed.  "It isn't after us!"
+
+"But what was it?" stammered Maurice, out of breath.
+
+Looking back, they could see nothing but the faint glow from the
+scattered brands.  But they could not overlook the whole interior of
+the camp, where the intruder must be now lying quiet.
+
+Trying to collect himself, Fred told how he had been awakened.
+
+"It came straight out of the fire!" he declared.
+
+"Out of the log, I guess," said Peter.  "Here, I know what it must be.
+It's simply a bear!"
+
+"A bear!" ejaculated Fred.
+
+"Yes, a bear, that must have had his winter den in that big log.  He
+was hibernating there, and our fire burned into his den and roused him
+out.  That's all."
+
+"Quite enough, I should think," said Maurice.  "Bears are ugly-tempered
+when they're disturbed from their winter dens, I've heard.  He's got
+possession of our camp, now.  What'll we do?"
+
+"We'll freeze if we don't do something pretty quick," Fred added.
+
+In fact the boys were standing in stockinged feet in the snow, and the
+night was bitterly cold.  All looked quiet in what they could see of
+the camp.
+
+"I don't see why one of us hadn't the wit to grab a gun!" said Peter
+bitterly.
+
+He turned and began to wade back cautiously toward the camp.  The other
+boys followed him, till they were close enough to look into the pit.
+No animal was in sight.
+
+"Perhaps he's bolted out the other side," muttered Peter.  "Who's going
+to go down there and find out?"
+
+Nobody volunteered.  If the bear was still in the camp he must be under
+the roofed-over shelter, and, in fact, as they stood shivering and
+listening they heard a sound of stirring about under the cedar poles of
+the roof.
+
+"He's there!" exclaimed Fred.
+
+"And eating up our stores, as like as not!" cried Maurice.
+
+This made the case considerably more serious.
+
+"We must get him out of that!" Macgregor exclaimed.
+
+How to do it was the difficulty, and, still more, how to do it with
+safety.  Both the rifles were still lying loaded under the shelter,
+probably under the very feet of the bear.
+
+"Well, we've got to take a chance!" declared Macgregor at last.  "Talk
+about cold feet!  We'll certainly have them frozen if we stand here
+much longer.  Scatter out, boys, all around the camp.  Then we'll
+snowball the brute out.  Likely he's too scared to want to fight.
+Anyhow, if he jumps out on one side, the man on the opposite side must
+jump into the camp and grab a rifle."
+
+It looked risky, to provoke a charge from the animal in that deep snow,
+where they could hardly move, but they waded around the camp till they
+stood at equal distances apart, surrounding the hollowed space.
+
+"Now let him have it!" cried Peter.
+
+Immediately they began to throw snowballs into the camp, aiming at that
+dark hole under the cedar roof where the animal was hidden.  But the
+snow was too dry to pack into lumps, and the light masses they flung
+produced no effect.  Peter broke off branches from a dead tree and
+threw them into the shelter, without causing the bear to come out.
+Finally Fred, who happened to be standing beside a birch tree, peeled
+off a great strip of bark and lighted it with a match.
+
+"Hold on!  Don't throw that!" yelled Peter.
+
+He was too late.  Fred had already cast the flaming mass into the camp,
+too close to the piles of cedar twigs.  The resinous leaves caught and
+flashed up.  There was a glare of smoky flame--a wild scramble and
+scurry under the shelter, and the bear burst out, and plunged at the
+snowy sides of the pit on the side opposite Fred's position.
+
+He fell back as he had done before, but floundered up with a second
+leap.  Maurice, who was nearest, gave a shrill yell and tried to dash
+aside, but he stumbled and went head-long in the deep snow.
+
+Fred instantly leaped into the camp.  The shelter was full of smoke and
+light flame, but he knew where the rifles lay, and snatched one.
+Straightening up, he was just in time to see the bear vanishing with
+long leaps into the darkness, ploughing up clouds of snow.
+
+He fired one shot wildly, then another, but there was no sign of the
+animal's being stopped, and the next instant it was out of sight.
+
+"Quick!  Stamp out this fire!" exclaimed Peter at his shoulder.
+
+They tore down the flaming branches and beat them out in the snow.  The
+light flame was easily put out, but it left the camp a chaos of
+blackened twigs and ashes.
+
+"Well, we turned him out," said Maurice, who had hastened in to help.
+"Did you hit him, do you think?"
+
+"I wish I'd killed him!" said Fred.  "He's ruined our camp.  But I
+don't believe I touched him.  He was going too fast."
+
+Peter had raked the camp-fire together and thrown on fresh wood.  A
+bright blaze sprang up, and by its light they took off their stockings
+and looked for the dead white of frozen toes.  But it was only Maurice
+who had suffered the least frost-bite, and this yielded to a little
+snow-rubbing.  The heavy woolen stockings, and perhaps the depth of the
+snow itself had protected the rest of them.
+
+Putting on his moccasins Fred then went to look for results from his
+shots, but came back reporting not a drop of blood on the snow.  The
+bullets had missed cleanly, and the animal was probably miles away by
+that time.
+
+"What do you suppose he'll do for the rest of the winter?" Maurice
+asked.
+
+"Oh, he'll find some hole to crawl into, or perhaps he'll just creep
+under a log and let the snow bury him," said Peter.  "He'll have to
+look a long time to find another snug nest like this one, though."
+
+The big log was hollow, as they had thought, and the fire had burned
+well into the cavity.  They could see the nest where the bear had lain,
+soft with rotted wood and strewn with black hairs.  It seemed a pity to
+have turned him out of so cozy a sleeping-place.
+
+The boys' own sleeping-place was in a complete state of wreck.  The
+cedar roofing had fallen in, and everything was littered with snow and
+burned brush.  The fire had been too light and too quickly extinguished
+to do any damage to the stores, however, and they were relieved to find
+that the bear had eaten none of the bacon or bread.  Probably the
+animal had been merely cowering there for shelter, afraid to come out.
+
+They did not attempt to rebuild the shelter roof, but cleared away the
+snow and ashes, and sat in their sleeping-bags by the fire.  After all
+the excitement none of them felt like sleeping.  They were hungry,
+though, and finally they boiled tea and cooked a pan of bacon and dried
+eggs.  Even after this they lay talking for a long time, and it was
+between midnight and dawn when they finally fell asleep.
+
+This was the reason why it was long after sunrise when they awoke,
+feeling rather as if they had had a bad night.  It was another clear,
+bright day, though still very cold, and they felt it imperative that
+they should reach the cabin before nightfall.
+
+That forenoon they made all the speed they could, halted for only a
+brief rest at noon, and pushed on energetically through the afternoon.
+The cabin could not be far, unless Macgregor had mistaken the way.
+Look as he would, he could not make out any landmarks that he could
+remember; but he had been through only by canoe in the summer, and the
+woods have a very different appearance in the winter.
+
+As the afternoon wore on they began to grow anxious.  At every turning
+they looked eagerly ahead, but they saw nothing except the unbroken
+forest.  It was nearly sunset when Maurice suddenly pointed forward
+with a shout of excitement.
+
+They had just rounded a bend of the river.  A hundred yards away,
+nestling in a hemlock thicket, stood a squat log hut.  But no trail led
+to its door, no smoke rose from its chimney, the snow had drifted
+almost to its eaves, and it looked gloomy and desolate as the darkening
+wilderness itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+There was so grim an air of desolation about the hut that the boys
+stopped short with a sense of dread.
+
+"Can this really be it?" Maurice muttered.
+
+The hut and its surroundings were exactly as the Indian had described
+them.  They ventured forward hesitatingly, reconnoitered, and
+approached the door.  It stood ajar two or three inches; a heavy drift
+of snow lay against it.  Clearly no living man was in the cabin.
+
+"We've come too late, boys," said Macgregor.  "However, let's have a
+look."
+
+Using one of his snowshoes as a shovel, he began to clear the doorway.
+Fred helped him.  They scraped away the snow, and forced the door open.
+
+For fear of infection, they contented themselves with peeping in from
+the entrance; a glance showed them that no man was in that dim
+interior, dead or alive.
+
+The cabin was a mere hut, built of small logs, chinked with moss and
+mud, and was less than five feet high at the eaves.  The floor was of
+clay; the roof appeared to be of bark and moss thatch, supported on
+poles.  A small window of some skin or membrane let in a faint light,
+and the rough fireplace was full of snow that had blown down the
+chimney.
+
+No one was there, but some one had left in haste.  The whole interior
+was in the wildest confusion, littered with all sorts of articles of
+forest housekeeping flung about pell-mell--cooking-utensils, scraps of
+clothing, blankets, furs, traps; they could not make out all the
+articles that encumbered the floor.
+
+"The fellow must have simply got well and gone away with the other
+half-breed," said Macgregor, after they had surveyed the place in
+silence.  "Well, that ends our hope of being millionaires next year.
+We've come on a fool's errand."
+
+"Nothing for it now but to go home again, is there?" said Fred, in
+disgust.
+
+"We've come one hundred and fifty miles to see this camp, and we ought
+to look through it," said Maurice.
+
+"We must disinfect the place before we can go in.  And there's no
+chance of our finding any diamonds here," Fred remarked.
+
+"I want to have a look through, anyway.  Let's get out the fumigating
+machine."
+
+It was a formaldehyde outfit, consisting simply of a can of the
+disinfectant with a bracket attached underneath to hold a small spirit
+lamp.  By the heat of the flame, formalin gas, one of the deadliest
+germ-killers known, was given off.
+
+Macgregor opened the can, lighted the pale spirit flame, and set the
+apparatus on a rude shelf that happened to be just inside the hut.
+They forced the door shut again, and sealed it by throwing water
+against it, for the water promptly froze.  It was not necessary to
+close the chimney, for the germicidal gas is heavier than air, and
+fills a room exactly as water fills a tank.
+
+As it would take the disinfectant ten or twelve hours to do its work,
+they hastened to construct a camp, for it was growing dark.  It was a
+rather melancholy evening.  The nearness of the cabin, with its
+sinister associations, affected them disagreeably; and, moreover, they
+were all tired with the day's tramp, and chagrined and mortified at
+having come, as Peter said, "on a fool's errand."  After all their
+glittering hopes, there was nothing now for them except a week's
+snowshoe tramp back to Waverley, with barely enough provisions to see
+them through.
+
+Still they were curious about the cabin, and before breakfast the next
+morning they burst open the ice-sealed door.  A suffocating odor issued
+forth, so powerful that they staggered back.
+
+"Good gracious!" gasped Fred, after a spasm of coughing.  "It must
+certainly be safe after that!"
+
+They found it impossible to go in until the gas had cleared away, and
+so, leaving the door wide open, they returned to breakfast.  Afterward
+they idled about, trying to kill time; it was afternoon before they
+could venture inside the cabin for more than a moment.
+
+It was disagreeable even then, for the whole interior was filled with
+the heavy, suffocating odor.  They coughed, and their eyes watered, but
+they managed to endure it.
+
+As they had seen, the contents of the place were all topsy-turvy.  The
+furniture consisted solely of a rough table of split planks, and a
+couple of rough seats.  A heap of rusty, brown _sapin_ in a corner,
+covered with a torn blanket, represented a bed--possibly the one in
+which the trapper had died.
+
+In one corner stood a double-barreled shotgun, still loaded.  Three
+pairs of snowshoes were thrust under the rafters; several worn
+moccasins lay on the floor, along with nearly a dozen steel traps, a
+bundle of furs, some of which were valuable, a camp kettle, an axe,
+strips of hide, dry bones, a blanket, fishing-tackle--an unspeakable
+litter of things, some worthless, some to men in a wilderness precious
+as gold.
+
+The last occupants had plainly left in such a desperate hurry that they
+had abandoned most of their possessions.  Why had they done it?  The
+boys could not guess.
+
+The heavy formalin fumes rose and choked them as they poked over the
+rubbish.  But they found nothing to show the fate of the prospector and
+the surviving half-breed, or even to tell them whether this was really
+the cabin they were seeking.
+
+"Throw this rubbish into the fireplace," said Macgregor.  "Burning is
+the best thing for it, and the fire will ventilate the place.  There's
+no danger of germs on the metal things."
+
+"These furs are worth something," said Fred, who had been looking them
+over.  "There are a dozen or so of mink and marten--enough to pay the
+expenses of the trip."
+
+They laid the furs aside, and cramming the rest of the litter into the
+snowy fireplace, with the dead balsam boughs, set it afire.  In the red
+blaze the hut assumed an unexpectedly homelike aspect.
+
+"Not such a bad place for the winter, after all," Maurice remarked,
+casting his eye about.  "I shouldn't mind spending a month trapping
+here myself.  What if we did, fellows, eh?  Here are plenty of traps,
+and we might clear three or four hundred dollars, with a little luck."
+
+"Here's something new," interrupted Peter, who had been grubbing about
+in a corner.
+
+He came forward with a woodsman's "turkey" in his hands--a heavy canvas
+knapsack, much stained and battered, and rather heavy.
+
+"Something in this," he continued, trying the rusty buckles.  "Why,
+what's the matter, Fred?"
+
+For Fred had uttered a sudden cry, and they saw his face turn deathly
+white.  He snatched the sack, tore it open, and shook it out.
+
+A number of pieces of rock fell to the floor, a couple of geologist's
+hammers, a pair of socks, and a couple of small, oilcloth-covered
+notebooks.
+
+On these Fred pounced, and opened them.  They were full of penciled
+notes.
+
+"They're his!" the boy exclaimed wildly.  "They're Horace's notebooks!
+I knew his turkey.  Horace was here.  Don't you see?  _He_ was the sick
+man!"
+
+For a minute his companions, hardly comprehending, looked on in
+amazement.  Then Macgregor took one of the books from his hand.  On the
+inside of the cover was plainly written, "Horace Osborne, Toronto."
+
+"It's true!" he muttered.  "It must really have been Horace."  Then,
+collecting his wits, he added, "But he must be all right, since he's
+gone away."
+
+"No!" Fred cried.  "He'd never have gone away leaving his notes and
+specimens.  It was his whole summer's work.  He'd have thrown away
+anything else.  He must be dead."
+
+"He was vaccinated.  He's sure not to have died of smallpox," Peter
+urged.
+
+Fred had collapsed on the mud floor, holding the "turkey," and fairly
+crying.
+
+"He had the diamonds on him.  That half-breed may have murdered him,
+and then fled in a hurry.  Things look like it," said Maurice aside to
+Peter.
+
+"Yes, but then Horace's body would be here," the Scotchman returned.
+"I don't understand it."
+
+"They can't have both died, either, or they'd both be here.  So they
+must both have gone.  But no trapper would have left these valuable
+pelts, any more than Horace would have left his notes."
+
+"There's something mysterious here," said Fred, getting up resolutely,
+and wiping the tears from his eyes.  "Horace has been here.
+Something's happened to him, and we've got to find out what it is."
+
+"And we'll find out--if it takes all winter!" Macgregor assured him.
+
+They searched the hut afresh, but found no clues.  They now regretted
+having burned the heap of rubbish, which perhaps had contained
+something to throw light on the problem.
+
+During the rest of that afternoon they searched and searched again
+throughout the cabin, and prowled about its neighborhood.  They dug
+into the snowdrifts, poked into the brushwood, scouted into the forest
+in the faint hope of finding something that would cast light on
+Horace's fate.  All they found was the trapper's birch canoe, laid up
+ashore, and buried in snow.
+
+At dusk they got supper, and ate it in a rather gloomy silence.
+
+"We've nothing to go on," said Macgregor.  "I can't believe that Horace
+is dead, though, and we must stay on the spot till we know something
+more definite."
+
+"Of course we must," Maurice agreed.
+
+"I shouldn't have asked it of you, boys," said Fred.  "I'd made up my
+mind to stay, though, till I found out something certain--and it would
+have been mighty lonely."
+
+"Nonsense!  Do you think we'd have left you?" Maurice exclaimed.
+"Aren't we all Horace's friends?  The only thing I'm thinking of is the
+grub.  We have barely enough for a week more."
+
+"What of that?" said Peter.  "We have rifles, haven't we?  The woods
+ought to be full of deer--plenty of partridges and small game, anyway.
+We must make a regular business of hunting till we get enough meat for
+a week, and we must economize, of course, on our bread and canned
+stuff.  Then there are sure to be whitefish or trout in the nearest
+lake, and we can fish through the ice.  Lucky the Indians left their
+hooks and lines.  And we can trap, too."
+
+"Boys," cried Fred, "you're both bricks.  You're solid gold--"  A choke
+in his voice stopped him.
+
+"A pair of gold bricks!" laughed Maurice, with a suspicious huskiness
+in his own tones.
+
+But the thing was settled.
+
+It turned colder that night, and the next day dawned with blustering
+snow flurries.  Their open camp was far from comfortable, and with some
+reluctance they moved into the cabin.
+
+A good deal of fresh snow had drifted in, but they swept it out,
+brought in fresh balsam twigs for couches, and lighted a roaring fire.
+
+The hut was decidedly homelike and cozy, and a vast improvement on the
+open camp.  The smell of formaldehyde had gone entirely.  The light
+from the skin-covered window was poor, but that seemed to be the only
+drawback, until, as the temperature rose, the roof showed a leak near
+the door.  Snow water dripped in freely, in spite of their efforts to
+stop it, until Maurice finally clambered to the roof, cleared away the
+snow, tore up the thatch, and covered the defective spot with a large
+piece of old deer-hide.
+
+In the afternoon it stopped snowing; Macgregor and Fred, with the two
+rifles, made a wide circuit round the cabin, but killed no game except
+half a dozen spruce grouse.  Not a deer trail did they see; probably
+the animals were yarded for the winter.
+
+Without being discouraged, however, Peter set out again the next
+morning, this time with Maurice.  Fred, left alone, spent most of the
+day in cutting wood and storing it by the cabin door, and the hunters
+did not return until just after sunset.  They were empty-handed, but in
+high spirits, and had a great tale to tell.
+
+Five miles from camp, Maurice and Peter had come upon the fresh trail
+of a moose, and had followed it nearly all day.  Toward the middle of
+the afternoon, however, they were obliged to give up the chase and turn
+back, for they were fully fifteen miles from home.
+
+On the way to the cabin they chanced upon a well-beaten deer trail that
+they felt certain must lead to a "yard."  It was too late to follow it
+that day, but they determined to have a great hunt on the morrow.
+
+Killing yarded deer is not exactly sportsmanlike, and is unlawful
+besides; but law is understood to yield to the necessities of the
+frontier, and the boys needed the meat badly.
+
+The next morning they were off early.  It was clear and cold.  A little
+wind blew the powdery snow like puffs of smoke from the trees, and the
+biting air was full of life.  It was impossible to be anything but gay
+in that atmosphere; even Fred, oppressed with anxiety as he was, felt
+its effect.
+
+The fresh snow was criss-crossed here and there with the tracks of
+small animals,--rabbits, foxes, and squirrels,--and now and again a
+spruce partridge rose with a roar.  These birds were plentiful, and the
+boys might have made a full bag if they had ventured to shoot.
+
+It was nearly noon before they reached the deer trail.  They followed
+it back for some twenty minutes, and came down into a low bottom, grown
+up with small birch and poplar.  Fred had only the vaguest idea what a
+deer yard was like; he half expected a dense huddle of deer in a small,
+beaten space, and he was consequently much startled when he suddenly
+heard a sound of crashing and running in the thickets.
+
+Macgregor's rifle banged almost in his ear.  Maurice fired at the same
+instant.  Something large and grayish had shot up into view behind a
+thicket, and had departed with the speed of an arrow.  Peter fired
+again at the flying target, and Fred caught a single glimpse of a buck,
+with antlered head carried high, vanishing through a screen of birches.
+
+"Hit!" shouted Macgregor, and he ran forward, clicking another
+cartridge into his rifle.
+
+They had walked right into the "yard."  All round them the snow was
+trampled into narrow trails where the herd had moved about, feeding on
+the shrubbery.  With a little more caution they might have got three or
+four of the animals.
+
+They found the buck a hundred yards away, dead in the snow.  It was no
+small task to get him back to the cabin, for he was too fat and heavy
+to carry, even if they had cut him up.  They had to haul the carcass
+with a thong, like a toboggan, over the snow.  The weather changed, and
+it was beginning to bluster again when they arrived, dead tired, to
+find the fire gone out and the cabin cold.  But they rejoiced at being
+supplied with meat enough to last them for perhaps a month.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+That night they heard the timber wolves for the first time, howling
+mournfully a little way back in the woods.  No doubt they had scented
+the fresh carcass of the deer, and probably there would have been no
+venison in the morning if they had not had the wisdom to carry the
+carcass into the cabin.  Peter opened the door quietly and slipped out
+with a cocked rifle, but the wolves were too wary for him.  Not one was
+in sight, and the howling receded and grew fainter.  But they heard it
+at intervals again during the night--a dismal and savage note, that
+made them feel like making the fire burn brighter.
+
+"They must have followed the trail where we dragged the buck home,"
+said Maurice.  "Good thing they didn't happen to strike it before we
+got back."
+
+"Oh, they'd hardly venture to attack three of us," replied Peter.  "I
+almost wish they would.  We could mow them down with our repeaters, and
+you know there's a Government bounty of ten dollars a head on dead
+timber wolves.  We might make quite a pile, and besides the skins must
+be worth something."
+
+"Might set some traps," Fred suggested.
+
+"No use.  The timber wolf is far too wise to get into any steel trap.
+That's why so few of them are killed.  But say, boys, why couldn't we
+manage to ambush 'em?"
+
+"How?" Maurice demanded.
+
+"Well, suppose I shot a couple of rabbits to-morrow night and went
+through the woods dragging them after me, so as to make a blood trail.
+Any wolves that happened to cross it would certainly follow, and I'd
+lead them past a spot where you fellows would be ambushed, ready to
+pump lead into them."
+
+"Sounds all right," said Fred, "but suppose they overtook you before
+you got to the ambush?"
+
+"Oh, they wouldn't dare to attack me.  They'd keep me in sight, stop if
+I stopped, and turn if I turned, waiting for a chance to take me at a
+disadvantage.  A shot would scatter them, anyway.  The only trouble
+would be that they'd scatter so quick when you opened fire that you
+wouldn't be able to bag more than one or two.  And I don't suppose the
+same trick could be worked twice."
+
+They discussed the matter all that evening and grew so enthusiastic
+over it that they determined to try it the next night.  There was no
+hope now of diamonds, and the expedition had cost them nearly two
+hundred dollars.  A few wolf bounties and pelts, together with the furs
+found in the cabin, would cover this and perhaps leave a little profit.
+
+It was cold and cloudy the next day, and they waited impatiently for
+evening.  The moon would not rise till nearly midnight, and it was
+necessary to wait in order to have light enough for the proposed
+ambush.  They sallied out toward eleven o'clock, and shot three
+rabbits, which Peter attached to a deerskin thong.  Selecting an open
+glade, Maurice and Fred established themselves in ambush under the
+thickets, while Peter started on a wide circle through the woods,
+trailing his bait, in the hope of attracting the wolves.
+
+Fred and Maurice waited for more than two hours, nearly frozen,
+stamping and beating their arms, listening for the hunting cry of the
+wolf pack.  At the end of that time Peter reappeared, tired and
+disgusted.  The wolves had failed to do their part, and had not picked
+up the trail.
+
+Still he was not discouraged, and insisted on trying it again the next
+evening.  This time Fred and Maurice stayed in the cabin to keep warm,
+listening intently.  At the first, distant howl they were to rush out
+and ensconce themselves in a prearranged spot, a quarter of a mile up
+the river, which Peter was to pass.  They kept the two repeating
+rifles, while Mac carried the double-barreled gun, loaded with
+buckshot, which they had found in the cabin.
+
+Half a mile from the shanty Peter shot a swamp hare that was nibbling a
+spruce trunk, and a little way farther he secured another.  These
+carcasses he tied together with a deerskin thong as before, and trailed
+them in the wake of his snowshoes.  This time he intended to make a
+longer circuit than on the preceding night.
+
+He dragged this bait across a hardwood ridge and down into a great
+cedar swamp on the other side.  In hard weather all the wild life of
+the woods resorts to such places for shelter, and here the wolves would
+be hunting if there was a pack in the neighborhood.  But he found few
+tracks and no sign at all of wolves.
+
+After traveling slowly for two or three miles, Mac sat down on a log to
+rest, and as the warmth of exercise died out, the cold nipped him to
+the bone through the "four-point" blanket coat.  He got up and moved
+on, intending to return in a long curve toward the cabin.  He did not
+much care, after all, whether he started any wolves.  It was too cold
+for hunting that night.
+
+The dry snow swished round his ankles at the fall of the long racquets.
+He still dragged the dead hares, which were now frozen almost as hard
+as wood, but not too hard to leave a scent.
+
+He had reached the other side of the swamp when his ears caught
+suddenly a high-pitched, mournful howl, ending in a sort of yelp,
+sounding indefinitely far away, yet clearly heard through the tense
+air.  He knew well what it was.  The pack had struck a trail--possibly
+his own, possibly that of a deer.  He would very soon learn which.
+
+Thrilling with excitement, he walked on slowly, turning his head to
+listen.  Again and again he caught the hunting chorus of the wolf pack,
+far away, but still perceptibly nearer.  He was just then in the midst
+of a tangled stretch of second-growth timber, and he hurried on to
+reach more open ground.  As soon as he felt convinced that the pack was
+following him he intended to turn back toward the river.
+
+He kept moving on, however, and at last came to the river before he
+expected it.  He was still more than a mile above the point where the
+ambush was to be set, and he paused on the shore and hearkened.  Far
+away through the moonlit woods he heard the savage, triumphant yell,
+much nearer now--so much so that he felt that he might as well make for
+the ambush at once.  He felt suddenly alone and in peril; he longed
+earnestly to see his companions.
+
+He started down the river at a swinging trot, still listening over his
+shoulder, when the ice suddenly gave way under his feet, and he went
+down with so swift a plunge that he had time for only a shuddering gasp.
+
+He had stepped on an airhole lightly crusted over with snow.  He went
+down to his neck without touching bottom, and the black water surged up
+to his face.  It was the gun that saved him; it caught across the hole,
+and he clung to it fiercely.  As the current fortunately was not rapid,
+he was able to draw himself up and out upon the ice.
+
+But he found himself unable to extricate his feet.  The long-tailed
+snowshoes had gone down point foremost, and now were crossed under the
+ice, and refused to come up.  He dared not cut them loose, for in the
+deep snow he would have been helpless.  Growing fainter at every
+moment, he struggled in the deadly chill of the water for four or five
+minutes before at last he succeeded in bringing them up end first, as
+they had gone down.
+
+When he staggered back stiffly upon the snow the very life seemed
+withdrawn from his bones.  His heavy clothing had frozen into a coat of
+mail almost as hard as iron plate.  There was no sensation left in his
+limbs, and he trembled with a numb shuddering.
+
+Long forest training told him what must be done.  He must have a fire
+at once.  He would have to find a dry birch tree, or a splintered pine
+that would light easily.
+
+His benumbed brain clung to this idea, and he began to stumble toward
+shore, his snowshoes sheets of ice, and his clothes rattling as he
+went.  But with a hunter's instinct he stuck to his gun, tucking it
+under his icy arm.
+
+He could see no birch tree, and the bank was bordered with an
+impenetrable growth of alders.  He dragged himself up the river, and
+each step seemed to require a more and more intolerable exertion.
+
+He could not feel his feet as he lifted and put them down; when he saw
+them moving they looked like things independent of himself.  He had
+ceased to feel cold.  He no longer felt anything, except a deadly
+weariness that was crushing him into the snow.
+
+He went on, however, driven by the fighting instinct, till of a sudden
+he saw it--the birch tree he was seeking, shining spectrally among the
+black spruces by the river.
+
+It was an old, half-dead tree, covered with great curls of bark that
+would flare up at the touch of a match.  He had matches in a
+water-proof box, and he contrived to get them out of his frozen pocket.
+He dropped the box half a dozen times in trying to open it, opened it
+at last with his teeth, and dropped it again, spilling the matches into
+the snow.
+
+Snow is as dry as sand at that temperature, however, and he scraped
+them up, and tried to strike one on the gun barrel.  But he was unable
+to hold the bit of wood in his numbed fingers; there was absolutely no
+feeling in his hands, and the match fell from his grasp at every
+attempt.  This is a familiar peril in the North Woods, where dozens of
+men have frozen to death with firewood and matches beside them, from
+sheer inability to strike a light.
+
+Mac beat his hands together without effect.  He began to grow
+indifferent; and as he fumbled again for the dropped match he fell at
+full length into the snow.
+
+A sense of pleasant relief overcame him, and he decided to rest there
+for a few minutes.  The snow was soft, and he had never before realized
+how warm it was.  His shoulders were propped against the roots of the
+birch, and with a hazy consciousness that game might be expected, he
+dragged his gun across his knees and cocked it.  Then, with a
+comfortable sense of duty done, he closed his eyes.
+
+Curious and delightful fancies began at once to flood his brain,
+fancies so vivid that he seemed not to lose consciousness at all.  How
+long he lay there he never knew.  But he grew alive at last to a
+vise-like pressure on his left arm that seemed to have lasted for
+years, and which was growing to excruciating pain.
+
+He opened his eyes with a great effort.  There were savage, hairy faces
+close to his own, pouring out clouds of steaming breath into the frosty
+air.  Something had him by the arm with such force that he almost felt
+the bones cracking, and something was tugging at his leg.
+
+The nervous shock aroused him as nothing else on earth could have done.
+A tingle of horrified animation rushed through his body.  He was on the
+point of being torn to pieces by the wolf pack that had trailed him,
+and the powerful stimulus of the new peril called out the last reserves
+of strength.
+
+He made a convulsive start.  His frozen hand was on the trigger of the
+shotgun, and both barrels went off.  At the sudden flash and report the
+half-dozen wolves bolted incontinently--all but one gray monster that
+got the full force of the buckshot and dropped in its tracks.
+
+Macgregor staggered to his feet, full of terrible cramps and pains in
+every muscle.  But his head had cleared somewhat.  He saw the dry birch
+tree and again tried to fumble for a match.  Almost by sheer luck he
+succeeded in striking it.  The birch bark caught fire and flamed
+crackling up the trunk.  The dry trunk itself caught and burned like a
+torch.
+
+Macgregor rubbed his face and hands savagely with snow.  They hurt
+intensely, but he welcomed the pain, for it showed that they were not
+frozen.  He was beginning to feel a little more life when he heard the
+creak and flap of snowshoes, and saw Fred and Maurice hurrying up the
+river toward him.
+
+"What's the matter?" they shouted, as soon as within hearing distance.
+"We heard the shot.  See any wolves?"
+
+Mac tried to shout something in answer, but found that he could not
+speak distinctly.
+
+"I see you've bagged one," cried Fred, rushing up.  "Why, man, you're
+covered with ice!  What's happened to you?"
+
+"Been in the river," Peter managed to ejaculate.  "Get my moccasins
+off, boys--rub feet with snow.  Afraid--I'm going--to lose toes!"
+
+With exclamations of sympathy the boys got his frozen outer clothing
+off,--broke it off, in fact, from the caked ice,--removed his moccasins
+and socks, and rubbed his feet with snow.  Several of the toes had
+whitened, but they regained color after some minutes' rubbing, and
+began to hurt excruciatingly.  Peter squirmed with the pain.
+
+"But I don't mind it," he said.  "Rub away, boys.  I certainly thought
+I was going to lose part of my feet."
+
+Perhaps the solid cake of ice that had instantly formed over his heavy
+socks and moccasins had actually protected them from freezing.  At any
+rate, he got off much more easily than he would have thought possible.
+The attack of the wolves had left little mark on him, either.  He had a
+few light lacerations on his hands and face, but for the most part the
+beasts seemed to have laid hold on him where the thick, ice-caked cloth
+was almost like armor plate.  And no doubt the arrival of the pack had
+saved him from death by freezing.
+
+Fred dragged up the carcass of the fallen wolf and skinned its head and
+ears for the Government bounty.  The rest of the pelt was so terribly
+torn with buckshot as to be worthless.
+
+"Your scheme didn't work, Mac," he remarked.
+
+"It did work.  It worked only too well," Macgregor protested.  "It's
+the best scheme for catching wolves I ever heard of."
+
+"You don't want to try it again, do you?"
+
+"Well--that's a different thing!" he admitted.  "No, I don't know that
+I do.  But if I hadn't gone through the ice we would probably have
+bagged nearly the whole pack."
+
+After thorough snow friction Mac considered it safe to approach the
+fire by degrees.  The ice thawed off his clothing, but left him wet to
+the skin.  It was certain that he ought to get back to the cabin and
+dry clothing as soon as possible, and he thought he would be able now
+to travel.  It was less than two miles.
+
+It proved a painful two miles, but he reached the cabin at last, where
+his companions put him to bed in one of the bunks, covered him warmly,
+and dosed him with boiling tea.  It was then growing close to three
+o'clock in the morning.
+
+Naturally they did not get up as early as usual for breakfast.
+Macgregor's feet were sore and somewhat swollen, but there was no
+longer any danger of serious trouble.  He had to remain in the cabin
+that day and was unable to put on his moccasins, but he was much elated
+at his luck in getting off so lightly.  It was snowing and stormy,
+besides; none of the boys went out much, except for the endless task of
+cutting firewood.  They lounged about the cabin and discussed the
+problems that perplexed them so much--whether Horace had really
+discovered any diamonds, and what had become of him, and how and
+why--until the subject was utterly worn out.  Maurice then made a
+checkerboard, and they played matches till they wearied of this
+amusement also.
+
+The next day they had to fall back on it again, however, for the
+weather was still stormy.  During the afternoon it snowed heavily.
+Mac's feet were much better, and he wore his moccasins, but judged it
+unsafe to go out into the snow for another day.  In the midst of the
+storm Fred and Maurice cut down a couple of dead hemlocks, and chopped
+part of them up for fuel.  It was amazing to see what a quantity of
+wood the rough fireplace consumed.
+
+"If we had acres of diamond beds we couldn't afford such fires in
+town," Maurice remarked.
+
+The next day the weather cleared, but turned bitterly cold.  In the
+afternoon Maurice ventured out to look for game, and came back about
+four o'clock with three spruce grouse and a frost-bitten nose.  The
+boys were all standing outside the cabin door, when Fred suddenly
+started.
+
+Round the bend a sledge had just appeared on the river.  It was drawn
+by six dogs, coming at a flagging trot through the deep snow; four men
+on snowshoes ran behind and beside it.  For a moment the men seemed to
+hesitate as they caught sight of the hut.  But they came on, turned up
+the shore, and drove straight to the cabin at a gallop.
+
+Three of the _voyageurs_ were plainly French Canadians, or possibly
+French half-breeds, wiry, weather-beaten men, dark almost as Indians;
+the fourth was big and heavily built, and wore a red beard that was now
+a mass of ice.  All of them wore cartridge belts, and four rifles lay
+on the packed sledge.
+
+"_Bo' jou'_!" cried the dark-faced men, as they came within hailing
+distance.
+
+"_Bon jour_!" Maurice shouted back.  He was the only one who knew any
+French, and he knew but little.  He was searching his memory for a few
+more words, when the red-bearded man came forward and nodded.
+
+"Didn't know any one was living here this winter," he said.  "Trapping?"
+
+"Hunting a little," said Macgregor.  "Unharness your dogs and come
+inside.  It's a cold day for the trail."
+
+"You bet!" said one of the French, and they made no difficulty about
+accepting the invitation.  They rapidly unhitched the dogs, which had
+sat down, snarling and snapping in their traces; then they unpacked the
+sledge and carried the dunnage inside the cabin.
+
+They were a wild-looking set.  The French Canadians were probably
+woodsmen, shanty-men or hunters, apparently good-natured and jovial,
+but rough and uncivilized.  The Anglo-Saxon, who seemed to be their
+leader, was more repellent, and when he took off his _capote_, he
+revealed a countenance of savage brutality, with small eyes, a cruel
+mouth, and a protuberant jaw, framed in masses of bricky red hair and
+beard.
+
+"I don't much like the looks of this crowd!" Maurice whispered in
+Macgregor's ear.
+
+"Rough lot, but they'll be away in the morning," answered Peter.
+
+In the North it is obligatory to be hospitable, and the boys prepared
+to feed and entertain the party as if they were the most welcome
+guests.  At the usual time they prepared supper.  The four newcomers
+ate enormously.  During the meal the red-bearded man explained that his
+name was Mitchell, that he was "going north with these breeds," as he
+rather vaguely put it, and that they had run somewhat short of
+provisions.
+
+Luckily, they had food for the dogs; one of the "breeds" presently
+produced six frozen whitefish and carried them outside, where he gave
+one to each dog with much dexterity.  The fish were bolted in a
+twinkling, and the unhappy brutes began to look for a sheltered spot
+where they could sleep through the sub-Arctic night.
+
+After supper the French, stuffed to repletion, lay back and engaged in
+an animated conversation in a dialect that seemed to be a mixture of
+French, English, and Ojibwa.  They laughed uproariously, and seemed
+thoroughly happy.  But Mitchell said little, and continually examined
+the interior of the hut with keen, restless eyes.
+
+The next morning the visitors showed no anxiety to be off.  They fed
+the dogs, lounged about, smoked, and stayed until dinner time.  After
+dinner Mitchell announced that the dogs were tired, and would have to
+rest that day.
+
+It is very unusual to take a day off the trail for the sake of the
+dogs, but the boys made no objection, although secretly much annoyed.
+The presence of the strangers inspired them all with uneasiness.
+Besides, they could not continue their search or speak freely of it.
+
+The next morning the strangers said nothing about moving on.  They sat
+about the fire, and evading a suggestion that they help to cut wood,
+played cards nearly all day.
+
+"What's the matter with them?  Are they going to stay here all winter?"
+said Fred, in great irritation.
+
+Certainly the dogs needed no more rest.  They pervaded the place,
+trying to bolt into the warm cabin whenever the door was opened, and
+spending much time in leaping vainly but hopefully at the frozen
+carcass of the deer, swung high on a bough in the open air.
+
+The prodigious appetites of the newcomers had not diminished in the
+least, and the carcass was rapidly growing less.  The boys thought that
+at the least their guests might help replenish the larder, and the next
+morning Macgregor proposed that they all go after deer.
+
+"No good to-day," said Mitchell gruffly.  "Snow's coming.  You boys go
+if you want to.  We'll mind camp."
+
+That was the last straw; there was no sign whatever of storm.  Peter
+went out of the cabin to consult with his friends.
+
+"They think we're greenhorns from the city, and they're trying to
+impose on us!" he said angrily.  "If they don't make a move by
+to-morrow morning, I'll give them a pretty strong hint."
+
+All the same, fresh meat had to be procured, and after dinner Macgregor
+and Maurice took the two rifles and went back to the deer yard to see
+if the herd might not have returned.  Fred stayed to watch, for the
+boys disliked to leave their guests alone.
+
+The quartette were playing cards as usual, and Fred presently began to
+feel lonely.  After hanging about the hut for a time, he went out to
+pass the time in cutting wood.
+
+It was very cold, but he much preferred the outer air to the smoky
+atmosphere of the shack, and he soon grew warm in handling the axe.  He
+spent nearly the whole afternoon at this exercise, and it was after
+four o'clock when he finally reentered the cabin.
+
+He opened the door rather quietly, and was astounded at what he saw.
+
+The card game had been abandoned.  The shanty was in a state of
+confusion and disorder.  Blankets and bedding were strewn pell-mell;
+the contents of the dunnage sacks were tossed upon the floor.
+Everything movable in the place seemed to have been moved, and a great
+part of the moss chinking had been torn from one of the walls, as if a
+hurried and desperate search had been made for something.
+
+And the object of the search had been found.  The four men were bent
+together over the table, watching intently, while Mitchell took
+something from a small leather sack.  They were all so feverishly
+intent that Fred tiptoed up close behind them unobserved.
+
+Mitchell was shaking out little lumps from the sack; each was wrapped
+in paper, and each, when he unwrapped it, was a small pebble that
+flashed fire.
+
+Fred's heart jumped, and he gasped.  The diamonds!  Horace had really
+found them, then!  The sack seemed to contain a large handful--it was
+appalling to think what they might be worth!  And then it flashed upon
+the boy with increased certainty that his brother must be dead, for
+otherwise he would never have left them there.
+
+Mitchell looked up and round at that instant.  At his explosive oath,
+the Frenchmen wheeled like a flash.  For a moment there was a deathly
+silence, while the four men glared at the boy with scowling faces.
+Fred realized that not only the possession of the stones, but probably
+his life, hung on his presence of mind.
+
+"Those things are my brother's, Mr. Mitchell," he said, with an outward
+coolness that astonished himself.  "He hid them in this cabin.  I don't
+know how you came to find them, but I'll ask you to hand them back."
+
+His voice broke the spell of silence.  One of the French said something
+in the ear of another, and then dropped quietly back toward the corner
+where the men's four rifles stood together.
+
+But Mitchell swept the pebbles together back into the bag.  "Your
+brother's?" he said.  "Why, I bought 'em myself from a gang of Ojibwas
+down on Timagami.  Rock crystals they call 'em, and I reckon to get ten
+or twelve dollars for 'em at Cochrane."
+
+He spoke with such assurance that Fred was taken aback, and did not
+know what to say.  Then his eye fell on one of the scraps of paper in
+which a stone had been wrapped.  He leaned forward and picked it up.
+
+"Did you put this on it?" he exclaimed indignantly.  "Look!  It's my
+brother's handwriting.  'October second, Nottaway River, near Burnt
+Lake,' it says.  That's where he found it.  And look at that!"  He
+swept his hand round the devastated cabin.  "What did you tear the
+place to pieces for if you weren't hunting for something?"
+
+"They're mine, anyway," retorted the woodsman, slipping the precious
+bag into his pocket.  "Them papers was wrapped round 'em when I got
+'em."
+
+"Impossible!" said Fred.  "I tell you--"
+
+"Shut up!" said Mitchell suddenly, with a snarl.
+
+A sense of his peril cooled Fred's anger like an icy douche, and he was
+silent.  There was death in the four grim faces that regarded him.  He
+had no doubt that the men would murder for a far less sum than the
+value of that sackful of precious stones.
+
+For an instant he thought hard.  He was entirely unarmed, and the men's
+rifles stood just behind them.  He would have to wait for
+reinforcements.  It was surely almost time for Maurice and Peter to be
+back, and they must be warned of the danger before they entered the
+cabin.
+
+"All right," he said, with sudden mildness.  "If you can prove that the
+stones are really yours, I'm satisfied.  The sack looked like my
+brother's, that's all."
+
+Mitchell gave a contemptuous grin.  The Canadians lighted their pipes
+again.
+
+Fred felt that they watched him closely, however.  He lounged about the
+cabin with assumed nonchalance for a quarter of an hour, and then
+ventured to go out on the pretext of bringing in a fresh log for the
+fire.  But once outdoors, he put on his snowshoes and rushed down the
+trail to intercept his friends.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+In deadly fear of hearing a shot or a shout from behind, Fred did not
+stop running until he was out of sight of the cabin.  He knew the
+direction from which the hunters would be sure to return, and he posted
+himself in ambush, in a spot whence he could keep watch in front and
+rear.
+
+Fortunately, he was not pursued.  Fortunately, too, he had not very
+long to wait there, for it was bitter cold.  In the course of half an
+hour, he discerned two black specks crossing a strip of barrens to the
+north.
+
+Fred ran to meet them.  The hunters had no deer, but each of them
+carried a great bunch of partridges.
+
+"What's the matter?  Is the camp on fire?" shouted Macgregor, as Fred
+dashed up.
+
+He had to stop to regain breath before he could gasp out an account of
+what had happened.
+
+"The diamonds!" Maurice exclaimed.
+
+"But, don't you see, this makes it certain that Horace never left that
+cabin alive!" Fred said heavily.
+
+It looked like it, indeed, and no one found anything to say.
+Macgregor's face had grown very grim.
+
+"Anyhow, Horace risked his life for those stones,--perhaps lost
+it,--and we 're not going to let those wretches carry them off," he
+said.  "Besides, the diamonds are the least important thing.  Those
+fellows have got our cabin, grub, ammunition, everything.  We're
+stranded if we don't get them back."
+
+"We must take them by surprise," said Fred.  "I'd been thinking that we
+might come up to the cabin quietly, throw the door open suddenly, and
+hold them up."
+
+"They have four rifles," suggested Maurice.
+
+"Yes, but they won't be ready to use them," said the Scotchman.  "It's
+the only way."
+
+He threw open the chamber of his rifle, glanced in, then fumbled in his
+pockets.
+
+"Lend me a couple of cartridges, Maurice."
+
+"Don't say you haven't any!  I used the last of mine on those
+partridges."
+
+"Then we're done!" Peter exclaimed, and he struck his hand furiously on
+the breech of the empty repeater.  "Not a shot between us."
+
+They looked at one another hopelessly.
+
+"Come, we've got to do something--or starve in the snow," said Peter,
+at last.  "We'll hold them up, anyhow--with empty guns."
+
+"But suppose they fire on us?" Fred asked.
+
+"At the first move any one makes toward a gun, we'll jump for him.  The
+cabin's too small to use rifles in, and if it comes to a
+rough-and-tumble, why, we'll just have to keep our end up.  But I don't
+think it will come to that.  We'll have them bluffed."
+
+Certainly it seemed a long chance to take, but, as Peter said, it was
+better than starving in the snow.  They laid down the partridges, and
+began to move toward the cabin.
+
+"Take the axe, if it's by the door, Fred," Macgregor advised.  "You'll
+go first, and open the door.  We'll aim over your shoulders.  And
+remember, at the first hostile movement, jump for them with clubbed
+rifles and the axe."
+
+They went on, rather slowly.  The cabin came in view, with no one in
+sight, and they made a detour through the hemlocks so as to get as
+close to the door as possible without showing themselves.
+
+"Now for it!" muttered Macgregor.
+
+With hearts beating tumultuously, they burst out from the evergreen
+screen.  But they had taken only two or three steps, when the cabin
+door opened a few inches, and four black rifle barrels were thrust out.
+
+"_Halte-la_!" shouted one of the Canadians.
+
+The boys stopped in their tracks.  They could see nothing of the men
+within, nothing except those four ominous muzzles in the streak of
+firelight that shone through the crack.
+
+"What do you mean?" cried Macgregor boldly.  "Don't you know who we
+are?  Put those guns away, and let us in!"
+
+He ventured another step, but a second voice roared from the doorway,
+"Stop!"
+
+It was Mitchell.  Peter stopped suddenly.  The hoarse voice bellowed
+again, "Git!"
+
+"What's the matter with you?" Peter persisted.  "That is our cabin.
+Let us come in, I say."
+
+[Illustration: "THAT IS OUR CABIN.  LET US COME IN, I SAY"]
+
+"Git, _I_ say!" Mitchell repeated.  "After this, we'll shoot on sight.
+I give ye till I count three.  One--two--"
+
+"Back off.  We 're caught!" Peter muttered.
+
+They backed away slowly.  When they were at the edge of the thickets,
+Mitchell shouted again:--
+
+"When we're gone, you can come back!  Now keep away for your own good!"
+
+The cabin door closed as they stepped back into the undergrowth.
+Macgregor's face was black as he tucked the useless rifle under his
+arm.  They were all boiling with rage and mortification.
+
+"If we'd only turned those scoundrels out yesterday!" Peter muttered.
+
+"We couldn't foresee this," said Maurice.  "Those fellows evidently
+knew that the diamonds were here--or strongly suspected it.  They must
+have heard of it from your sick Indian, or from the third trapper.
+They must have been astonished to find us on the spot."
+
+"Very likely," said Fred, "but the present question is what we're going
+to do to-night."
+
+"We must make the best camp we can in the snow," remarked Maurice.
+
+"I don't see how we'll cut wood without an axe," said Peter.  "It's
+going to be a savage cold night.  We have no blankets, either.  Lucky
+we shot those partridges."
+
+But when they came to the spot where they had dropped the partridges, a
+fresh disappointment awaited them.  The famished sledge dogs had found
+them.  There was nothing left of the fourteen grouse except a litter of
+feathers and a few blood-stains on the snow.
+
+Their night was to be supperless as well as cold, it seemed.  Darkness
+was already falling, with the weird desolation that the winter night
+always brings down on the wilderness.  It had been always impressive,
+but now, as they faced the night without food or shelter, it was
+appalling.
+
+Destitute of an axe, they would have to make a camp where they could
+find fuel, and they scattered to look for it.  It was rapidly growing
+too dark to search, but Fred presently came upon a large, dead spruce,
+lying half buried in snow, but spiked thickly with dry branches.  He
+was breaking these off by the armfuls when the other boys came up in
+answer to his calls.
+
+They trampled down the snow, gathered birch bark and spruce splinters,
+and laid the kindling against the big back log.  Maurice set about
+pulling twigs for a couch, in case the temperature permitted them to
+sleep.
+
+"How about matches?  I haven't one on me," said Fred, in sudden anxiety.
+
+Macgregor discovered four rather damp ones in his pockets; Maurice had
+a dozen or more, but the snow had got into his pocket, and wet them.
+
+They used up five matches in lighting the fire, but finally the birch
+bark flared up, curling, and the spruce twigs began to crackle.
+
+They were sure, at any rate, of a fire, and this little success raised
+their spirits wonderfully.  They started at once to bring in all the
+loose wood they could find; but it proved to be little, for snow
+covered everything except the largest logs.  However, they counted on
+the big spruce trunk to burn all night.
+
+Without an axe, it was impossible to build any sort of shelter; so they
+sat down close beside the fire, and huddled together to escape the
+cold, which was growing hourly more piercing.
+
+In spite of all their efforts, the fire was a poor one.  The spruce
+trunk proved rotten and damp, and merely smouldered and smoked.  The
+dead branches went off in a rapid flame, and they had to economize them
+to make them last the night out.
+
+That was a terrible night.  The temperature must have gone far below
+zero.  A foot away from the fire, they could hardly feel its warmth;
+their backs and feet were numb, and their faces smoked and scorching.
+
+Two of the boys were tired with a long snowshoe tramp, and all of them
+were hungry.  Macgregor's feet were still far from being in a condition
+to stand further exposure; they would have frozen again easily, and he
+kept them as close to the wretched fire as possible.  Sleep was out of
+the question, for they would have frozen to death at six feet away from
+the fire.  They sat with their arms round each other, as close to the
+blaze as possible, and turned now their faces and now their backs to
+the warmth.
+
+Fortunately, there was no wind.  About midnight a pallid moon came up
+behind light clouds.  Far in the woods they heard strange, lugubrious
+noises, moans, hootings, and once a shrill, savage scream.
+
+Now and then they talked, but they were too miserable from the cold to
+say much.  In spite of the cold, they grew drowsy.  Fred could have
+gone dead asleep if he had allowed himself to.  He got up, stamped, and
+engaged in a rather spiritless bout of wrestling with Peter.  Then they
+all straggled off to try to find more wood.
+
+Finally, that night of horror wore itself away.  The light of a pale,
+cold dawn began to show.
+
+Feeling twenty years older, they scattered to bring wood again.  They
+built up the fire to a roaring blaze that gave some real warmth.
+
+"Aren't those fellows likely to make off the first thing this morning,
+and take all our outfit with them?" said Maurice.
+
+"They're almost certain to.  We must keep watch on the cabin," said
+Fred.
+
+"We must hope they don't," added Peter.  "We'd have to follow
+them--follow them till we dropped or captured them.  For they'd be
+taking away our lives with them."
+
+In view of this danger, they sent Maurice at once to reconnoiter the
+place, which was not more than a quarter of a mile distant.  He was
+gone nearly half an hour, and on his return reported that smoke was
+rising from the cabin, but that there were no signs that the men
+intended to depart.
+
+And he had had a stroke of luck.  A couple of partridges had flown up
+and perched stupidly on a log, so close to him that he had been able to
+knock one of them over with a cleverly thrown club.
+
+In less than a minute that partridge's feathers were scattered on the
+snow, and it was cut up and roasting on sharp sticks before the fire.
+Too ravenous to wait until it was thoroughly cooked, the boys began to
+eat it, but Maurice made a wry face at his second mouthful.
+
+"No salt!" he remarked.
+
+The half-cooked flesh was nauseous without salt, and hungry though they
+were, they got it down with difficulty.  It did them good, however, and
+they all felt more capable of facing the situation.
+
+"The first thing we must do," said Peter, "is to find a better
+camping-place, put up some sort of shelter, and gather plenty of wood."
+
+"Why, you don't expect to live like this long?" cried Fred, looking
+startled.
+
+"It's hard to say.  You know we're fearfully handicapped.  Our only
+chance is to get those fellows off their guard, for if we strike once
+and fail, we'll probably never get another chance.  We must lie low,
+and make them think that we've gone away, or that we're dead.  We'll
+put our new camp half a mile away, or more, and one of us must keep
+watch near the cabin from sunrise to sunset."
+
+It sounded disheartening, but they could think of no other plan.
+Eventually, Maurice went to stand guard, while Fred and Macgregor
+searched for a camp-site.
+
+They could not find what they wanted.  Dead timber in any quantity was
+scarce.  At the end of a couple of hours Fred went to relieve Maurice,
+and found him walking round and round a tree in order to keep from
+freezing.
+
+"I thought I might get a chance to collar the axe," said Maurice, with
+chattering teeth.  "But they've carried it inside.  They've taken in
+the rest of the venison, too, and they've even got the dogs inside the
+shanty.  Afraid we'd shoot them, I suppose."
+
+Maurice tramped off to aid Peter in his search, while Fred stamped
+about in the trees.  No one was in sight about the hut, but after a
+long time one of the French Canadians came out and went down to the
+river with a pail for water.
+
+It made Fred's blood boil to think of the warmth and comfort in that
+cabin, from which they had been so treacherously turned out.  He
+puzzled his brain to devise some plan of retaliation, but he could
+think of nothing except setting fire to the place, and that would
+destroy the supplies of friend and foe alike.
+
+His feet grew numb, and he adopted Maurice's plan of running round in a
+circle.  He fancied that his ears and nose were frosted, and he rubbed
+them with snow.  A long time passed; he wondered what had become of his
+companions.  It was nearly noon when Maurice hurried up with his face
+full of consternation.  "The fire is out," he said, "and we've used the
+last match!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+At this crushing news, Fred left his post and went back with Maurice,
+who explained what had happened.
+
+They had found a good camping-ground, where wood was abundant, and had
+tried to light a fire.  But the remaining matches proved to have been
+badly dampened; the heads were pasty or entirely soaked off.  One by
+one they fizzled and went out.  As a last hope, Maurice had hurried
+back to their night camp for fire, only to find that the wet log had
+smouldered down and gone dead out.
+
+The spot was about two thirds of a mile away, south from the river.  A
+great windrow of hemlocks and jack-pines had fallen together, and
+afforded plenty of wood.  On one of the logs sat Macgregor, with his
+elbows on his knees, and his chin in his hands, the picture of despair;
+and at his feet was a litter of bark and kindling, and a dozen burnt
+matches.
+
+They all sat down together in silence, and nobody found a word of
+comfort.
+
+It was a brilliantly clear day, but the temperature had certainly not
+risen to zero, and a slight, cutting wind blew from the west.  The sun
+shone in an icy blue sky, but there was no heat in its rays.
+
+"If we only had a cartridge," said Fred, "we might make a fire with the
+gun flash."
+
+They all made another vain search of their pockets, in the faint hope
+of finding a cartridge or an overlooked match head.
+
+"If we don't find some way to make a fire before sunset," said
+Macgregor gloomily, "we'll have to attack the cabin to-night.  I really
+don't believe we could live through a night without fire, with nothing
+to eat, especially as we had no sleep last night."
+
+"Surely if we went up to the cabin, they'd give us some fire," Maurice
+protested.  "They wouldn't let us die in the snow."
+
+"That's just what they count on us to do," said the Scotchman bitterly.
+
+No one said anything about renewing the guard on the cabin.  Nothing
+seemed to matter much--nothing except the cold.  The morsels of
+half-raw food they had eaten that morning did not keep them from being
+ravenously hungry again, and an empty stomach is poor protection
+against Arctic cold.
+
+Like the rest of them, Fred was heavily clad, but the cold seemed to
+find his skin as if he were naked.  He began to feel numb to the bone,
+lethargic, incapable of moving.  Then he realized his danger, forced
+himself awake, and tried to think of some expedient for making a fire.
+
+Flints could not be found under three feet of snow.  A
+burning-glass--if they only had one!  It should have been included in
+the outfit.
+
+And then an idea flashed upon him.  He jumped up suddenly.
+
+"Wait here for me, fellows!" he cried.
+
+He rushed off toward the river, and came back in a few minutes with a
+piece of clear ice, almost as large as his palm, and an inch or two
+thick.  He slipped off his mittens, and began to rub it between his
+hands, so as to melt it down with the heat of his skin.
+
+"See what it is?  Burning-glass!" he exclaimed.
+
+"But you can't make a burning-glass of _ice_!" said Maurice.
+
+"Why not?  Anyhow, I'm going to try."
+
+But before he had worked the ice long, he had to stop, for his hands
+seemed freezing.  While he beat and rubbed them, Maurice, incredulous
+but willing, took the lump of ice, and shaped it down while the heat
+lasted in his hands.  He then passed it on to Macgregor, who in turn
+handed it to Fred again.  He finally succeeded in melting and curving
+it roughly into the proper shape.
+
+He tried it on the back of his hand.  An irregular but small and
+intensely hot spot of light concentrated itself there.
+
+"I do believe it will work!" Peter cried.
+
+They hastily collected a handful of fine, dry hair moss from the fir
+branches, and peeled filmy shreds of birch bark.  Fred brought the
+"glass" to bear on the little heap.  His numbed hands trembled so that
+he could hardly hold it still.  For some time there was no result.
+Then a thin thread of smoke began to arise.  The boys held their
+breath.  The hair moss suddenly sparkled and flamed.  A shred of bark
+caught.  Peter interposed a large roll.  It flared up.
+
+"Hurrah!  We've got it!" cried Macgregor.  "Fred, you've saved our
+lives, I do believe."
+
+They piled on twigs, branches, and heavy lumps of wood, and soon had a
+brisk fire going.  Better still, they were now assured of having always
+the means of making one--at least, whenever the sun shone.
+
+The magical influence of the fire gave back to them a little of their
+cheerfulness.  They warmed themselves thoroughly, and then started to
+have another look at the outlaws, and to see whether they could find
+any small game.  For now that they no longer suffered from the cold,
+their stomachs cried loudly for food.
+
+Leaving the empty rifles by the fire, they armed themselves with clubs
+and poles for hunting, and had good hopes of being able to knock over a
+partridge or a hare.  But the grouse seemed to have turned wild.  They
+saw only two at a great distance.  No hares showed themselves, nor
+could they find any trace of porcupines on the trees.
+
+Skulking within sight of the cabin, they perceived one of the Frenchmen
+carrying in logs of wood for the fire--some of those that Fred himself
+had cut.  Mitchell stood by, smoking his pipe, with a rifle under his
+arm.  Fred fancied he could smell frying venison as the door was opened.
+
+Plainly the outlaws were on the alert still.  The boys crouched, unseen
+and unheard, among the hemlocks; but if they had been armed, they could
+easily have picked off the two men at the door.  And they had come to
+such a state of rage and desperation that they would very likely have
+done it.
+
+They found no comfort in the fact that the robbers showed no
+inclination to leave the place.  The boys were perplexed at their
+staying, but probably the men had no reason to hurry, and, finding
+themselves comfortably placed, had decided to remain where they were
+while the extreme cold snap lasted.
+
+In spite of the cold, the boys remained on watch for some time after
+the men had gone indoors.  Suddenly Peter laid his hand on Fred's
+shoulder, and nodded backward.
+
+A deer had come out of the thickets within thirty yards of where they
+lay,--a fine, fat buck,--and stood looking uneasily, sniffing, and
+cocking its ears in their direction.  Then, without showing any
+particular alarm, it walked on, and passing within twenty yards of
+them, disappeared again.
+
+They had to let it go; it was perhaps the cruelest moment they had
+lived through.
+
+Deer might be out of the question, but if they were to keep alive, it
+was absolutely necessary that they should find something, and they
+separated in order to look for small game.
+
+In the course of an hour or two they all straggled back to the camp
+fire, half frozen and empty-handed.  Macgregor indeed had seen a
+partridge, but his muscles had been so benumbed that he missed his
+throw.
+
+After warming themselves, they made another expedition--all but
+Maurice, who had neuralgic pains in his face, and who remained by the
+fire.  But again Peter and Fred came back without game.
+
+The sun had set by this time, and it was hopeless to try again.  A
+hungry night was inevitable, but they tried so to arrange matters that
+at any rate they would be warm.  They gathered all the wood that they
+could break off or lift.  Then with their snowshoes they dug down to
+the ground, heaping the snow up in a rampart behind them, and piled in
+balsam twigs, and trusted that in this pit they would be able to sleep.
+
+It grew dark rapidly, and the wind rose.  The fire, flaring and
+smoking, drove smoke and sparks into their faces until their eyes
+streamed.  It made the leeward side of the fire almost unbearable,
+whereas the windward side was freezingly cold.
+
+The temperature was perhaps not quite so low as the night before, but
+the gale made it far more disagreeable.  Regardless of smoke and
+sparks, they had to sit as near the fire as they dared, or risk
+freezing.  Sleep was impossible.
+
+All three of them were faint and sick with starvation, but the plight
+of Maurice was the most wretched.  His neuralgia had grown agonizing;
+his face was badly swollen, and he sat with his head buried in his
+arms, and his inflamed cheek turned to the heat.
+
+Much as they sympathized with him, they could do nothing to relieve
+him, except to try to keep up the fire.  This task caused them endless
+trouble.  The high wind made it burn furiously fast, and the small
+branches they had gathered were licked up like magic.  They had thought
+there was enough fuel for the night, but soon after midnight Fred and
+Peter were foraging about in the deep snow and the storm for a fresh
+supply.
+
+Toward morning their endurance broke down.  They piled on all the rest
+of the wood, and went to sleep huddled up by the fire, reckless whether
+they froze or not.
+
+Fred was awakened from a painful and uneasy slumber by Peter's shaking
+his arm.
+
+"Your ears are frozen," the Scotchman was saying.  "Rub them with snow
+at once."
+
+While asleep, Fred had fallen back beyond the range of heat.  It was
+broad daylight, and snowing fast.  The fire was low.  All of them were
+covered with white, and Maurice was still asleep, sitting up, with his
+head fallen forward on his knees.
+
+Never in his life did Fred feel so unwilling to move.  He did not feel
+cold; he hardly felt anything.  All he wanted was to stay as he was and
+be let alone.
+
+But Macgregor insisted on rousing him, dragged him up, protesting, and
+rubbed snow on his ears.  Fred was very angry, but the scuffle set his
+blood moving again.  His ears were not badly frozen, but the skin came
+off as he rubbed them.  They bled, and the blood froze on as it ran,
+and made him a rather ghastly spectacle.
+
+[Illustration: DRAGGED HIM UP, PROTESTING, AND RUBBED SNOW ON HIS EARS]
+
+Maurice was awakened by the disturbance, and sat up stiffly.  He
+declared that his neuralgia was much better.
+
+They built up the fire again, and sat beside it, shivering.  Fred felt
+utterly incapable either of action or of thought, and even his hunger
+had grown numbed.  Maurice obviously felt no better, and Macgregor, who
+seemed to retain a little energy, looked at them both with a face of
+the gravest concern.  Presently he rose, put on his snowshoes, took a
+long pole, and started away with an air of determination.
+
+Maurice and Fred remained sitting by the fire in a sort of lethargy,
+and exchanged hardly a word.  Macgregor was gone almost an hour; then
+he came back at a run, covered with snow, and carrying a dead hare.  He
+skinned the animal, cleaned it, cut it into pieces, and set it to
+roast.  At the odor of the roasting meat, the boys' appetites revived,
+and they began to take the fragments from the spits before they were
+half cooked.  The scorched, unsalted meat was even more tasteless and
+nauseating than that of the grouse, but they all bolted it voraciously,
+and washed it down by eating snow.
+
+Almost immediately afterward they were taken with distressing cramps
+and vomiting, which left both Maurice and Fred in a state of weak
+collapse.  Macgregor suffered least, perhaps because he had eaten less
+incautiously.  He alone bore the burden of the rest of that day.  He
+brought wood, kept the fire up, and propped Fred and Maurice up on
+piles of hemlock branches.  There were some small pieces of the hare
+remaining, and he finally made the boys chew them, and swallow the
+juice.  It seemed to do them good; at any rate, the nausea did not
+return.  Then the Scotchman spoke.
+
+"Look here," he said, "we've got to do it this very night--get back
+into the cabin, I mean.  We've gone almost too far now, and by another
+day we'll be too weak to move."
+
+"But how'll we do it, Peter?" asked Fred weakly.
+
+"There's only one way.  We'll wait till after midnight, when they'll be
+asleep, and then burst in the door, aim our rifles at them, and get
+hold of their guns before they can recover their wits."
+
+"They'll have the door barricaded.  We'll be shot down before we can
+break in."
+
+"I know it's a long chance, but we're living by a succession of
+miracles as it is.  It can't last, and I'd as soon be shot as frozen to
+death.  I'm most afraid of the dogs.  They'll make an awful uproar, and
+probably spring at us as soon as we get in."
+
+As far as Fred was concerned, he felt ready for the attempt, or rather,
+perhaps, that it made no difference what he did.  Maurice also
+assented, but their force seemed a pitifully small one with which to
+oppose four able-bodied, well-armed men.
+
+It was then late in the afternoon.  Peter began to work energetically
+at gathering wood enough to last until they should try their desperate
+chance, and Fred and Maurice tried to help him.  It had stopped snowing
+and had cleared.  The night promised to be intensely cold.
+
+Suddenly, faint and far, but very distinct, the sound of a rifle-shot
+resounded through the trees.  They listened, and looked at one another.
+
+"One of those ruffians has gone hunting," Maurice remarked.
+
+"So he has," said Peter.  "And see here," he added, with a suddenly
+brightening face, "this gives us a chance.  Let's ambush that fellow as
+he comes in.  We'll knock him down and stun him.  That'll make one less
+against us, and we'll have his rifle and cartridges.  Perhaps he'll
+have something to eat on him.  Boys, it doubles our chances."
+
+The plan did look promising.  At any rate, it would, if successful,
+give them a firearm.  The shot must have been fired fully a mile away;
+but they put on their snowshoes at once, and hastened in the direction
+of the cabin.
+
+The light was failing fast as they stopped about two hundred yards from
+the hut, trying to guess just where the returning hunter would pass.
+It was very still, and they would be able to hear his footsteps for a
+long way.
+
+But they waited for nearly half an hour, and the woods were dusky when
+at last their strained ears caught the regular creak, crunch, and
+shuffle of snowshoes in the distance.  They were posted too far to the
+right, and they had to run fifty yards in order to cross the man's
+path.  There they crouched behind the hemlocks, in great fear lest
+their enemy had heard their steps.  But in another minute they caught
+sight of him.  The man was alone, muffled in a great _capote_, carrying
+a rifle over his shoulder, and something on his back--possibly his
+game.  His face was indistinguishable, but he looked like one of the
+French Canadians.
+
+On he came with a steady stride, now in sight, and now concealed by the
+thickets.  He passed within ten feet of the ambush where the boys
+crouched palpitating.
+
+"Now!  Tackle him!" Macgregor cried.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+The three boys plunged at the man together.  He stopped short, and made
+a motion to lower his rifle; but he was too late.  The boys had
+fastened on him as wolves fasten on a deer.  He uttered a single,
+stifled cry; then they all went down together in a mass of kicking
+snowshoes and struggling limbs.  The hunter's efforts were feeble, and
+the boys had no trouble in over-powering him.  Fred pinioned his arms,
+and Maurice sat on his legs.
+
+Macgregor peered into the man's face.  "Why, this isn't one of that
+gang!" he cried.
+
+It had grown almost dark.  Fred bent forward to look at the man.
+
+"It's my brother!" he cried.  "It's Horace!"
+
+"What?  It can't be!" cried Peter and Maurice together.  They let go
+their hold on their prisoner in order to look closer.
+
+"I declare, I believe it is!" said Macgregor, stupefied.
+
+It really was Horace Osborne, but he was almost unrecognizable in his
+muffling _capote_, long hair, and a three months' growth of beard.  He
+had no idea who had thus attacked him, and he was in a towering rage.
+
+"What do you mean by all this?  Who are you, anyway?" he exclaimed,
+sitting up in the snow.  Then he looked more closely at his brother,
+who was trying to say something, inarticulate, half laughing and half
+crying.
+
+"Fred!" he cried, in amazement.  "Is that you?  What on earth are you
+doing here?  Who's that with you?  Peter Macgregor--and Maurice Stark!"
+
+"We thought you might be dead!" Fred cried, and Peter and Maurice cut
+in alternately:--
+
+"Heard you were sick with smallpox--"
+
+"Came up to find you--"
+
+"Came in on skates, and--"
+
+"A gang of outlaws turned us out of the cabin--"
+
+"Found your diamonds."
+
+"I don't half understand it all," said Horace, "but I see that you
+fellows have acted like good friends.  We can't get in the cabin, you
+say?  Well, you've a camp somewhere, haven't you?"
+
+They started for the camp in the snow, and on the way Fred gave his
+brother a somewhat incoherent account of what had taken place.
+
+"You fellows certainly have acted like friends to me--like brothers,
+rather!" said Horace.  "I'll never forget it, boys!"
+
+And he shook hands with them all round.
+
+"Not a bit!" said Maurice, in embarrassment.  "We were hoping that
+you'd let us in on the ground floor of a diamond mine.  Fred says there
+was a whole bagful of diamonds that you had hidden in the cabin.  What
+do you suppose they're worth?"
+
+"If they're all diamonds, perhaps a hundred thousand dollars," replied
+Horace.
+
+"Gracious!" gasped Maurice, and said no more.
+
+But Fred's attention had been fixed on the pack that his brother
+carried.
+
+"What have you there, Horace?" he asked.
+
+"Grub.  Bacon, hardtack, tea, cold boiled beans.  Why, I never thought
+of it, but you must all be as hungry as wolves.  Well, there's enough
+for a square meal here, anyhow, and to-morrow we'll find some way of
+getting those rascals out of the camp."
+
+They built up the camp-fire, and Horace got out his provisions,
+together with a couple of partridges he had shot late that afternoon.
+But Macgregor, as medical adviser, refused to let them eat as much as
+they wanted.  A little tea and a few mouthfuls of meat were all he
+permitted them to have; he promised, however, that they should have a
+full meal in a couple of hours.  He took the same ration himself; but
+Horace ate heartily.
+
+"But where have you been since you left the cabin?" Fred asked.
+
+"At a lumber camp on the Abitibi, about forty miles from here," Horace
+replied.  "I've been convalescing."
+
+"If we'd only known that there was anything of the sort so near,"
+remarked Peter, "we'd have made for it ourselves."
+
+"I stumbled on it by chance.  However, I'd better explain in detail.
+As you seem to have heard, I came sick to this trappers' shack.  I'd
+been in an Indian camp a week before, on the Nottaway River, where they
+had had smallpox, but I've been vaccinated four or five times, and
+never dreamed of danger.  I didn't know what the matter with me was, in
+fact, till the red spots began to appear.
+
+"Of course the trappers were badly scared, especially after one of them
+caught the disease and died.  I can't tell you how sorry I was for that
+death.  I suppose I wasn't to blame, but I felt somehow responsible.
+
+"The Indian cleared out, and I couldn't blame him.  But I couldn't
+afford to let the third man go.  I was over the worst of it by that
+time, but I was as weak as a kitten, and could hardly feed myself.  If
+he'd deserted me I should have died.  I offered him any sum of money if
+he would stick to me, and told him that I'd shoot him if I saw any sign
+of his making off.
+
+"I couldn't have aimed straight enough to hit him at a yard just then,
+and I suppose he knew it.  Anyhow, he disappeared one morning before I
+was awake.  He didn't take much with him except his gun and ammunition.
+
+"I was gaining strength fast, and I was able to stagger about a little.
+I could get water, and there was some grub in the shack.  I knew that I
+must get out at once, lest snow should come.  I stayed four days; then
+I took what grub I could carry, my rifle and a dozen cartridges, and
+started.  I left all my specimens, notebooks and everything, for I
+didn't dare to carry an ounce more than I could help."
+
+"But the diamonds?  They didn't weigh many ounces," interrupted Maurice.
+
+"I struck for the Abitibi," went on Horace, paying no attention to the
+question, "and I was so weak that I couldn't make much speed.  I had
+been out five days, and my grub was pretty nearly gone, when I stumbled
+into the lumbermen.  They treated me like real Samaritans, took me in
+and fed me, and I've been there convalescing ever since.  Day before
+yesterday I started back here to get my things.  I had to travel
+slowly, for I'm not overstrong yet, and I was hurrying on to get to the
+cabin to-night when you pounced on me."
+
+"If you had only taken the diamonds with you!" Fred lamented.
+
+"I did," said Horace.  He looked at the boys with a smile, and then
+went on:--
+
+"Those stones, my boy, that you saw in the cabin aren't diamonds.  They
+are quartz crystals and rather curious garnets, worth a few dollars at
+the most.  Here are the diamonds!"
+
+He took a small leather pouch from an inner pocket; the boys jumped up
+in excitement to look.  From the pouch he took a small paper package,
+unfolded it, and revealed nine small lumps, which ranged in size from a
+small shot to a large pea.  They looked like lumps of gum arabic, but
+their edges and angles reflected brilliant sparks in the firelight.
+
+"Those little things?  Are they diamonds?" cried Fred, in some
+disappointment.
+
+"Little things?  Why, if they were all perfect stones, they'd be worth
+a small fortune.  Unfortunately, the biggest has a flaw in it that you
+can see even without cutting it, and some of the others are yellowish
+and off color.  It will take an expert to say what they 're worth.  But
+the great triumph is to have found diamonds up here at all."
+
+"Yes, and there must be more where these came from," said Maurice,
+brightening.  "If you've discovered the beds--"
+
+"I haven't, though," Horace returned.  "Three of these stones I bought
+from a camp of Ojibwas.  The rest I found in the gravel of the
+creek-beds, mostly along the Nottaway River, but none of them within a
+quarter of a mile of another.  Whenever I thought the gravel looked
+promising, I sifted some of it.  But I didn't find a trace of the blue
+soil that always forms the diamond-beds; if there are diamond-beds up
+here, they must be somewhere beyond the region that we have explored."
+
+"But they must be here somewhere," cried Peter, "and there must be more
+diamonds where you found those!  I'll certainly come up here next
+summer and try my own luck."
+
+"I've thought of doing so myself; that is, if this lot turns out to be
+any good.  But getting back to town is the present problem, and we've
+got to consider how to recapture the cabin and your outfit of supplies."
+
+"But not before we eat again," said Fred.
+
+Macgregor, who was as famished as any of them, consented, and they
+prepared such a banquet as the three castaways had not seen since they
+left the cabin.  It almost exhausted the supplies that Horace had
+brought, but it did them all a great deal of good.  With a new feeling
+of being able to grapple with the problem, they settled down to
+consider the question of war.
+
+"We might set fire to the cabin," Fred suggested, "and try to capture
+the fellows when they rush out."
+
+"Out of the question," declared Peter, "for, even if it worked, the
+provisions would be burned up.  I had thought of stopping up their
+chimney during the night.  The smoke would suffocate them in their
+sleep, and we could go in and drag them out insensible."
+
+"I am afraid it would waken them first," said Horace.  "We'd have them
+coming out with rifles.  Now I'd been thinking that if we only had some
+of your formaldehyde fumigator we could get them under control very
+easily."
+
+"So we could.  A can of that stuff let through the roof would put them
+into a dead stupor without waking them.  The only risk would be that of
+killing them all outright.  There was a can of it left, too, but it's
+in the cabin."
+
+"No, it isn't!" cried Fred.  "I put it outside in a hollow tree, so as
+not to have the stuff in the house.  I could get it in ten minutes."
+
+"Fred, you're a diamond yourself!" Peter exclaimed.  "If it's as you
+say, we'll have them out of that cabin in a jiffy."
+
+"Shall we try it to-night?" Maurice asked.
+
+"Why not?  It's nearly midnight, and they must be asleep," said Horace.
+"I've no fancy for spending another night and day shivering here in the
+snow.  Besides, we're out of grub."
+
+After some consultation, they put on their snowshoes and tramped off
+toward the cabin.  It was intensely cold, and very still and clear; a
+brilliant moon had come up over the pines.
+
+Fred easily found the hollow tree in which he had hidden the
+disinfectant, and came back with the apparatus.  There was an unopened
+tin of formaldehyde complete with its little lamp almost full of spirit.
+
+For some time they reconnoitered the cabin cautiously.  A faint glow
+shone through the skin window, but no sound either of man or dog could
+be heard within.
+
+It would not be possible to introduce the fumigator through the door or
+window, and if it were lowered down the chimney, the draft would carry
+the gas out again.  But Maurice recollected the hole he had patched in
+the roof; it could easily be opened again.  He volunteered to set the
+"smoker" going.
+
+This was really the most dangerous part of the undertaking, for a
+slight sound might bring out the ruffians, who would probably shoot
+without much hesitation.  Maurice took off his snowshoes, and carrying
+the fumigator, plunged through the drifts toward the cabin.
+
+Twenty yards away the party watched him from the thickets; Horace kept
+the door covered with his rifle.  The snow had drifted so deep that
+Maurice climbed easily to the roof, crawled up the slope on hands and
+knees, groped about, and began to scrape away the snow.
+
+A moment later, he drew out the deer-hide patch, peered down the hole,
+and then waved his hand reassuringly toward the woods.  He struck a
+match, lighted the spirit lamp, and then lowered the can cautiously by
+a string about a yard long.
+
+In another minute he was back with his friends.  "They're dead asleep,"
+he said, joyfully.  "I could hear them snore.  The formaldehyde began
+to smell strong before I let it down.  How long shall we leave it?"
+
+"We don't want to kill them," said Horace.
+
+"No danger," Peter remarked.  "The draft from the big chimney will keep
+clearing the air.  I'd leave it till all the stuff is vaporized--say, a
+couple of hours.  The only thing I dread is that some one may wake up;
+but then, he wouldn't know what the smell was, and the spirit flame is
+so pale that it's almost invisible."
+
+They watched the cabin intently.  All remained deathly quiet.  It was
+very cold as they crouched there in the snow.  Horace kept his rifle
+ready, but finally his vigilance slackened.  They walked about to keep
+from freezing, talked in whispers, and still watched the silent hut.
+
+Suddenly Horace clutched Fred's arm.
+
+"Look!" he cried.  "The cabin's on fire!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A thin stream of smoke was rising from the hole in the roof of the
+cabin.  From the chimney volumes of vapor had suddenly begun to pour
+out into the moonlight.  The dim glow at the window now and then flared
+up brightly.
+
+"That spirit lamp must have set fire to something.  Those men will be
+burned to death.  Come, we must try to get them out!" Horace cried.
+
+They rushed together to the cabin door.  It was barricaded on the
+inside; they battered it with kicks and blows for a good half-minute,
+and at last it yielded.
+
+A gush of smoke and suffocating fumes burst out into their faces, and
+the boys staggered back.  The inside of the cabin appeared to be all in
+flames, but it was so obscured by smoke that they could see nothing
+clearly.
+
+With the opening of the door the fire seemed to burn more fiercely.  It
+seemed impossible that anything could be alive in that place; but Fred
+shut his eyes and dashed blindly in.
+
+He stumbled over the body of a dog, and kicked it outside the door.
+Choking with the smoke and the formaldehyde fumes, he took another
+step, and his foot struck something soft; it was the body of a man.
+
+Fred stooped and tried to pick the body up by the shoulders.  Suddenly
+through the smoke Peter appeared at his side, and helped him; together
+they got the man out and laid him down on the snow.  He was one of the
+French Canadians, apparently lifeless.
+
+"Is he dead?" gasped Fred to Macgregor, who bent over the prostrate
+form.
+
+The medical student peered under the man's eyelids, and felt his wrist.
+"No," he said, "he'll come round all right in the fresh air.  It's the
+smoke more than the gas."
+
+Horace came out at that moment, dragging Mitchell's limp body.  The
+red-bearded ruffian was alive, but unconscious; the boys placed him on
+the snow beside his companion.  Then all four of them rushed into the
+cabin together, and succeeded in getting out the remaining two French
+Canadians.
+
+"Now the dogs!  We must get them out!" cried Peter.  That was not hard
+to do, for the animals were lying close to the door.
+
+The strong draft from the door to the chimney had by this time cleared
+the atmosphere a good deal, and the boys saw that the fire was burning
+chiefly among the couches of balsam boughs.  The spirit lamp must have
+scorched through the cord by which it hung, and dropped into a heap of
+dry twigs.
+
+The boys had no means of putting the fire out; the immediate need was
+to rescue the provisions.  They rushed in again, and each dragged out
+an armful of supplies.  They took a breath of fresh air, and then
+hastened in again.  Fred was reaching for a slab of bacon, when
+suddenly something exploded almost under his hand.
+
+He jumped back, almost fancying he had been shot at.  _Crack! crack!
+bang!_ went several other reports in quick succession, and this time he
+realized what it must be.
+
+"Run!  The ammunition's going off!" he shouted, and rushed for the
+open; as he ran, however, he caught up the piece of bacon.
+
+Some of the rifle cartridges were exploding, one by one, and then two
+or three together, and suddenly, with a tremendous bang, a whole box
+seemed to go off.
+
+Then the firing ceased, and after a short interval, the boys set to
+work again to get out more provisions.  The cabin was stifling now from
+powder smoke, but they got what they could lay their hands on--a bag of
+flour, a quantity of canned stuff, a kettle, a rifle; soon a great heap
+of rescued supplies lay on the snow outside.
+
+The flames, unable to ignite the solid logs of the cabin, were now
+dying; evidently they would soon burn themselves out.
+
+Mitchell at this moment gave signs of returning life.  He opened his
+eyes, stirred, and began to cough violently.  They placed him in a more
+comfortable position, and at the same time took the precaution of tying
+his wrists and ankles securely with strips of deer-hide.  The man
+seemed dazed; he looked at the boys in amazement, and did not utter a
+word.
+
+Two of the French Canadians were also reviving, and the boys tied them
+up in the same way.  The fourth was in bad shape, and it took vigorous
+rubbing to restore him to consciousness: if he had been neglected a
+little longer he might have died.
+
+They laid the captives out in a row on a pile of hemlock branches, and
+lighted a roaring fire to keep them from freezing.  Horace then went
+through Mitchell's pockets, and recovered the sack of stones that Fred
+had seen.  He poured the glittering crystals into his hand, while
+Mitchell looked on in black disappointment.
+
+"My friend," said Horace, "you've taken a vast amount of trouble,
+risked committing murder, and almost lost your own life for these
+pebbles.  Here, I'll give them to you."  He poured the crystals back
+into the pouch, and then flung the sack into the man's lap.
+
+[Illustration: FLUNG THE SACK INTO THE MAN'S LAP]
+
+The outlaw looked utterly bewildered.
+
+"Ain't them diamonds?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Fool's diamonds," Horace replied.  "Maybe you can get five dollars for
+the lot.  If they were real diamonds, you might be a millionaire now."
+
+Mitchell was evidently convinced, for he swore bitterly.
+
+"I'm curious to know," Horace said, "how you came to hear that you
+might expect to find diamonds hereabouts?"
+
+"One of these breeds," said Mitchell sullenly, "got it from a brother
+of his down by Hickson that a prospector had died here with a pocketful
+of shiny stones that he'd picked up.  I've prospected some myself.  I
+thought what these stones likely was, and I got together this crowd,
+and--"
+
+"We know the rest," said Peter.  "You came on the same false scent that
+we did."  Then he turned to Horace, and whispered, "What in the world
+are we going to do with these fellows?"
+
+Horace wrinkled his brows in perplexity, and shook his head.  "I don't
+know," he said.
+
+But whatever they did, they must first of all sleep.  The fire in the
+cabin had indeed burned out, but the place was so charred and smoky as
+to be uninhabitable; so they built a huge camp-fire of logs on the
+snow.  Here they all passed the night,--there was not much left of
+it,--and Peter, Fred, and Maurice took turns in staying awake in order
+to watch the prisoners.
+
+The next morning the boys prepared a great breakfast from the
+recaptured provisions.  They released the right hands of the captives,
+to enable them to eat; the men showed no hostile spirit.  Mitchell only
+was sullen, as usual; the three French Canadians chattered gayly; they
+had quite recovered from their suffocation.  Four of the dogs were
+lively, too; but one was dead.
+
+After breakfast the boys inspected the cabin, and carried out the rest
+of the supplies.  Most of these were badly damaged.  All the blankets
+had been destroyed; the rifles were charred about the stocks, but could
+still be used; the kettles and tinware were not much injured; but the
+boys found only one box of cartridges that had not exploded.
+Mitchell's dog harness was burned to pieces.  Both the sledges had been
+left outdoors, and were unhurt.
+
+As they looked over the outfit, the boys discussed their plans.  They
+agreed that they should start for home at once.  They were all anxious
+to have the diamonds appraised, and there was not the slightest reason
+for remaining.  But the question what to do with the prisoners
+perplexed them.  They could not take them along, could not leave them
+bound, and did not dare to set them free and restore their weapons.
+
+Finally, however, the boys found a way out of the difficulty.  They
+divided the provisions and ammunition into two equal parts, and loaded
+their toboggan with one of them.  Peter then cut the four men loose.
+
+"We'll treat you better than you did us," he said.  "We're leaving you
+half the grub, and there are some old deerskins here from which you can
+make a new dog harness.  We'll carry your snowshoes with us for two
+miles down the river, and leave them there.  We'll carry your rifles
+three miles farther, and leave them in a conspicuous place, too."
+
+Then the boys set out on their homeward journey.  One of the Frenchmen
+immediately started after them in order to pick up the snowshoes and
+the rifles, but the boys soon left him far behind.  They saw no more of
+any of the outlaw gang, although, for fear of an attack, they kept
+watch for the next two nights in camp.
+
+None of the boys were in condition for fast travel, and the question of
+supplies was a serious one.  Horace thought it best to make straight
+for the lumber camp where he had been so kindly received, and they
+reached it on the third day.  Here they spent a couple of days in rest
+and recuperation, and were lucky enough to be able to buy enough beans,
+flour, and bacon to last them to the railway.  Again they set off, and,
+after four days of hard tramping in bitter cold weather, they heard the
+whistle of a train, faint and far away through the trees.
+
+They all yelled with joy.  It was like a voice from home.  They began
+to run, and in a short time they came to iron rails running north and
+south through the snowy forest.  Following up the line, they found
+themselves at Ringwood, three stations north of Waverley, where they
+had gone in.
+
+The next train took them down to that point, and they went back to the
+hotel, recovered their suit-cases, and put on town clothes again.  It
+seemed a long time since they had passed that way before, and collars
+and cuffs were hard to wear.  A great many curious eyes followed them
+about the little hotel.
+
+"Find any gold?" the landlord asked them, in an offhand manner.
+
+"No," said Maurice.  If he had inquired about diamonds, the boys would
+have been puzzled what to say.
+
+For the last time they packed their dunnage sacks on the battered
+toboggan, and shipped it to the city.  They traveled on the same train
+themselves, and were in Toronto the next morning.
+
+The boys parted with hearty farewells--Maurice going home, Macgregor to
+his rooms, and Horace accompanying Fred to his boarding-house, where he
+intended to find quarters for himself.
+
+"And now for the great question!" said Horace, when they were once
+indoors.  "Are the diamonds worth anything, or are they not?  I can't
+think of anything else till I find out."
+
+"Why, I thought you were sure--" began Fred.
+
+"So I am--in a general sort of way.  But I'm not a diamond expert, and
+I may be deceived.  It's just possible that the things may not be real
+diamonds at all.
+
+"But don't worry," he added, seeing his brother's startled face.  "I'm
+pretty sure they 're all right.  But I'm going to take them at once to
+Wilson & Keith's and get them appraised.  They're the best diamond firm
+in the city, and they'll treat me honestly."
+
+Horace dressed himself very carefully, took his little sack of jewels,
+and departed.  He was gone fully three hours, and Fred waited in almost
+sickening impatience.  At last he heard Horace's step on the stairs,
+and rushed out to meet him.
+
+"What luck?" he cried eagerly.
+
+"S-sh!" said Horace, drawing him back into the room.  "It's all right.
+They're diamonds!"
+
+"Hurrah!" Fred shouted wildly.
+
+"They were awfully keen to know where I got them, but of course I
+wouldn't tell, except that it was in Ontario.  They would have bought
+the lot, I think, but I wasn't anxious to sell at once.  They wanted me
+to make a price, and I wanted them to make an offer, and both of us
+were afraid, I guess.  However, they're going to take care of the
+stones for me and think it over."
+
+"We must tell the other boys!" exclaimed Fred.  "Can you make the
+slightest guess at what the stones are worth?"
+
+"Hardly--at present.  Maybe a thousand or two.  Three of them are too
+small to be of any use at all, too small to be cut.  The biggest has a
+bad flaw in it; it could be used only for cutting up into what they
+call 'commercial diamonds,' for watch-movements, and such things.  Yes,
+give Peter and Maurice the news, certainly, but do it by word of mouth.
+Don't 'phone them.  You don't know who may be listening.
+
+"And be sure to warn them to keep the whole affair the closest kind of
+secret.  Wilson & Keith are going to exhibit the stones in their show
+window, and you've no idea what an excitement will be stirred up.
+We'll all be watched.  People will try in every possible way to find
+out where we got them.  The newspapers will be after the story, and
+there'll be all kinds of underhand tricks to trap us into letting out
+something.  Not that it would do much good, for none of you know enough
+to be dangerous, but we don't want a dozen parties going up the
+Nottaway River next spring.  We 're going there ourselves."
+
+Fred promised secrecy, and presently found that his brother had hardly
+exaggerated the sensation caused by the little pile of dull stones on a
+square of black velvet in the jeweler's window, labeled "Canadian
+Diamonds."  The newspapers were unremitting; Horace gave them a brief
+and circumspect interview, and thenceforth refused to add another word
+to his statement.  He was besieged with inquiries.  He had all sorts of
+proposals made to him by miners and mining firms.  One group of
+capitalists made him an offer that he thought good enough to consider
+for a day, but he ultimately rejected it.
+
+Fred had his share of glory too, as the brother of the diamond finder.
+It leaked out that Maurice and Peter had also been on the expedition,
+and they were so pestered with inquiries and interviewers that it
+seriously interfered with their collegiate work.  But by degrees the
+excitement wore off, for lack of anything further to feed upon.  The
+diamonds were withdrawn from exhibition, and the jewelers at last made
+up their minds to offer Horace seven hundred dollars for the lot.
+
+It was rather a disappointing figure.  Horace took his diamonds to
+Montreal and submitted them to two jewel experts there, who advised him
+that they were probably worth little more, in their uncut form.  The
+cutting of them might develop flaws, or it might bring out unexpected
+luster; it was taking a chance.
+
+Returning to Toronto, he announced that he would take eight hundred and
+no less; and after some arguing Wilson & Keith consented to pay that
+price.  The boys had a grand dinner at a downtown restaurant that night
+to celebrate it.  It was far from the fortune they had hoped to gain,
+but they still had great hopes of discovering that fortune.
+
+"It's more than enough to cover the expenses of your trip into the
+woods this winter, and our next trip in the spring, too," said Horace,
+"for of course this eight hundred is going to be divided equally
+between us."
+
+
+
+
+"Not a bit of it!" protested Mac.  "You found the stones.  They're
+yours.  We won't take a cent of it, will we, Maurice?"
+
+"I should think not!" Maurice exclaimed.
+
+Horace tried to insist, but the two boys stood firm.  At last he
+persuaded them to agree that the expenses of the expedition should be
+defrayed out of the diamond money.  As for their coming trip next
+season, the matter was left to be settled later.
+
+There was plenty of time to think of it, for it would be months before
+the woods would be open for prospecting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Nearly the whole winter was before them, but it was none too long a
+time to consider their plans.  Horace had found diamonds, it is true,
+but they had been found miles apart, one at a time, in the river
+gravel.  This is not the natural home of diamonds, which are always
+found native to the peculiar formation known in South Africa as "blue
+clay."  Nobody had ever found a trace of blue clay in Ontario, yet
+Horace felt certain that the blue-clay beds must exist.  They were the
+only thing worth looking for.  To poke over the river gravel in hopes
+of finding a chance stone would be sheer waste of time.  Hundreds of
+men had done it without lighting on a single diamond.
+
+Horace was a trained geologist, and that winter he spent much time in
+study, without saying a word even to Fred as to what he was meditating.
+He pored over geological surveys, and went to Ottawa to consult the
+departmental maps at the Legislative Library.  By slow degrees he was
+working out a theory, and at last, one February evening, he came into
+his brother's room.
+
+"Just look at this, Fred, and see what you think of it," he remarked
+casually.
+
+It was a large pen-and-ink map, skillfully drawn, for Horace was a
+practiced map-maker.
+
+"It's the country of the Abitibi and Missanabie Rivers," Horace
+explained.  "These red crosses show where I found my diamonds--see, in
+the Whitefish River, the Smoke River, and another river that hasn't any
+name, so far as I know.  Right here is the trappers' cabin where you
+boys found me.  My bones might have been up there now but for you, old
+boy!"
+
+And he thumped Fred's back affectionately.
+
+"If you hadn't come along when you did I'm pretty certain our bones
+would be there, anyway," said Fred.
+
+"Well, let's hope we all saved one another.  But see, most of these
+diamonds were found many miles apart.  They didn't grow where I found
+them.  They must have been washed down, perhaps from the very
+headwaters of the river.  Now look at the map.  Do you see, all these
+three rivers rise in pretty much the same region."
+
+"So they do," said Fred, his eyes fixed on the paper.  "Then you
+think--"
+
+"The stones were probably all washed down from that region.  The
+blue-clay beds, the diamond field, must be up there, somewhere within
+this black circle I've drawn."
+
+Fred's heart began to throb with excitement.
+
+"But some prospector would have hit on them before now," he said.
+
+"I doubt if any prospector has ever gone in there.  They say it's one
+of the roughest bits of country in the North, and no mineral strikes
+have ever been made in that region.  I've never been up there myself.
+It's up in the hills, you see; the rivers are too broken for a canoe,
+and the ground is too rough to get over on foot, except in the winter.
+The Ojibwas hunt there in the winter, they say, and I dare say there's
+plenty of game."
+
+"But if it's so rough to get into, how can we travel?"
+
+"Oh, often those bad places are not so bad when you get there.  I'd
+like to see the place I couldn't get into if there were diamonds there!
+We'll get into it somehow, for the diamond-beds must surely be there if
+they're anywhere.  But there's no doubt it'll be a rough trip."
+
+"Rough?  What of that?" cried Fred.  "If your theory is right we'll
+make our fortunes--millions, maybe!  Of course you'll let me go, won't
+you?  And Maurice, and Mac?"
+
+"I couldn't manage without you.  But mind, not a word to anybody else!"
+
+They telephoned the other boys that day, and in the evening a meeting
+was held in Fred's room, like the previous time when the first
+expedition had been so hurriedly planned.  But this was to be a
+different affair, carefully thought out and equipped for all sorts of
+possibilities.
+
+"Of course you'll both be able to go?" said Fred.
+
+"I certainly will," answered Peter.  "I've lost so much time this
+winter already, with our other trip, and then having my mind on the
+diamonds and dodging newspaper reporters and things, that I've got
+hopelessly behind.  My laboratory work especially has gone all to
+pieces.  I'm bound to fail on next summer's exams, anyway, so I'm going
+to let it slide and make the trip, on the chance that I'll make such a
+fortune that I won't have to practice medicine for a living at all.
+How about you, Maurice?"
+
+"I wouldn't miss it for anything--if I could help it," Maurice replied.
+"I don't know, though, whether I can afford it."
+
+Maurice's parents were not in rich circumstances, and Horace hastened
+to say--
+
+"I'm paying for this expedition, you know, out of the diamond money.
+There'll be plenty, and some to spare."
+
+"Well, it isn't exactly the cost," said Maurice, "but my father is
+awfully anxious for me to make an honor pass next summer.  I couldn't
+afford to fail, and have to take another year at the work.  I don't
+know, though,--I'll see.  I'd be awfully disappointed if I had to stay
+out of it."
+
+Under the circumstances they could not urge him to say more.  As for
+Horace and Fred, they had very few family ties.  Their closest
+relatives were an aunt and uncle in Montreal.  The trip was quite in
+the line of Horace's profession, and Fred did not mind resigning the
+post he held in the real estate office.  The firm was shaky; it was not
+likely to continue in business much longer, and he would be likely to
+have to look for another position soon in any event.  As they had
+feared, Maurice was obliged to announce his inability to go with them.
+His professors thought that an absence of two months would be a
+handicap that he could never make up.  In the eyes of his parents the
+expedition was no more than a hare-brained expedition into the woods,
+that would cost a whole year of collegiate work.  To his bitter
+disappointment, he had to give it up.
+
+Fred and Macgregor at once began to train as if for an athletic
+contest.  They took long cross-country runs in the snow and worked hard
+in the gymnasium.  They introduced a new form of exercise that made
+their friends stare.  They appeared on the indoor running track bent
+almost double; each carried on his back a sack of sawdust, held in
+place by a broad leather band that passed over the top of his forehead.
+Thus burdened they jogged round the track at a fast walk.
+
+They were the butt of many jokes before the other men at the gymnasium
+discovered the reason for this queer form of exercise.  It had been
+Horace's idea.  He knew that there would be long portages where they
+would have to carry the supplies with a tumpline; and he also knew that
+nothing is so wearing on a novice.
+
+Fred and Peter found it so.  Strong as they were, they discovered that
+it brought a new set of muscles into play, and they had trouble in
+staggering over a mile with a fifty-pound pack; but they kept at it,
+and before the expedition started, Fred could travel five miles with a
+hundred pounds, and big Macgregor could do even better.
+
+As soon as the ice on Toronto Bay broke up, they bought a large
+Peterboro canoe, which Horace inspected thoroughly.  He was a skilled
+canoeman; Fred and Peter could also handle a paddle.  When the ice went
+out of the Don and Humber Rivers, the boys began to practice canoeing
+assiduously.  The streams were running yellow and flooded, and they got
+more than one ducking, but it was all good training.
+
+They decided to start as soon as the Northern rivers were navigable,
+for at that early season they would escape the worst of the black-fly
+pest, and the smaller streams would be more easily traveled than when
+shallow in midsummer.  Besides, they all felt anxious to get on the
+ground at once.  But although the streams were free in Toronto, in the
+Far North winter held them locked.  It was hard to wait; but not until
+May did Horace think it safe to start.
+
+Since Maurice was not going, the boys decided to take only one canoe.
+It was impossible to say how long they might be gone, but Horace made
+out a list of supplies for six weeks.  It was rather a formidable list,
+and the outfit would be heavy to transport.  They carried a tent and
+mosquito-bar, and a light spade and pick for prospecting the blue clay,
+besides Horace's own regular outfit for mineralogical testing work.
+For weapons they decided upon a 44-caliber repeating rifle and a
+shotgun, with assorted loads of shells.  It was not the season for
+hunting, but they wished to live on the country as far as possible to
+save their flour and pork.  Fish should be abundant, however, and they
+took a steel rod with a varied stock of artificial flies and
+minnow-baits.
+
+It was warm weather, almost summery, when they took the northbound
+express in Toronto; but when Fred opened the car window the next
+morning, a biting cold air rushed in.  Rough spruce woods lined the
+track, and here and there he saw patches of snow.
+
+It was almost noon when they got off at the station that was a favorite
+starting-point for prospectors.  Here they had to spend two days, for
+Horace wished to engage Indian packers to help them portage over the
+Height of Land.  As it was early in the season, they had their pick of
+men, and obtained three French half-breeds, who furnished their own
+canoe and supplies.
+
+The boys' canoe and duffel sacks had come up by freight.  All was ready
+at last.  The next morning they put the canoes into the water; the
+paddles dipped, and the half-dozen houses of the village dropped out of
+sight behind the pines.
+
+The first week of that voyage was uneventful, except for hard work and
+considerable discomfort.  It rained four days in the seven, and once it
+snowed a little.  They were going upstream always, against a rushing
+current swollen with snow water.  Sometimes they could paddle, more
+often they had to pole, and frequently they were forced either to
+carry, or else to wade and "track" the canoes up the current.  The
+nearer they came to the head of the river, the swifter and more broken
+the stream became.  At last they could go no farther in the canoes.
+Then came the long portage.  In order to reach the head of the
+Missanabie River, which flowed in the opposite direction, they had to
+carry the canoe and over six hundred pounds of outfit for about twelve
+miles, across the Height of Land.
+
+Here they camped for one night.  At daylight next morning they started
+over the long portage, heavily burdened, and before the first hour had
+passed they were thankful that they had brought along the half-breed
+packers, who strode along sturdily under a load that made Fred stare.
+It is only fair to say, though, that the half-breeds were almost
+equally surprised at the performance of the boys, for their previous
+experience with city campers had not led them to expect anything in the
+way of weight-carrying.  Thanks to their gymnasium practice, however,
+Fred and Macgregor were able to travel under a sixty-pound load without
+actually collapsing.
+
+The trail was rough and wound up and down over rocky ridges, through
+tangles of swamp-alder and tamarack, but continually zigzagged up
+toward the hills.  It was a chilly day; the streams had been rimmed
+with ice that morning, but after a few miles the boys were dripping
+with perspiration.
+
+That was a killing march.  If it had not been for their weeks of hard
+training the boys could never have stood up under it, and they had all
+they could do to reach the topmost ridge of the Height of Land by the
+middle of the afternoon.
+
+Fred slipped the tumpline from his head, slung the sixty-pound pack on
+the ground, and sat down heavily on the pack.
+
+"That part's over, anyway!" he gasped.
+
+"There won't be anything much rougher, old boy," replied Horace, as he
+came up and threw off his own burden.
+
+Staggering through the underbrush, slipping on the wet, mossy stones of
+the slope, came a queer procession.  In front was a bronze-faced
+half-breed, bent double, with the broad tump-line over the top of his
+head, and a mountainous pack of blankets and food supplies on his back.
+Behind him came two more half-breeds, each with a heavy pack of camp
+outfit.  Macgregor brought up the rear; he carried a Peterboro canoe
+upside down on his shoulders, and steadied it with his hands.
+
+They all sat down on the top of the hill to rest.  The three white
+boys, although trained athletes, were pretty well at the end of their
+strength; but the half-breeds seemed little the worse for their labor.
+
+They were on the top of the Height of Land, which divides the flow of
+the rivers between the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay.  Behind them was the
+long, undulating line of hills and valleys they had just crossed.
+
+Before them the land fell away sharply.  In the clear May sunshine they
+could see for miles over the tree-tops until the dark green of the
+spruce and tamarack faded to a hazy blue.  A great ridge showed a split
+face of gray granite; in the distance a lake glimmered.
+
+About two miles away to the northwest a yellowish-green strip showed
+here and there through the trees.  It was a river--one of the
+tributaries of the Missanabie, which was to take them North.
+
+The descent on the other side of the ridge was almost as hard as the
+ascent had been.  The northern slope was wet and rocky; in the hollows
+were deep banks of snow.  The rocks were loosened by the frost, which
+made the footing dangerous.  But it was only two miles now to the
+river, and they reached it in time to camp before dusk.  The next
+morning they paid off the half-breeds, who returned over the ridges
+southward.  The boys were left alone; the real expedition had begun.
+
+The work now looked easy, but dangerous.  The river was narrow,
+swollen; its tremendous current, roaring over rocks and rapids, would
+carry them along at a rapid pace.  They would have to do some careful
+steering, however, if they did not wish to upset.
+
+As the most skillful canoeman, Horace took the stern; Macgregor sat in
+the bow, and Fred in the middle behind a huge pile of dunnage.
+
+For a quarter of a mile they shot down the river; then they had to land
+and make a fifty-yard carry.  Another swift run in the canoe followed,
+and then another and longer portage.
+
+It was like that for about fifteen miles.  Then they caught sight of
+wider water ahead, and the little river poured into a great, brown,
+swift-flowing stream a hundred yards wide.  It was the Missanabie.
+
+During the rest of that day they ran over forty miles.  The current
+carried them fast, and the river was so big and deep that it was seldom
+broken by dangerous rapids.
+
+The country grew lower and less hilly; it was covered with a rather
+stunted growth of spruce, tamarack, and birch.  Ducks splashed up from
+the water as the canoe came in sight; and when the boys stopped to make
+camp for the night they found at the river's edge the tracks of a moose.
+
+It was wintry cold in camp that night, and there was ice in the pools
+the next morning.  Shortly after sunrise the boys launched the canoe
+again, and it was not much more than an hour later when a sound of
+roaring water began to grow loud in their ears.  With vast commotion
+and foam a smaller stream swept into the Missanabie from the southwest.
+
+"Hurrah!  I've been here before!" cried Horace.  "It's the Smoke River.
+Up here real work begins."
+
+"And up here," Peter said, gazing at the wild, swift stream, "is the
+diamond country."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+The mouth of the Smoke River was so rough that the boys could not enter
+it in the canoe; and the dense growth of birch and willow along the
+shores would make portaging difficult.
+
+"We'll have to track the canoe up," Horace decided.
+
+They got out the "tracking-line"--a long, stout, half-inch rope--and
+attached one end of it to the bow of the canoe.  Peter Macgregor
+harnessed himself to the other end, and started up the narrow, rocky
+strip of shore; Horace waded beside the canoe in order to fend her off
+the boulders.  Fred, carrying the fire-arms and a few other articles
+that a wetting would have ruined, scrambled through the thickets.
+
+The water was icy cold, but it was never more than hip-deep.
+Fortunately, the very broken stretch of the river was only a hundred
+yards long; after that, they were able to pole for a mile or so, and
+once indeed, the stream broadened so much that they could use the
+paddles.  Then came a precipitous cascade, then a difficult carry, and
+then another stretch of poling.
+
+They had gone about five miles up the river when Horace, who had been
+watching the shores carefully, pointed to a tree and gave a shout.  It
+was a large spruce, on the trunk of which was a blazed mark that looked
+less than a year old.
+
+"It's my mark," said Horace.  "I made it last August.  Right here I
+found one of the diamonds."
+
+"We must stop and do some prospecting!" cried Fred.
+
+"No use," replied his brother.  "I prospected all round here myself,
+and for a mile or so up the river.  I didn't go any farther, but I've a
+notion that we'll have to go nearly to the head of the river to find
+the country we want."
+
+On they went, shoving the canoe against the current with the iron-shod
+canoe poles.  They had all been looking up the kind of soil in which
+diamonds are usually found, and now they closely observed the eroded
+banks on both sides of the river.  According to Horace's theory, the
+river, or one of its tributary streams, must cut through the
+diamond-beds of blue clay.  But as yet the shores showed nothing except
+ordinary sand and gravel.
+
+Two miles farther the river broadened into a long, narrow lake,
+surrounded by low spruce-clad hills and edged with sprouting lily-pads.
+It was a great relief to the boys to be able to paddle, and they dashed
+rapidly to the head of the lake.  There, rapids and a long carry
+confronted them!  They had made little more than fifteen miles that day
+when finally they went into camp; they were almost too tired to cook
+supper.  And they knew that that day's work was only a foretaste of
+what was coming, for from now on they would be continually "bucking the
+rapids."
+
+The next day they found rapids in plenty, indeed.  They seemed to come
+on an average of a quarter of a mile apart, and sometimes two or three
+in such close succession that it was scarcely worth while to launch the
+canoe again after the first portage.  It was slow, toilsome work; they
+grew very tired as the afternoon wore on, and shortly before sunset
+they came to one of the worst spots they had yet encountered.
+
+It was a pair of rapids, less than a hundred yards apart.  Over the
+first one the water rushed among a medley of irregular boulders, and
+then, after some ten rods of smooth, swift current, poured down a
+cataract of several feet.  Huge black rocks, split and tumbled, broke
+up the cataract, and the hoarse roar filled the pine woods with sound.
+
+"I move we camp!" said Fred, eyeing this obstacle with disgust.
+
+"Let's get over the carry first and camp at the top," Peter urged.
+"Then we'll have a clear start for morning."
+
+Fred grumbled that they would certainly be fresher in the morning than
+they were then, but they unpacked the canoe, and began to carry the
+outfit around the broken water, as they had done so many times that
+day.  Once at the head of the upper rapid Horace began to get out the
+cooking-utensils.
+
+"I'll start supper," he said.  "You fellows might see if you can't land
+a few trout.  There ought to be big fellows between these two cascades."
+
+It did look a good place for trout, and Mac had an appetite for fishing
+that no fatigue could stifle.  He took the steel fly-rod, and walked a
+little way down the stream past the upper rapid.  Fred cut a long,
+slender pole, tied a line to it and prepared to fish in a less
+scientific fashion.  As his rod and line were considerably shorter than
+Mac's, he got into the canoe, put a loop of the tracking-rope around a
+rock, and let himself drift for the length of the rope, nearly to the
+edge of the rough water.  Hung in this rather precarious position, he
+was able to throw his hook into the foamy water just at the foot of the
+fall, and had a bite almost instantly, throwing out a good half-pound
+fish whose orange spots glittered in the sunlight.
+
+Peter meanwhile was fishing from the shore lower down.  The thickets
+were farther back from the water than usual, and he had plenty of room
+for the back cast.  He was kept busy from the first, and when he had
+time to glance up Fred seemed to be having equally good luck.
+
+But at one of these hurried glances his eye caught something that
+appalled him.  The looped rope that held the straining canoe seemed to
+be in danger of slipping from its hold on the rock.
+
+He shouted, but the roar of the water drowned his voice.  He started up
+the bank, shouting and gesticulating, but Fred was busy with a fish and
+did not hear or see.  Horace was cutting wood at a distance.  And at
+that moment the rope slipped free.  The canoe shot forward, and before
+Fred could even drop his rod he was whirled broadside on into the rapid.
+
+Instantly the canoe capsized.  Fred went out of sight in the foam and
+water, and then Macgregor saw him floating down on the current below
+the rapid.  He was on his back, with his face just above water, and he
+did not move a limb.
+
+Mac yelled at him, but got no answer.  Fred had not been under long
+enough to be drowned.  He had evidently been stunned by striking his
+head against a rock.
+
+Then Mac realized the boy's new and greater danger.  Fred was drifting
+rapidly head first toward the second cataract, and no one could dive
+over that fall and live.  The rocks at the bottom would brain the
+strongest swimmer.
+
+Mac instinctively dropped his rod and rushed into the water.  The
+strength of the swirling current almost swept him off his feet.  It was
+too deep to wade, and he was not a good swimmer.  He could never reach
+Fred in time.  They would go over the fall together.
+
+Fred was more than thirty feet from shore.  Mac thought of a long pole,
+and splashed madly ashore again.  He caught sight of his fishing-rod,
+with its hundred yards of strong silk line on the reel.
+
+Fred was now about twenty yards above the cascade when Mac ran into the
+river again, rod in hand, as far as he dared to wade.  He measured the
+distance with his eye, reeled out the line, waving the rod in the air,
+and then, with a turn of his wrist, the delicate rod shot the pair of
+flies across the water.
+
+Mac was an expert fly-caster.  The difficulty was not in the length of
+the cast; it was to hook the flies in Fred's clothing.  They fell a
+yard beyond the boy's body.  Mac drew them in.  The hooks seemed to
+catch for an instant on his chest, but came free at the first tug.
+
+Desperately Mac swished the flies out of the water for another cast.
+He saw that he would have time to throw but this once more, for Fred
+was terribly near the cataract, and moving faster as the pull of the
+current quickened.  Mac waded a little farther into the stream, leaning
+against the current to keep his balance.
+
+The line whirled again, and shot out, and again the gut fell across
+Fred's shoulders with the flies on the other side.  With the greatest
+care Mac drew in the line.  The first fly dragged over the body as
+before.  The other caught, broke loose, and caught again in Fred's coat
+near the collar, and then the steel rod bent with the sudden strain of
+a hundred and fifty pounds drawn down by the strong current.
+
+Mac knew that the rod was almost unbreakable, but he feared for his
+line.  The current pulled so hard that he dared not exert much force.
+Fred's body swung round with his head upstream, his feet toward the
+cataract, and the current split and ripped in spray over his head.
+
+The lithe steel rod bent hoop-like.  There was a struggle for a moment,
+a deadlock between the stream and the line, and Mac feared that he
+could not hold it.  The light tackle would never stand the strain.
+
+Mac had fought big fishes before, however, and he knew how to get the
+most out of his tackle.  With the check on the reel he let out line
+inch by inch to ease the resistance; and meanwhile he endeavored to
+swing Fred across the current and nearer the shore.
+
+As he stood with every nerve and muscle strained on the fight he
+suddenly saw Horace out of the corner of his eye.  Horace was beside
+him, coat and shoes off, with a long hooked pole in his hands, gazing
+with compressed lips at his brother's floating body.
+
+There was not a word exchanged.  Under the steady pull Fred came over
+in an arc of a circle, but for every foot that was gained Mac had to
+let out more line.  His legs were swinging already within a few yards
+of the dangerous verge, but he was getting out of the center of the
+stream, and the current was already less violent.
+
+Inch by inch and foot by foot he came nearer, and all at once Horace
+rushed forward, nearly shoulder-deep, and hooked the pole over his
+brother's arm.  At the jerk the gut casting-line snapped with a crack,
+and the end flew back like a whip into Peter's face.  But Horace had
+drawn Fred within reach, had gripped him, and waded ashore carrying him
+in his arms.
+
+"I'll never forget this of you, Mac!" he ejaculated as he passed the
+medical student.
+
+Fred had already come half to himself when they laid him on the bank.
+He had not swallowed much water, but had been merely knocked senseless
+by concussion with a boulder.
+
+"What's--matter?" he muttered faintly, opening his eyes.
+
+"Keep quiet.  You fell in the river.  Mac fished you out," said Horace.
+
+Fred blinked about vaguely, half-attempted to rise and fell back.
+
+"Gracious!  What a head I've got!" he muttered dizzily.
+
+They carried him up to the camp, put him on the blankets and examined
+his cranium.  The back of his neck was skinned, there was a bleeding
+cut on the top of his head and a big bruise on the back, but Mac
+pronounced none of these injuries at all serious.  While they were
+examining him Fred opened his eyes again.
+
+"Fished me out, Mac?  Guess you saved my life," he murmured.
+
+"That's all right, old fellow," replied Peter; and then he gave a
+sudden start.
+
+"The canoe!"
+
+In the excitement over Fred's rescue they had entirely forgotten it.
+It had drifted downstream.  If lost or destroyed they would be left
+stranded in the wilderness--almost as hopelessly as castaways at sea.
+
+Without another word Mac began to run at full speed down the bank in
+the deepening twilight.  If the canoe had drifted right down the
+stream, he might never have overtaken it, but luckily he came upon it
+within a mile, lying stranded and capsized.  By the greatest good luck,
+too, it was not ruined.  It had several bruises and a strip of the rail
+was split off, but it was still water-tight.
+
+The next morning Fred was fairly recovered of his hurts, but felt weak
+and dizzy, so that not much progress was made.  During the whole
+forenoon they remained in camp.  Horace went hunting with the shotgun
+and got a couple of ducks.  None of them felt much inclined for any
+more fishing in that almost fatal spot.
+
+On the following day, however, Fred was able to take his share of the
+work again, and the party proceeded.  That day and many days after were
+much alike.  They tracked the canoe up long stretches of rough water,
+where two of them had to wade alongside in order to keep it from going
+over.  They made back-breaking portages over places where they had to
+hew out a trail for a quarter of a mile.  At night when they rolled
+themselves into their blankets they were too tired to talk.  But the
+hard training they had undergone before they started showed its results
+now.  Although they were dead tired at night, they were always ready
+for the day's work in the morning.  They suffered no ill effects from
+their wettings in the river, and their appetites were enormous.
+
+The supplies, especially of bacon and flour, decreased alarmingly.
+Although signs of game were abundant, they did not like to lose time in
+hunting until they reached the prospecting grounds; but a couple of
+days later meat came to them.  They had reached the foot of the worst
+rapid they had yet encountered.  It was a veritable cascade, for the
+river, narrowing between walls of rock, leaped and roared over fifty
+yards of boulders.  The portage led up a rather steep slope.  The three
+boys, each heavily burdened, were struggling along in single file, when
+Horace, who was in front, suddenly sank flat, and with his hand
+cautioned the others to be silent.
+
+"S-s-h!  Lie low!" he whispered.  "Give me the rifle!"
+
+Macgregor passed the weapon to him, and then he and Fred wriggled
+forward to look.
+
+Eighty yards away Fred saw the light-brown flank of a doe, and beside
+her, partly concealed by the underbrush, the head and large,
+questioning ears of a fawn.  The animals were evidently excited, for as
+Horace lowered his rifle, not wishing to kill a mother with young, they
+bounded a few steps nearer, and stood gazing back at the thicket from
+which they had come.  The wind blew toward the boys, and the roar of
+the cataract had drowned the noise of their approach.
+
+Suddenly there was a commotion in the thicket, and two young bucks
+burst from the spruces and dashed past the doe and fawn toward the
+boys.  At the same instant the lithe, tawny form of a lynx leaped out.
+It struck like lightning at the fawn, but the little fellow sprang
+aside and bounded after its mother.  The lynx gave a few prodigious
+leaps and then stood, with tufted ears erect, glaring in
+disappointment.  It had all happened within a few seconds, and the deer
+were disappearing behind some rocks and stunted spruces fifty yards to
+the right before the boys thought again of their need of meat.
+
+At that moment, one of the bucks wheeled at the edge of the tangle
+behind which the other deer had passed.  For an instant he presented a
+fair quartering shot.
+
+"Shoot quick!" whispered Macgregor, excitedly.
+
+As the repeater in Horace's hands cracked, the buck whirled round in a
+half-circle, leaped once, and fell.
+
+Fred uttered a wild shout, slipped the tumpline from his head, and ran
+forward.  He was carrying the shotgun and held it ready; but the buck,
+shot behind the shoulder, was virtually dead, although he was kicking
+feebly.
+
+The lynx had vanished; there was no sign of the other deer.  Only the
+rush of the water in the river-bed now disturbed the forest stillness.
+
+The dressing of the game was no small task.  It was late in the
+afternoon when the boys had finished it and had brought up the rest of
+their outfit to the head of the cataract.  "Buck Rapids" they named the
+place.  There was enough meat on the deer to last them for the next
+week at least.  The slices they cut and fried that night, although not
+tender, were palatable and nourishing.
+
+The weather had been warmer that day, and for the first time mosquitoes
+troubled them.  The boys slept badly, and got up the next morning
+unrefreshed and in no mood to "buck the river" again.
+
+"Why not stop here a couple of days and prospect?" Mac suggested at
+breakfast.
+
+The proposal struck them all favorably.  It was the real beginning of
+the search for fortune.  Fred in particular was fired with instant
+hope, and immediately after breakfast he set out to explore the country
+north of the river; he intended to make a wide circle back to the Smoke
+River and to come homeward down its bank.  He carried a compass, the
+shotgun, and a luncheon of cold flapjacks and fried deer meat.  Horace
+went off to the south; Macgregor remained in camp, to jerk the venison
+by smoking it over a slow fire.
+
+It was a sunny, warm day.  Spring seemed to have come with a bound, and
+the warmth had brought out the black flies in swarms.  All the boys had
+smeared themselves that morning with "fly dope" that they had bought at
+the railway station, but even that black, ill-smelling varnish on their
+hands and faces was only partly effectual.  Great clouds of the little
+pests hovered round them.
+
+Fred struck straight north from the river, and then turned a little to
+the west.  He examined the ground with the utmost care.  The land lay
+in great ridges and valleys, and he soon found that prospecting was
+almost as rough work as fighting the river.  In the valleys the earth
+was mucky with melting snow water; on the hills it was rocky, with huge
+boulders, tumbled heaps of shattered stone, slopes of loose gravel;
+everywhere was a tangle of stunted, scrubby birch and poplar, spruce
+and jack-pine.
+
+After half an hour he came upon a small creek that flowed from the
+northwest.  With a glance at his compass, he started to follow it.  For
+nearly three hours he plodded along the creek, digging into the banks
+with a stick and examining every spot where there seemed a chance of
+finding blue clay; but he found nothing except ordinary sand and
+gravel.  At last, disappointed and disheartened, he turned back toward
+the Smoke River.  After a mile or so he stopped to eat his luncheon,
+and built a smudge to keep the flies away; then he proceeded onward
+through the rough, unprofitable country.
+
+But if he did not find diamonds, he came on plenty of game.  Ruffed
+grouse and spruce partridges rose here and there and perched in the
+trees.  He saw many rabbits, and there were signs where deer or moose
+had browsed on the birch twigs.  Once, as he came over a ridge, he
+caught a glimpse of a black bear digging at a pile of rotten logs in
+the valley.  The animal evidently had not been long out of winter
+quarters, for it looked starved, and its fur was tattered and rusty.
+The moment the bear caught sight of him, it vanished like a dark streak.
+
+Fred found no trace that afternoon of blue clay, or, indeed, of any
+clay, but he happened upon something that caused him some apprehension.
+It was a steel trap, lying on the open ground, battered and rusted as
+if it had been there for some time.  Scattered round it were some bones
+that he guessed had belonged to a lynx.  Apparently the animal had been
+caught in the trap, which was of the size generally used for martens,
+had broken the chain from its fastening, and had traveled until it had
+either perished from starvation or had been killed by wolves.
+
+Although rusty, the trap was still in working condition, and Fred,
+somewhat uneasy, took it along with him.  Some one had been trapping in
+that district recently, perhaps during the last winter; was the
+stranger also looking for diamonds?
+
+With frequent glances at his compass Fred kept zigzagging to and fro,
+and finally came out on the river again; but he was still a long way
+from camp, and he did not reach the head of the cataract until nearly
+sunset.
+
+Horace had already come in, covered with mud and swollen with fly bites.
+
+"What luck?" cried Fred, eagerly.
+
+His brother shook his head.  He had encountered the same sort of rough
+country as Fred; and to add to his troubles, he had got into a morass,
+from which he had escaped in a very muddy condition.
+
+Then Fred produced the trap and told of his finding it and of his
+fears.  The boys examined it and tested its springs.  Horace took a
+more cheerful view of the matter.
+
+"The Ojibywas always trap through here in the winter," he said.  "The
+owner of that trap is probably down at Moose Factory now.  Besides, the
+lynx might have traveled twenty or thirty miles from the place where it
+was caught."
+
+In spite of the failure of the day's work they all felt hopeful; but
+they resolved to push on farther before doing any more prospecting.
+
+The next morning they launched the canoe, and for four days more faced
+the river.  Each day the work was harder.  Each day they had a
+succession of back-breaking portages; sometimes they were able to pole
+a little; they hauled the canoe for hours by the tracking-line, and in
+those four days they traveled scarcely thirty miles.
+
+On the last day they met with a serious misfortune.  While they were
+hauling the canoe up a rapid the craft narrowly escaped capsizing, and
+spilled out a large tin that contained twenty-five pounds of corn meal
+and ten pounds of rice--their entire stock.  What was worse, the cover
+came off, and the precious contents disappeared in the water.
+
+About fifteen pounds of Graham flour and five pounds of oatmeal were
+all the breadstuffs they had left now, and they had to use it most
+sparingly.
+
+But they were well within the region where Horace thought that the
+diamond-beds must lie.  On the map it had seemed a small area; but now
+they realized that it was a huge stretch of tangled wilderness, where a
+dozen diamond-beds might defy discovery.  Even Horace, the veteran
+prospector, admitted that they had a big job before them.
+
+"However, we'll find the blue clay if it's on the surface--and the
+supplies hold out," he said, with determination.
+
+The next morning each of the boys went out in a different direction.
+Late in the afternoon they came back, one by one, tired and fly-bitten,
+and each with the same failure to report.  The ground was much as they
+had found it before, covered with rock and gravel in rolling ridges.
+Nowhere had they found the blue clay.
+
+They spent two more days here, working hard from morning to night, with
+no success.  The next day they again moved camp a day's journey
+upstream; that brought them into the heart of the district from which
+they had expected so much.  The river was growing so narrow and so
+broken that it would be almost impossible for them to follow it farther
+by canoe.  If they pushed on they would have to abandon their craft,
+and carry what supplies they could on their backs.
+
+But they intended to spend a week here.  They set out on the diamond
+hunt again with fresh energy.  A warm, soft drizzle was falling, which
+to some extent kept down the flies.
+
+Horace came back to camp first; he had had no success.  He was trying
+to find dry wood to rekindle the fire when he saw Fred coming down the
+bank at a run.  The boy's face was aglow.
+
+"Look here, Horace!  What's this?" he asked, as he came up panting.  In
+his hand he held a large, wet lump of greenish-blue, clayey mud.
+Horace took it, poked into it, and turned it over.  Then he glanced
+sympathetically at his brother's face.
+
+"I'm afraid it isn't anything, old boy," he said.  "Only ordinary mud.
+The real blue clay is more of a gray blue, you know, and generally as
+hard as bricks."
+
+Fred pitched the stuff into the river and said nothing, but his face
+showed his disappointment.  He had carried that lump of clay for over
+four miles, in the conviction that he had discovered the
+diamond-bearing soil.
+
+Macgregor came in shortly afterward with nothing more valuable than two
+ducks that he had shot.
+
+The boys were discouraged that evening.  After the rain they could find
+little dry wood.  It was nearly dark before Fred began to stir up the
+usual pan of flapjacks, and "Mac" set himself to the task of cutting up
+one of the ducks to fry.  They were too much depressed to talk, and the
+camp was quiet, when suddenly a crackling tread sounded in the
+underbrush.
+
+"What's that?" cried Horace sharply.  And as he spoke, a man stepped
+out of the shadow, and advanced into the firelight.
+
+"_Bo' soir_!  Hello!" he said, curtly.
+
+"Hello!  Good evening!" cried Fred and Mac, much startled.
+
+"Sit down.  Grub'll be ready in a minute," Horace added.  Hospitality
+comes before everything else in the North.
+
+"Had grub," answered the man; but he sat down on a log beside the fire,
+and surveyed the whole camp with keen, quick eyes.
+
+All the boys looked at him with much curiosity.  He was apparently of
+middle age, with a tangled beard and black hair that straggled down
+almost to his shoulders.  He wore moccasins, Mackinaw trousers shiny
+with blood and grease, a buckskin jacket, and a flannel shirt.  He was
+brown as any Ojibwa, and he, carried a repeating rifle and had a belt
+of cartridges at his waist.
+
+"Hunting?" he asked presently, with a nod at the deerskin that was
+hanging to dry.
+
+"Now and again," said Horace.
+
+"Well, ye can't hunt here," said the man deliberately, after a pause.
+"Don't ye know that this is a Government forest reserve?  No hunters
+allowed.  Ye'll have to be out of here by to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The boys were thunderstruck at the stranger's assertion.  They knew of
+several forest reserves in northern Ontario where timber and game are
+closely protected, but they had never heard of one in this district.
+
+"I guess you're wrong," said Horace.  "There isn't any Government
+reserve north of Timagami."
+
+"Made last fall," the stranger retorted.  "I ought to know.  I'm one of
+the rangers.  We've got a camp up the river, and we've been here all
+winter to keep out hunters and lumbermen."
+
+Horace looked at him closely, but said nothing.
+
+"Prospecting's allowed, isn't it?" Fred blurted out.
+
+"Prospect all ye want to, but ye can't stake no claims."
+
+"Where's the limit of this reserve?" asked Mac.
+
+"Ten miles down the river from here.  Ye'll have to be down below there
+by to-morrow night.  Or, if ye want to stay, ye'll have to give up your
+guns.  No guns allowed here."
+
+"I suppose you've got papers to show your authority?" Mac inquired.
+
+"'Course I have.  They 're back at camp.  Oh, ye'll get all ye want.
+Why," pointing to the fresh hide, "ye killed that there deer out of
+season.  Ye've got the law agin ye for that."
+
+"It was for our own food.  You can kill deer for necessary supplies."
+
+"Not on this ground.  Now ye can do as ye like--give up your guns till
+ye 're ready to leave, or get out right away.  I've warned ye."
+
+The "ranger" got up and glanced round threateningly.
+
+"If you can show us that you're really a Government ranger, we'll go,"
+Horace said.  "But I know the Commissioner of Crown Lands; I saw him
+before we started, and I didn't hear of any new reserve being made.  I
+don't believe in you or your reserve, and we'll stay where we are till
+you show us the proof of your authority."
+
+"I'll show you _this_!" exclaimed the man fiercely, slapping the barrel
+of his rifle.
+
+"You can't bluff us.  We've got guns, too, if it comes to that!" cried
+Fred.
+
+"I've give ye fair warning," repeated the man.  "Ye'll find it mighty
+hard to buck agin the Gover'ment, and ye'll be sorry if ye try it.
+Ye'll see me again."
+
+Turning, he stepped into the shadows and was gone.  The boys looked at
+one another.
+
+"What do you make of it?" Peter asked.  "Is he a ranger--or a
+prospector?"
+
+"They don't hire that kind of man for Government rangers," replied
+Horace.  "And I'm certain there's no forest reserve here.  Why, there's
+no timber worth preserving.  He's a hunter or a prospector, and from
+his looks he's evidently been in the woods all winter, as he said.
+Perhaps he belongs to a party of prospectors who found a good thing
+last fall, and got snowed in before they could get out."
+
+"Hunters wouldn't be so anxious to drive us away," said Fred.  "They
+must be prospectors.  Suppose they've found the diamond fields!"
+
+They had all thought of that.  There was a gloomy silence.
+
+"One thing's certain," said Horace, "we must trail those fellows down,
+and see what sort of men they are and where they 're camped.  We'll
+scout up the river to-morrow."
+
+They all felt nervous and uneasy that evening.  They stayed up late,
+and when they went to bed they loaded their guns and laid them close at
+hand.
+
+But the night passed without any disturbance, and after breakfast they
+set out at once to trail the ranger.  They followed the river for about
+four miles, to a point where the stream broke through the hills in a
+succession of cascades and rapids; but although they searched all the
+landscape with the field-glass from the top of the hills, they saw no
+sign of man.  Beyond the ridges, however, the river turned sharply into
+a wooded valley.  They struggled through the undergrowth, found another
+curve in the river, rounded it--and then stepped hastily back into
+cover.
+
+About two hundred yards upstream stood a log hut on the shore, at the
+foot of a steep bluff.  A wreath of smoke rose from its chimney, but no
+one was in sight.  Talking in low tones, the boys watched it for some
+time.  Then they made a detour through the woods, and crept round to
+the top of the bluff.  Peering cautiously over the edge, they saw the
+cabin below them, not fifty yards away.
+
+It looked like a trappers' winter camp.  It was built of spruce logs,
+chinked with mud and moss.  A deep layer of scattered chips beside the
+remains of a log pile showed that the place had been used all winter.
+
+Presently a man came out of the door, stretched himself lazily, and
+carried a block of wood into the cabin.  It was not the man they had
+seen, but a slender, dark fellow, dressed in buckskin, who looked like
+a half-breed.  In a moment he came out again, and this time the ranger
+came with him.  There was a third man in the cabin, for they could hear
+some one speaking from inside the shack.
+
+For some moments the men stood talking; their voices were quite
+audible, but the boys could not make out what they were saying.  The
+two men examined a pile of steel traps beside the door and a number of
+pelts that were drying on frames in the open air.
+
+"These aren't rangers.  They're just ordinary trappers," Mac whispered
+to Horace.
+
+"They've certainly been trapping.  But why do they want to run us out
+of the country?"
+
+In a few minutes both men went into the cabin, came out with rifles,
+and started down the river-bank.
+
+"They may be going down to our camp," Horace said, "and we must be
+there to meet them.  We'd better hurry back."
+
+The boys started at as fast a pace as the rough ground would allow.
+Owing to dense thickets, swamps, and piled boulders, they could not
+make much speed.  In about twenty minutes Fred heard a sound of falling
+water in front, and supposed that they were approaching the river.  He
+was mistaken.  Within a few yards they came upon a tiny lake fed by a
+creek at one end and closed at the other by a pile of logs and brush.
+Curious heaps of mud and sticks showed here and there above the water.
+Horace uttered an exclamation.
+
+"A beaver pond!" he cried.  "That explains it all."
+
+In a moment the same thought flashed over Fred and Macgregor.  The
+killing of beaver is entirely prohibited in Ontario; but in spite of
+that, a good deal of illicit trapping goes on in the remote districts,
+and the poachers usually carry their pelts across the line into the
+Province of Quebec, where they can sell the fur.  Naturally, the
+trappers had resented the appearance of the three boys in the vicinity
+of the beaver pond; the men had no wish to have their illegal trapping
+discovered.  It was the first beaver pond the boys had ever met with,
+and in spite of their hurry they stopped to look at it.  They came upon
+two or three traps skillfully set under water, and one of them
+contained a beaver, sleek and drowned, held under the surface.
+Apparently the men intended to clean out the pond, for the season was
+already late for fur.
+
+After a few minutes the boys hurried on.  They met no one on the way,
+and they found everything undisturbed in camp; they kept a sharp
+lookout all day, but no one came near them.
+
+On the whole, they felt considerably relieved by the result of their
+scouting.  The lawbreakers had no right to order them off the ground.
+For their own part, the boys felt under no obligation to interfere with
+the beaver trappers.
+
+"If we meet any of them again, we'll let them know plainly that we know
+how things stand," said Mac.  "We'll let them alone if they let us
+alone, and I don't think there'll be any more trouble."
+
+It rained hard that evening--a warm, steady downpour that lasted almost
+until morning.  The tent leaked, and the boys passed a wretched night.
+But day came pleasant and warm, with a moist, springlike air; the
+leaves had unfolded in the night.  The warmth brought out the flies in
+increased numbers.  They smeared their skins with a fresh application
+of "fly dope," and with little thought for the fur poachers, started
+out again to prospect.  All that day and the next they worked hard;
+they saw nothing of the trappers, and found nothing even remotely
+resembling blue clay.
+
+The condition of their footwear had begun to worry them.  The rough
+usage was beginning to tell heavily on their boots, which were already
+ripping, and which had begun to wear through the soles; they would
+hardly hold together for another fortnight.  But the boys bound them up
+and patched them with strips of the deerskin, and kept hard at work.
+
+In the course of the next two days they thoroughly examined all the
+country within five miles of their present camp.  On the evening of the
+second day they finished the last of the oatmeal, and Horace examined
+the remaining supply of Graham flour with anxiety.
+
+"Just about enough to get home on, boys," he said, looking dubiously at
+his companions.
+
+"But we're not going home!" cried Mac.
+
+"The flour and beans'll be gone in another week, and we're a long way
+from civilization.  Can we live on meat alone, Mac?"
+
+"Pretty sure to come down with dysentery if we do--for any length of
+time," admitted the medical student reluctantly.
+
+There was silence round the fire.
+
+"We didn't start this expedition right," said Horace, at last.  "I
+should have planned it better.  We ought to have come with two or three
+canoes and with twice as much grub, and we should have brought several
+pairs of boots apiece."
+
+He thrust out his foot; his bare skin showed through the ripped leather.
+
+"Make moccasins," Mac suggested.
+
+"They wouldn't stand the rough traveling for any time."
+
+"What do you think we ought to do, Horace?" asked Fred.
+
+"Well, I hate to retreat as much as any one," said Horace, after a
+pause.  "But I know--better than either of you--the risk of losing our
+lives if we try to run it too fine on provisions.  At the same time I
+do think that we oughtn't to give up till we've reached the head of
+this river.  It's probably not more than ten or fifteen miles up."
+
+After some discussion they decided that Macgregor and Fred should make
+the journey to the head of the river, carrying provisions for three
+days; that would give them one day in which to prospect at the source.
+Meanwhile, Horace was to strike across country to the northwest, to the
+headwaters of the Whitefish River, about fifteen miles away.
+
+The next morning, therefore, they carefully cached the canoe, the tent,
+and the heavy part of the outfit, and started.  They were all to be
+back on the third evening at the latest, whether they found anything or
+not.
+
+Fred and Mac made a wide detour to avoid the hut of the trappers.  They
+had a hard day's tramp over the rough country, but reached their
+destination rather sooner than they expected.  The river, shrunk to a
+rapid creek, ended in a tiny lake between two hills.
+
+The general surface of the country was the same as that which had
+already grown so monotonously familiar, except that there was rather
+more outcrop of bedrock.  Nowhere could they see anything that seemed
+to suggest the presence of blue clay, and although they spent the whole
+of the next twenty-four hours in making wide circles round the lake,
+they found nothing.
+
+The following morning they started back, depressed and miserable.  If
+Horace's trip should also prove fruitless, the chances of their finding
+the diamonds would be slim indeed.  The Smoke River made a wide turn to
+the west and north, and they concluded that a straight line by compass
+across the wilderness would save them several miles of travel, and
+would also give them a chance to see some fresh ground.  They left the
+river, therefore, and struck a bee-line to the southeast.  The new
+ground proved as unprofitable as the old, and somewhat rougher.  The
+journey had been hard on shoe leather; Fred was limping badly.
+
+Late in the afternoon the boys stopped to rest on the top of a bare,
+rocky ridge, where the black flies were not so bad as in the valleys.
+They guessed that they were about four or five miles from camp.  The
+sun shone level and warm from the west, and the boys sat in silence,
+tired and discouraged.
+
+"I'm afraid we're not going to make a million this trip, Mac," said
+Fred, at last.
+
+"No," Peter replied soberly.  "Unless Horace has struck something."
+
+"It's too big a country to look over inch by inch.  If there really are
+any diamond-beds--"
+
+"Oh, there must be some.  Horace found scattered stones last summer,
+you know.  But of course the beds may be far underground.  In South
+Africa they often have to sink deep shafts to strike them."
+
+Fred did not answer at once.  He had taken out the field-glass that he
+carried, and was turning it aimlessly this way and that, when Mac spoke
+suddenly:--
+
+"What's that moving in the ravine--see!  About a hundred yards up,
+below the big cedar on the rock."
+
+"Ground hog, likely," said Fred, turning the glass toward the rocky
+gorge, through which ran a little stream that lay at the base of the
+ridge.  "I don't see anything.  Oh--yes, now I've got 'em.
+One--two--three--four little animals.  Why, they're playing together
+like kittens!  They look like young foxes, only they're far too
+dark-colored."
+
+Mac suddenly snatched the glass.  But Fred, now that he knew where to
+look, could see the moving black specks with his unaided eye.  Just
+behind them was a dark opening that might be the mouth of a den.
+
+"They are foxes!" said Mac.  "It's a family of fox cubs.  You're right.
+And--and--why, man, they're black--every one of them!"
+
+He lowered the glass, almost dropping it in his excitement, and stared
+at his companion.
+
+"Fred, it's a den of black foxes!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+"Black foxes!" cried Fred.  "Mac, give me the glass!"
+
+"Black, all right," Macgregor said.  "Four of them, black as jet.  See
+the fur shine!  I can't see the old ones.  There, I believe I saw
+something move just inside the burrow!  Anyhow, all the cubs are going
+in."
+
+He handed the glass to Fred, who raised it to his eyes just in time to
+see the black, bushy tail of the last cub disappear into the hole.
+
+"Black foxes!" he said, in an awed whisper.  "Four of them!  Why, Mac,
+they're worth a fortune, aren't they?"
+
+"And probably two old ones," said the medical student.  "A fortune?
+Rather!  Why, in London a good black fox pelt sometimes brings two or
+three thousand dollars.  The traders here pay only a few hundreds, but
+if I had a couple of good skins I'd take them over to London myself."
+
+"But we haven't got them.  And we've no traps."
+
+"One of us might watch here with the rifle for the old ones.  I could
+hit a fox from here, but the bullet would tear the skin awfully."
+
+"Yes, and it's too late in the spring now for the fur to be any good,
+I'm afraid," said Fred.
+
+"Not first-class, that's a fact," Mac admitted sadly.  "But what can we
+do?  We can't wait here all summer for the cubs to grow up."
+
+"Let's go down and take a look at the den," Fred proposed.
+
+"Better not.  If the old foxes get suspicious they'll move the den and
+we'll never find it again.  I think we'd best go quietly away.  This is
+too big a thing for us to take chances on."
+
+They took careful note of the spot before they left, and in order to
+make assurance doubly sure, Mac blazed a tree every ten paces or so
+until they struck the river again.
+
+They had followed the river downward for about two miles when they saw
+the smoke rising from their camping-ground.  Hurrying up, they found
+that Horace had come in already.  He had brought out the supplies and
+was frying bacon.
+
+"What luck?" cried Fred, forgetting the foxes for a moment in his
+anxiety to hear the result of Horace's trip.
+
+"None," said Horace curtly.  He looked tired, dirty, and discouraged.
+"I went clear to the Whitefish--nothing doing.  But what are you
+fellows grinning about?  What did you find at the head of the river?
+You haven't--it isn't possible that you've hit it!"
+
+"No, not diamonds," said Mac.  "But we 've found something valuable."
+And he told of their discovery of the black foxes.  "But the problem is
+how to get them," he finished.  "The only way I can see is to shoot
+them at long range."
+
+"Shoot them!  Are you crazy?" exclaimed Horace, who was even more
+stirred by the news than they had expected.  "Never!  Catch 'em alive!
+They're worth their weight in gold."
+
+"Alive!  I never thought of that!" exclaimed Fred.
+
+"Why, their fur is no good now.  Besides, suppose you did get a
+wretched thousand dollars or so for the pelts--what's that?  Why, down
+in Prince Edward Island a pair of live black foxes for breeding was
+sold for $45,000."
+
+"Gracious!" gasped Fred.
+
+"Down there every one is wild about breeding fur.  A big syndicate has
+a ranch that's guarded with watchmen and burglar alarms like a bank.
+Their great trouble is to get the breeding stock, and they'll pay
+almost any price for live, uninjured black foxes.  If we could manage
+to catch this pair of old ones and the four cubs without hurting them,
+they ought to bring--I'd be afraid to guess how much!  Maybe a hundred
+thousand dollars!  Kill them?  Why, you'd kill a goose that laid golden
+eggs!"
+
+"That's right!  I've heard of those fox ranches, of course," said Mac,
+"but I didn't think of them at the moment.  A hundred thousand dollars!
+But how on earth can we catch them?  We might dig the cubs out of their
+den, but we couldn't get the old ones that way.  If we only had a few
+traps!"
+
+"Why, there's that trap I found in the woods!" exclaimed Fred suddenly.
+
+They had all forgotten it; they had dropped the trap into the dunnage,
+and had not seen or thought of it since.  Now, however, they eagerly
+rummaged it out, and examined it critically.
+
+It was badly rusted, but not broken.  Mac knocked off the dirt and rust
+scales, rubbed it thoroughly with grease, and set it.  When he touched
+the pan with a stick the jaws snapped.  The springs were a little
+stiff, but after they had been worked several times and well greased,
+the trap seemed to be almost as good as new.
+
+"We should have three or four of them," said Peter.  "Having only one
+trap gives us a slim chance.  But suppose we do get them, what then?"
+
+"Why, we'll have to have some sort of cage ready in which to carry
+them; then we'll make all the speed we can back to Toronto," replied
+Horace.
+
+"And give up the diamond hunt?" cried Mac, in disappointment.
+
+"What else can we do, anyhow?" replied Horace.  "The flour is almost
+gone and we're almost barefoot.  And see here, boys," he went on,
+earnestly, "I hate to admit it, but I'm afraid my calculations were
+wrong on these diamond-beds.  I thought it all out while I was coming
+home from Whitefish River.  Somewhere up here in the North there must
+be a place where those diamonds came from--but I'm beginning to believe
+it isn't in this part of the country.  You see, the geological
+formation is all different from the kind where diamond matrix is ever
+found.  Those stones I picked up may have been traveling for a thousand
+years down one creek and another.  They may have come down in the
+glacial drift.  I was altogether too hasty, I see now, in assuming that
+they originated in one of the rivers where I found them.
+
+"They may have come from a river a hundred miles away.  Or perhaps from
+deep underground.  We should have made a study of the geological
+structure of this whole North Country, the direction of the glacial
+drift, and everything.  Then we should have come in here prepared to
+travel a thousand miles and stay all summer, or for two summers, if
+necessary."
+
+"Hanged if I'll give it up," said Mac stubbornly.  "However," he added,
+"we must certainly try to catch these black diamonds, and we can keep
+on prospecting at the same time."
+
+They uncached their outfit, pitched the tent again, and prepared
+supper; meanwhile they talked of the foxes until they reached a high
+pitch of enthusiasm.  Even Mac admitted that the black foxes bade fair
+to be as profitable as a small diamond-bed would be.  As for Fred, it
+was almost with relief that he let the diamond hunt take second place
+in his mind.  The continual strain of labor and failure had robbed the
+search for the blue clay of much of its fascination.
+
+Early the next morning they paddled up the river to the point where
+Mac's blazed trail came down to the shore, and set out to reconnoiter
+the den.  After half an hour's tramping across the woods they reached
+the rocky ridge; through the field-glass they scrutinized the lair,
+which was about two hundred yards away.
+
+Not a hair of a fox was in sight, but the burrow looked as if it could
+be opened with spade and pick.  Horace thought they ought to do that
+first of all; in that way they could capture the cubs before there was
+any possible danger of the old foxes' moving the den.
+
+On their way back to camp, Mac stopped at a marshy pool and cut a great
+armful of willow withes.
+
+"It's lucky that I once used to watch an old willow worker making
+baskets and chairs," he said.  "I'll see if I've forgotten the trick of
+it.  We've got to make a cage, for we'll need one the instant we
+capture one of those cubs."
+
+He made a strong framework of birch, with bars as thick as his wrist,
+which he notched together, and lashed with deer-hide.  Then he had the
+framework of a box about three feet long, two feet wide, and two feet
+deep, through which he now began to weave the tough, pliable withes.
+
+He did not altogether remember the trick of it, and he had to stop
+frequently to plan it out.  He worked all that afternoon, and continued
+his labor by firelight.  He did not finish the cage until the middle of
+the next forenoon.  It was rough-looking, but light, and nearly as
+strong as an iron trunk, and had a door in the top.
+
+All that remained for them to do now was to catch the game.  They ate a
+hasty luncheon, and carrying the cage, the trap, the axe, the spade and
+pick, two blankets, and the guns, started back along Mac's blazed
+trail.  So great was their eager hurry that they stumbled over roots
+and stones.
+
+Clambering down the ravine, they cautiously approached the foxes' den.
+The opening to the burrow was a triangular hole between two flat rocks.
+From it came a faint odor of putrid flesh.  The ground in front was
+strewn with muskrat tails, small bones, and the beaks and feet of
+partridges and ducks.  From the rocks Fred picked off two or three
+black hairs.
+
+The boys looked into the dark hole and listened intently.  They could
+not hear a sound, but they knew that the cubs, at any rate, must be
+within.  Mac cut a sapling, trimmed it down and sharpened one end of
+it; with that as a lever the boys loosened the rocks at the entrance of
+the burrow, and rolled them aside.  The burrow ran backward and
+downward into the ground, but there seemed to be nothing in their way
+now except earth, gravel, and roots.  Horace picked up the spade and
+began to dig; occasionally he had to stop to cut a tree root or pick
+out a rock.  Meanwhile, Peter and Fred stood close behind him, ready to
+stuff the blankets into the hole in case the occupants should try to
+bolt.
+
+They uncovered the burrow for about four feet; then they had to
+dislodge another rather large stone.  There seemed to be a large, dark
+cavity down behind it.  When they stopped to listen, they could hear a
+slight sound of movement in the darkness, and a faint squeaking.
+
+"They're there," said Horace; "not a yard away.  Now who's going to
+reach in and pull 'em out?"
+
+Macgregor volunteered at once; he crept up to the hole and cautiously
+thrust in his arm.  There was a sound of scrambling inside and a sharp
+squeal.  Mac, with a strained expression on his face, groped about with
+his hand inside the hole.
+
+When he withdrew his arm, there was blood on his hand, but he held by
+the neck a little jet-black animal with a bushy tail, as large as a
+kitten.
+
+"Open the cage--quick!" he cried.
+
+Fred held the door up, and Mac dropped the cub in.  For a moment the
+animal rushed from side to side, and then crouched trembling in a
+corner.
+
+"Nipped me on the thumb," said Mac, examining his hand.  "They've got
+teeth like needles.  But the old one doesn't seem to be there now, and
+I can easily get the rest."
+
+He fished the second out without being bitten, and caged it safely.
+But his hold on the third cub could not have been very secure, for the
+little creature managed by struggling frantically to squirm out of his
+hand.  It turned over in the air, landed on its four feet, and darted
+swiftly away.
+
+The boys shouted in dismay.  Fred flung himself sprawling upon the cub;
+but it evaded him like lightning, and bolted into the undergrowth.  It
+would have been useless to pursue it.
+
+The boys were greatly chagrined.
+
+"It was my fault," said Peter, in disgust.  "But it can't be helped
+now, and there's another to come out."
+
+He had trouble in getting hold of the last of the cubs.  Twice he
+winced with pain as the animal bit him, but at last he hauled it into
+view.  It was a little larger than the others; it scratched and bit
+like a fury, and nearly broke away before they got it into the cage.
+
+The boys gathered round and gloated over their prizes.  With their
+glossy jet coats, bushy tails, prick-eared faces, and comical air of
+intense intelligence, the cubs were beautiful little creatures; but
+they were all in a desperate panic, and huddled together in the
+farthest corner of the cage.
+
+"If we can only get them home in good condition they should be worth
+fifteen thousand," said Horace.  "But I'm much afraid they won't live
+unless we can get the mother to travel with them.  But now that we have
+the cubs it should be rather easy to catch her, and maybe the father,
+too."
+
+They set the cage back into the hollow made by the ruined burrow, and
+laid spruce branches over it so that it was well hidden.  Then they
+wrapped the jaws of the trap with strips of cloth so that they would
+not cut the fox's skin, and set it directly in front of the cage.
+Finally they scattered dead leaves over the trap.  The cubs themselves
+would act as bait.
+
+"A fox never deserts her young," Horace said.  "She's sure to come back
+to-night, probably along with her mate, to carry off the cubs, and
+we've a good chance to catch one or both of them."
+
+It seemed dangerous to go away and leave that precious cageful of
+little foxes at the mercy, perhaps, of the beaver trappers; perhaps
+prowling lynxes or wolves.  However, the boys had to take the risk.  As
+to the trappers, they had seen nothing of them for so long that they
+had little fear of them.
+
+They went back to camp and tried to pass the time; but they could talk
+of nothing except black foxes.  Fred conceived the idea of using their
+stock to start a breeding establishment of their own, and Macgregor was
+elaborating the plan, when suddenly he stopped with a frown.
+
+"Is it so certain that the parents of those cubs are black?" he asked.
+"I've heard that black foxes are an accident, a sport, and that the
+mother or father is very often red."
+
+"That's something that naturalists have never settled," replied Horace.
+"Some think that the black fox is a distinct strain, others that it's
+merely a 'sport,' as you say.  However, when all the cubs in the litter
+are pure black, I think it's safe to assume that the parents are black
+also."
+
+It was scarcely daylight the next morning before the boys were hurrying
+along the blazed trail again.  Shaking with suppressed excitement, they
+approached the ravine of the foxes.  When they came in sight of the den
+and the cage their anticipation was succeeded by bitter disappointment.
+The trap was undisturbed.  Nothing had been caught.  The cubs were
+still in the cage, as frightened as ever.
+
+But they found that one at least of the old foxes had visited the
+place, for the dry leaves were disturbed; there were marks of sharp
+teeth on the willows of the cage, and inside the cage were the tails of
+a couple of wood mice.  Unable to get her cubs out of the cage, the
+mother had brought them food.
+
+It seemed too bad to take advantage of her mother love, but as Horace
+remarked, all they desired was to restore her to her family; once on
+the fox ranch, she would be treated like a queen.
+
+They put the cage farther back and piled rocks round it, so that it
+could be approached only by one narrow path.  In the path they placed
+the trap, and again covered it carefully with leaves.
+
+The cubs had to be left for another night, and the boys had another
+hard day of waiting.  None of them had the heart to try to prospect.
+Macgregor went after ducks with the shotgun; the others lounged about,
+and killed time as best they could.  They all went to bed early, and
+before sunrise again started for the den.
+
+It was fully light when they came to the hill over the ravine, and as
+they sighted the den, a cry of excitement broke from all three of them
+at once.
+
+From where they stood they could see the cage, and the crouching form
+of a black animal beside it, evidently in the trap.  And over the beast
+with the dark fur stood a man in a buckskin jacket, with a club raised
+to strike.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Fred and Mac, who were carrying the guns, fired wildly at the man at
+the trap; they took no aim, for their only purpose was to startle him
+and to keep him from killing the fox.  When the shots rang out, the man
+straightened up, saw the boys rushing down the hill toward him, and
+dropped his club.  Stepping back, he picked up his rifle, and as they
+dashed up, held it ready to shoot.
+
+Fred gave a whoop when he saw that the animal in the trap was really a
+black fox; moreover, it was the mother fox.  Her black coat was glossy
+and spotless.
+
+Horace turned to the man.  "Let that fox alone!" he cried.  "That's our
+fox!"
+
+"Yours?  It's my fox!" retorted the man angrily.  "Why, that's my trap!"
+
+"I don't believe it; we found it in the woods.  Anyway, you can have
+the trap if you like, but the fox is certainly ours.  We've been after
+her for some time."
+
+"Me and my pardners have been after this fox all winter," declared the
+trapper.  "Now that we've got her we 're going to keep her--you can bet
+on that."
+
+He made a movement toward the fox.
+
+"None of that!" cried Mac, sharply, and snapped a fresh cartridge into
+the rifle chamber.
+
+"You would, would you?" cried the trapper, and instantly covered Peter
+with his gun.  Fred had reloaded the shotgun, and he covered the man in
+his turn.
+
+So for a moment they all stood at a deadlock.
+
+"Put down your guns!" said Horace.  "A fox pelt isn't worth killing a
+man for, and this pelt's no good, anyway.  It's too late in the season.
+We're going to take this fox away with us alive.  Stick to your
+beavers, for you can't steal this animal from us--and you can bet on
+that!" he added, with great emphasis.
+
+"You might shoot one of us, but you'd have a hole in you the next
+minute," said Mac.  "You'd better drop it, now, and get out!"
+
+The trapper glared at them with a face as savage as a wildcat's.  For a
+second Fred really expected him to shoot.  Then, with a muttered curse,
+the man lowered his gun.
+
+"You pups won't bark so loud when I come back!" he snarled.  Then he
+turned, and started away at a rapid pace.
+
+"Bluffed!" Fred exclaimed, trembling now that the strain was over.
+
+"He's gone for the rest of his gang!" Mac cried.  "Quick, we've got to
+get out of here!"
+
+"Yes, and far away, too," said Horace, "now that we've caught the
+mother fox.  We should never have got the male, anyway.  Let's get this
+beauty into her box."
+
+The black fox was indeed a beauty, but there was no time to admire her.
+Snarling viciously, she laid back her ears and showed her white teeth.
+Her hind leg was in the trap, but did not appear to have been injured
+by the padded jaws.
+
+Horace cut two strong forked sticks, with which the boys pinned her
+down by the neck and hips.  Fred opened the jaws of the trap; Mac
+picked the fox up firmly by the back of her neck, and in spite of her
+frantic struggles, thrust her into the cage.
+
+Horace and Mac then seized the box, one at either end, and started
+toward the river; Fred carried the guns and kept a sharp lookout in
+front.  The cage of foxes was not heavy, but it was so clumsy that the
+boys had hard work carrying it over the rough ground.  After stumbling
+for a few rods, they cut a long pole and slipped it through the handles
+in the ends of the cage.  After that they made somewhat better
+progress, although even then they could not travel at a very rapid pace.
+
+"If those fellows have a canoe," panted Mac, "they'll be down the river
+before we can get to camp!"
+
+"You may be sure they'll do their best," said Horace.  "These foxes are
+probably worth ten times their winter catch.  We'll have to break camp
+instantly and make for home as fast as we can."
+
+They went plunging along through the thickets, and up and down the
+rocky hills; it was well that the cage was strong.
+
+After more than an hour of this arduous tramping they heard the rush of
+the river.  "We'd best scout a little way ahead before we go any
+farther," Horace declared.
+
+They set down the cage, crept forward to the river and reconnoitered
+the bank.  Their canoe was where they had left it, concealed behind a
+cedar thicket, and no other canoe was in sight up or down the river.
+Horace swept the shore with the field-glass.
+
+"Nothing in sight," he reported.  "We may have time to pack our outfit
+and get off, after all.  Possibly those fellows haven't a canoe."
+
+They quickly launched the canoe, and put the cage of black foxes
+amidships; Fred sat behind it in order to hold it steady.  Horace took
+the stern paddle, and Peter the bow.
+
+The river ran swift and rather shallow, but there were no dangerous
+rapids between them and camp.  They swept down the current, and in a
+few minutes the tent came in sight.  Horace took up the glass again,
+but he could see no sign of the trappers.  They paddled on, intending
+to land at their usual place, but when they were scarcely twenty yards
+from the tent, Fred uttered a suppressed cry.
+
+"Look!  A canoe--lower down!"  He spoke barely loud enough for his
+brother to hear him.  He had caught a glimpse of the bow of a birch
+canoe, which was thrust back almost out of sight behind a willow clump
+below the campground.
+
+"Run straight past!" Horace commanded, instantly.  "Dig in your paddle,
+Mac!"
+
+The canoe shot forward, and at doubled speed swept by the tent.  As
+they passed it a man rose from behind a thicket and yelled hoarsely:--
+
+"Stop, there!  Halt!"
+
+_Bang!_ went a rifle somewhere behind them, and then the rapid _crack!
+crack! crack!_ of more than one repeater.  A bullet clipped through the
+sides of the canoe, fortunately well above the water-line.  Another
+glanced from a rock, and hummed past them.
+
+As the boys whirled by the ambushed birch canoe, Fred snatched up the
+shotgun, and sent two loads of buckshot tearing through its sides.
+
+"That'll cripple them for a while!" he cried.
+
+_Bang!_  A better-aimed bullet dashed the steering paddle from Horace's
+hands.  The canoe swerved, and heeled in the current.  Horace snatched
+the extra paddle that lay in the stern, and brought the craft round
+just in time to prevent it from upsetting.  As the paddle that had been
+hit floated past, Fred picked it up; it had a round hole through the
+handle.
+
+The canoe was a hundred yards from the tent now, and was going so fast
+that it offered no easy target to the men behind, who, however, still
+continued to shoot.  Another bullet nicked the stern.  Glancing over
+his shoulder, Fred saw the three trappers running down the shore, and
+firing as they ran.  But in another moment the canoe swept round a bend
+in the river, and was screened from the trappers by the wooded shore.
+
+"Keep it up!  Make all the speed you can!" cried Horace.
+
+Down the fast current they shot like an arrow.  As they went round
+another curve, they heard the roar of rushing water ahead; a short but
+turbulent rapid confronted them.  There the river, foaming and surging,
+dashed down over the black rocks; the shore was rough and covered with
+dense thickets.  The boys remembered the hard work they had had making
+a portage here on the way up; but there was no time to make a portage
+now.
+
+"Down we go!  Look sharp for her bow, Mac!" Horace sang out.
+
+The rush of the rapid seemed to snatch up the canoe like a leaf.  Fred
+caught his breath; the pit of his stomach seemed to sink.  There was a
+deafening roar all around him, a chaos of white water, flying spray,
+and sharp rocks that sprang up and flashed behind.  Then, before he had
+recovered his breath, they shot out into the smooth river below.
+
+Six inches of water was slopping in the bottom of the canoe, but they
+ran on without stopping to bale it out.  For over half a mile the
+smooth, swift current lasted; then came another rapid.  It was longer
+and more dangerous than the other, and the boys carried the canoe and
+the foxes round it.  They would not risk spilling the precious cage,
+and for the present they thought that they had outrun their pursuers.
+
+For another mile or two they descended the river, until they came to
+another carry.  They made the portage, and stopped at the bottom to
+discuss their situation and make their plans.  They had escaped the
+trappers, indeed, and they had the foxes; but except the canoe, a
+blanket, the guns, and the light axe that Mac had at his belt, they had
+nothing else.  "I guess this settles our prospecting, boys," said
+Horace.  "What are we to do now?  Shall we go on, or--"
+
+"Or what?" Fred asked, as his brother stopped.
+
+"I hardly know.  But here we are, without supplies, and at least a
+hundred and fifty miles from any place where we can get them.  We all
+know what a hard road it is, and going back it'll be up-stream all the
+way, after we leave this river."
+
+"Do we have to go back the way we came?"
+
+"Well, instead of turning up the Missanabie River when we come to it,
+we might go straight down it to Moose Factory, the Hudson Bay Company's
+post at the mouth; but if we did that, these foxes would never live
+till we got back to Toronto.  It would be too long and hard a trip for
+them."
+
+"That settles it.  We don't go that way," said Mac.  "Surely we can get
+home in ten or twelve days the way we came, and we ought to be able to
+kill enough to live on during that time."
+
+"How many cartridges have we?" asked Horace dubiously.
+
+Macgregor had nineteen cartridges in his belt, and there were six more
+in the magazine of the rifle.  Fred had only ten shells in his pockets,
+and the shotgun was empty.  They had left the fishing tackle at camp,
+but luckily they had plenty of matches.
+
+"If we can get a deer within the next day or so, or even a few ducks or
+partridges, we may make it," said Horace.  "But I've noticed that game
+is always scarce when you need it most.  Now if we turned back and
+tried to recover our outfit, we should certainly have to fight the
+trappers, and probably we'd be worsted, for they outmatch us in
+weapons.  One of us might be killed, and we'd be almost certain to lose
+the foxes."
+
+"Trade these foxes for some flour and bacon?  I'd starve first!" said
+Fred.
+
+"So would I!" cried Macgregor.  "But we won't starve.  We didn't starve
+last winter, when we hadn't a match or a grain of powder, and when the
+mercury was below zero most of the time, too."
+
+"Well, we'll go on, if you say so," said Horace.  "It's a mighty
+dangerous trip, but I don't see what else we can do."
+
+"Forward it is, then!" cried Fred.
+
+"And hang the risk!" exclaimed Mac, springing up to push the canoe into
+the water.
+
+"Do you think those men will really follow us, Horace?" asked Fred.
+
+"Sure to," replied his brother.  "It'll take them a few hours to patch
+up their canoe, but they 're probably better canoemen than we are, and
+we'll have to work mighty hard to keep ahead of them."
+
+Fred was more optimistic.  "They'll have to work mighty hard to keep up
+with us," he said, as they launched the canoe.
+
+Going down the river was very different from coming up it.  The current
+ran so swiftly that the boys could not add much to their speed by
+paddling; all they had to do was to steer the craft.  The water was so
+high that they could run most of the rapids, and stretches that they
+had formerly toiled up with tumpline or tracking-line they now covered
+with the speed of a bullet.
+
+Toward noon Fred became intolerably hungry; but neither of the others
+spoke of eating, and he did not mention his hunger.  Mac, in the bow,
+put the shotgun where he could easily reach it, and scanned the shores
+for game as closely as he could; but no game showed itself.  They
+traveled all day without seeing anything except now and then a few
+ducks, which always took wing while still far out of range.
+
+At last they came to "Buck Rapids," where they had shot the deer.  The
+river there was one succession of rapids, most of which were too
+dangerous to run through.  It was the place where, on the way up, they
+had made only four miles in a whole day; and they did not cover more
+than ten miles this afternoon.
+
+When they came to the long, narrow lake on the lower reaches of the
+river, the sun was setting.  They were all pretty much exhausted with
+the toil and excitement of the day.
+
+"I vote we stop here," said Mac.  "There'll be a moon toward midnight,
+and we can go on then.  We ought to get some sleep."
+
+"I'm too hungry to sleep," said Fred.
+
+"Well, so am I," Mac admitted.  "But we can rest, anyway."
+
+So they drew up the canoe and lighted a fire, partly from force of
+habit and partly to drive away the mosquitoes.  They carefully lifted
+the fox cage ashore.
+
+"We've nothing for them to eat," Horace said anxiously, "but they ought
+to have water, at any rate."
+
+The difficulty was that they had nothing to put water into.  Mac made a
+sort of cup from an old envelope, and filled it with water, but the
+animals shrank away and would not touch it.  Feeling sure, however,
+that they must be thirsty, the boys carried the cage to the river, and
+set one end of it into the shallow water.  For a few minutes the mother
+fox was shy, but presently she drank eagerly; then the cubs dipped
+their sharp noses into the water.
+
+The boys spread their only blanket on a few hemlock boughs and lay
+down.  Although they were so thoroughly tired, none of them could
+sleep.  Fred's stomach was gnawed by hunger; he was still much excited,
+and in the rush of the river he fancied every minute or two that he
+heard the trappers approaching.
+
+They lay there for some time, talking at intervals, and at last Mac got
+up restlessly.  He threw fresh wood on the fire, in order to make a
+bright blaze; then from an old pine log close by he began to cut a
+number of resinous splinters.  When he had collected a large handful of
+them, he went down to the canoe, and tried to fix them in the ring in
+the bow of the craft.
+
+"What in the world are you doing?" asked Fred, who had got up to see
+what Peter was about.
+
+Peter hammered the bundle of splinters home.  "If we don't get meat in
+twelve hours we won't be able to travel fast--can't keep up steam," he
+said.  "There's only one way to shoot game at night, and that's--"
+
+"Jack light," said Horace, who recognized the device.  "It's a regular
+pot-hunter's trick, but pot-hunters we are, and no mistake about that.
+I only hope it works."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Here where deer were plentiful and hunters scarce, Mac's jack light
+should prove effective.  Sportsmen and the law have quite properly
+united in condemning killing deer by jack light; but the boys felt that
+their need of food justified their course.
+
+After adjusting the torch, Mac cut a birch sapling about eight feet
+long, and trimmed off the twigs.  Bending it into a semicircle, he
+fitted the curve into the bottom of the canoe, close to the bow; then
+he hung the blanket by its corners upon the projecting tips of the
+sapling, and thus screened the bow from the rest of the canoe.
+
+As it had already become dark, and the shores were now black with the
+indistinct shadows of the spruces, Fred and Horace set the canoe gently
+into the water.  When it was afloat, Mac lighted the pine splinters,
+which crackled and flared up like a torch.
+
+"You'd make a better game poacher than I, Horace," he said.  "You take
+the rifle, and I'll paddle."
+
+Horace accordingly placed himself just behind the blanket screen, with
+the weapon on his knees.  Mac sat in the stern, and Fred, who did not
+want to be left behind, seated himself amidships.
+
+"Keep a sharp lookout, both of you," Mac said.  "Watch for the light on
+their eyes, like two balls of fire."
+
+The canoe, keeping about thirty yards from shore, glided silently down
+the long lake.  The "fat" pine flamed smoky and red, and it cast long,
+wavering reflections on the water.  Once an animal, probably a muskrat,
+startled them by diving noisily.  A duck, sleeping on the water, rose
+with a frantic splutter and flurry of wings.  Then, fifty yards
+farther, there was a sudden splash near the shore, then a crashing in
+the bushes, and a dying thump-thump in the distance.
+
+Horace swung his rifle round, but he was too late.  The deer had not
+stopped to stare at the light for an instant.  A jack light ought to
+have a reflector, but the boys had no means of contriving one.
+
+Unspeakably disappointed, they moved slowly on again.  They started no
+more game, and at last reached the lower end of the lake.  Here Mac
+stopped to renew the torch, which had almost burned out.
+
+Then they turned up the other side of the lake, on the home stretch.
+No living thing except themselves seemed to be on the water that night.
+The shore shoaled far out.  Once the keel scraped over a bottom of soft
+mud.  Lilies grew along the shore, and sometimes extended out so far
+that the canoe brushed the half-grown pads.
+
+Suddenly Fred felt the canoe swerve slightly, and head toward the land.
+Horace raised the rifle.  Fred had seen nothing, but after straining
+his eyes ahead, he made out two faint spots of light in the darkness,
+at about the height of a man's head.  Could it be a deer?  The balls of
+light remained perfectly motionless.
+
+Without a splash the canoe glided closer.  Fred thought that he could
+make out the outline of the animal's head, and clenched his hands in
+anxiety.  Why did not Horace shoot?
+
+Suddenly a blinding flash blazed out from the rifle, and the report
+crashed across the water.  There was a splash, followed immediately by
+a noise of violent thrashing in the water near the land.
+
+Fred and Mac shouted together.  With great paddle strokes, Mac drove
+the canoe forward, and at last Horace leaped out.  The others followed
+him.  The deer was down, struggling in the water.  It was dead before
+they reached it.  Horace's bullet had broken its neck.
+
+"Hurrah!" Fred cried.  "This makes us safe.  This'll last us all the
+way home."
+
+It was a fine young buck--so heavy that they had hard work to lift it
+into the canoe.  Far up the lake they could see their camp-fire, and
+they paddled toward it with the haste of half-starved men.
+
+Without stopping to cut up the animal, they skinned one haunch and cut
+off slices, which they set to broil over the coals.  A delicious odor
+rose; the boys did not even wait until the meat had cooked thoroughly.
+They had no salt, but the venison, unseasoned as it was, seemed
+delicious.
+
+The food gave them all more cheerfulness and energy.  The prospect of a
+hard ten days' journey did not look so bad now.  At any rate, they
+would not starve.
+
+"I wonder if the foxes would eat it.  They ought to have something,"
+said Fred, and he dropped some scraps of the raw venison into the cage.
+
+As he stooped to peer more closely at the animals, he made a startling
+discovery.  During their absence on the hunt, the mother fox had been
+gnawing vigorously at the willow cage, particularly at the rawhide
+lashings that bound the framework together.  She had loosened one
+corner, and if she had been left alone for another hour, she might have
+escaped with her cubs.  It gave the boys a bad fright.  Mac refastened
+the lashings with strips of deer-hide, and strengthened the cage with
+more willow withes.  But the boys realized that in the future one of
+them would have to stand guard over the cage at night.
+
+The foxes refused to touch the raw meat.
+
+"I didn't expect them to eat for the first day or two," said Horace.
+"Don't worry.  They'll eat in time, when they get really hungry."
+
+"Let's get this buck cut up," said Mac.  "It'll soon be moonrise, and
+we must be moving."
+
+In order to get more light for their work, they piled pitch pine on the
+fire; then they hung the deer on a tree, and began the disagreeable
+task of skinning and dressing the animal.  When they had finished, they
+had a good deerskin and nearly two hundred pounds of fresh meat.
+
+They would gladly have slept now, but the sky was brightening in the
+east with the rising moon, and there was no time for rest.  No doubt
+the trappers were on their trail, somewhere behind them.  Hastily the
+boys loaded the foxes and the venison into the canoe, and as soon as
+the moon showed above the trees paddled down the lake.  They soon found
+that the moonlight was not bright enough to enable them to run rapids
+safely, and they consequently had to make frequent carries.  Between
+the rapids they shot swiftly down the current, but the river was so
+broken that they made no great progress that night.
+
+Northern summer nights are short, and soon after two o'clock the sky
+began to lighten.  By three o'clock the boys could see well, and they
+went on faster, shooting all except the worst stretches of rough water.
+Shortly after six o'clock they came out from the Smoke River into the
+Missanabie.
+
+"Stop for breakfast?" asked Mac.
+
+"Not here," said Horace.  "We must be careful not to mark our trail,
+especially at this point.  They won't know for sure whether we turned
+up the Missanabie or down, and they may make a mistake and lose a lot
+of time.  A canoe doesn't leave any track, and we mustn't land until we
+have to."
+
+Now the hard work of "bucking the river" began again.  The Missanabie
+had lowered somewhat since the boys had come down it, but it still ran
+so strong that they could not make much progress by paddling.  Their
+canoe poles were far back on the Smoke River, and they did not dare to
+land in order to cut others, for in doing so they would mark their
+trail.
+
+Straining hard at every stroke, they dug their paddles into the water;
+but they made slow work of it.  The least carelessness on their part
+would cause them to lose in one minute as much as they had gained in
+ten.
+
+A stretch of slacker water gave them some respite; but then came a
+long, tumbling, rock-strewn rapid.
+
+"We'll have to portage here," said Mac.
+
+"It'll be a long carry," Horace said.  "We'd lose a good deal of time
+over it.  I think we can track her up."
+
+Mac and Horace carried the cage of foxes along the shore to the head of
+the broken water, and Fred carried up the guns.  Returning to the foot
+of the rapid, they prepared to haul the canoe against the stream.
+Luckily the tracking-line had always been kept in the canoe.  Horace
+tied it to the ring in the bow, took the end of the rope and, bracing
+himself firmly, waded into the water; Macgregor and Fred, on either
+side, held the craft steady.
+
+The bed of the river was very irregular.  Sometimes the water was no
+more than knee-deep; sometimes it reached their hips.  The water was
+icy cold, and the rush and roar of the current were bewildering.  Once
+Mac lost his footing, but he clung to the canoe and recovered himself.
+Then, when halfway up the rapid, Horace stepped on an unsteady stone
+and plunged down, face forward, into the roaring water.
+
+As the towline slackened, the canoe swung round with a jerk against
+Macgregor, and upset him.  Fred tried to hold it upright, but the
+unstable craft went over like a shot.
+
+Out went the venison and everything else that was in her.  Fred made a
+desperate clutch at the stern of the canoe, caught it and held on.  As
+the canoe shot down the rapid, he trailed out like a streamer behind
+it.  He heard a faint, smothered yell:--
+
+"The venison!  Save the meat!"
+
+Almost before he knew it, Fred, half choked, still clinging to the
+canoe, drifted into the tail of the rapid.  He found bottom there, for
+the water was not deep, and managed to right the canoe.  By that time
+Macgregor had got to his feet, and was coming down the shore to help
+Fred.  They were both dripping and chilled; but they got into the
+canoe, and poling with two sticks, set out to rescue what they could.
+
+They must, above everything else, recover the venison, but they could
+see no sign of it.  Some distance down the stream they found both
+paddles afloat, and they worked the canoe up and down below the rapid.
+On a jutting rock they found the deerskin.  Finally they came upon one
+of the hindquarters floating sluggishly almost under water.  They
+rescued it joyfully; but although they searched for a long time, they
+found no more of the meat.
+
+They had left the axe in the canoe, and it was now somewhere at the
+bottom of the river.  They could better have spared one of the guns,
+but they were thankful that their loss had been no greater.
+
+"If we had left the foxes in the canoe," said Fred, "they'd have been
+drowned, sure!"
+
+Horace had waded ashore, and now had a brisk fire going.  Fred and
+Macgregor joined him, and the three boys stood shivering by the blaze,
+with their wet clothes steaming.
+
+"We're well out of it," said Horace, with chattering teeth.  "The worst
+is the loss of the axe.  It won't be easy to make fires from now on."
+
+Once more the problem of supplies loomed dark before the boys.  They
+had nothing now except the haunch of venison, which weighed perhaps
+twenty-five pounds; unless they could pick up more game, that would
+have to last them until they reached civilization.  However, they were
+fairly confident that they could find game soon, and meanwhile they
+could put themselves on rations.
+
+"We've marked our trail all right now," said Mac.  "These tracks and
+this fire will give it away.  We may as well portage, after all."
+
+Their clothing was far from dry, but they were afraid to delay longer.
+None of them felt like trying to wade up the rapid again, and so they
+carried the canoe round it.  At the head of the portage they cut
+several strong poles to use in places where they could not paddle.
+
+They soon found that without the poles they could hardly have made any
+progress at all; and even with them they moved very slowly.  About noon
+they landed, broiled and ate a small piece of venison, and after a
+brief rest set out on their journey again.
+
+By five o'clock they were all dead tired, wet, and chilled, and Mac and
+Fred were ready to stop.  Horace, however, urged them to push on.  He
+felt that perhaps the beaver trappers were not many miles behind.
+After another day or two, he said, they could take things more easily,
+but now they ought to hurry on at top speed.
+
+Just before they were ready to land in order to make camp, three ducks
+splashed from the water just in front of the canoe.  Fred managed to
+drop one of them with each barrel of the shot gun.  Thus the boys got
+their supper without having to draw on their supply of venison; but the
+roasted ducks proved almost as tough as rawhide and, without salt,
+extremely unpalatable.  But they were all so hungry that they devoured
+the birds almost completely; they put the heads into the willow cage,
+but the foxes would not touch them.
+
+For three hours more they pushed on up the river, tired, silent, but
+determined.  At last it began to grow dark.  The boys had reached the
+limit of their endurance, for they had had no sleep the night before.
+They landed and built a fire.  It was hard work to get enough wood
+without the axe, but fortunately the night was not cold.
+
+Exhausted as the boys were, they knew that one of them would have to
+stand watch to see that the foxes did not gnaw their way out of the
+cage, and that the trappers did not attack the camp.  They drew lots
+for it; Macgregor selected the short straw and Fred the long one, and
+they arranged that Mac should take the watch for two hours, then
+Horace, and lastly Fred.
+
+The mosquitoes were bad, and there were no blankets, but Fred seemed to
+go to sleep the moment he lay down on the earth.  He did not hear
+Horace and Mac change guard at midnight, and it seemed to him that he
+had scarcely done more than close his eyes when some one shook him by
+the arm.
+
+"Wake up!  It's your turn to watch!" Horace was saying.
+
+Half dead with sleep, Fred staggered to his feet.  Moonlight lay on the
+forest and river.
+
+"Take the rifle," said Horace.  "There's not been a sign of anything
+stirring, but keep a sharp eye on the foxes."
+
+Horace lay down beside Mac and seemed to fall asleep at once.  Fred
+would have given black foxes and diamonds together to do likewise, but
+he walked up and down until he felt less drowsy.  The foxes were not
+trying to get out, and he saw that they had gnawed the duck heads down
+to the bills.
+
+He sat down against a tree, close to the cage, with the loaded repeater
+across his knees.  For some time the mosquitoes, as well as the
+responsibility of his position, kept him awake.
+
+Every sound in the forest startled him; through the dash of the river
+he imagined that he heard the sound of paddles.  But by degrees he grew
+indifferent to the mosquitoes, and his strained attention flagged.
+Drowsiness crept upon him again; he was very tired.  He found himself
+nodding, and roused himself with a shock of horror.  He thought that he
+would go down to the river and dip his head into the water.  He dozed
+while he was thinking of it--dozed and awoke, and dozed again.
+
+Then after what seemed a moment's interval he was awakened by a harsh
+voice shouting:--
+
+"Hands up!  Wake up, and surrender!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Half awake, Fred made a blind snatch at the rifle that had been across
+his lap.  It was gone.
+
+The sky was bright with dawn.  Ten feet away stood three men with
+leveled rifles.  Horace and Mac were sitting up, holding their hands
+above their heads and looking dazed.
+
+"I said you pups wouldn't bark so loud next time," remarked one of the
+newcomers.  It was the man that had pretended to be a ranger.  With him
+was the slim, dark fellow whom they had seen outside the trappers'
+shack, and the third was a tall, elderly, bearded man, who looked more
+intelligent and more vicious than the others.
+
+None of the boys said anything, but Horace gave Fred a reproachful
+glance that almost broke his heart.  It was his fault that this had
+happened, and he knew it.  Tears of rage and shame started to his eyes.
+He looked about desperately for a weapon.  He would gladly risk his
+life to get his companions out of the awkward scrape into which his
+negligence had plunged them.  But the ranger had taken the boys' rifle,
+and the half-breed had picked up the shotgun.
+
+With a grin of triumph the trappers went to the fox cage, peered at the
+animals, and talked eagerly in low voices.  The boys watched them in
+suspense.  Were they going to kill the foxes?
+
+Presently two of the men picked up the cage and carried it down to the
+river.  The light was strong enough now so that Fred could see the bow
+of a bark canoe drawn up on the shore.  They put the cage into the
+canoe.  Then the half-breed laid his rifle and the stolen shotgun
+beside it, and paddled down the river.  The other two men lifted the
+boys' Peterboro into the water.
+
+"You aren't going to rob us of our firearms and our canoe, too, are
+you?" cried Horace desperately.  "You might as well murder us!"
+
+"Guess you won't need the guns," said the third trapper.  "You've got
+grub, I see, and we durstn't leave you any canoe to foller us up in."
+
+The two men pushed off the Peterboro and followed the birch canoe down
+the river at a rapid pace.  In two minutes they were out of sight round
+a bend.
+
+There was a dead silence.  Fred could not meet the eyes of his
+companions.  He turned away, pretended to look for something, and
+fairly broke down.
+
+"Brace up, Fred!" said his brother.  "It can't be helped, and we're not
+blaming you.  It might have happened to any of us."
+
+"If you'd been awake you might have got shot," said Mac, "and that
+would have been a good deal worse for every one concerned."
+
+But Fred was inconsolable.  Through his tears, he stammered that he
+wished he had been shot.  They had lost the foxes, they were stranded
+and destitute, and they stood a good chance of never getting out alive.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Mac, with forced cheerfulness.  "We were in a far
+worse fix last winter, and we came out on top."
+
+"The first thing to do is to have some grub," added Horace.  "Then
+we'll talk about it."
+
+Looking with calculating eyes at the lump of meat, he cut the slices of
+venison very thin.  There was about twenty pounds left.  They roasted
+the meat he had cut off, and ate it; then Horace unfolded his pocket
+map and spread it on the ground.
+
+They were probably forty miles from the Height of Land.  It was twelve
+miles across the long carry, and at least forty more to the nearest
+inhabited point--almost a hundred miles in all.  There was a chance,
+however, that they might meet some party of prospectors or Indians.
+
+"It's terribly rough traveling afoot," said Horace.  "We could hardly
+make it in less than two weeks.  Besides, our shoes are nearly gone
+now."
+
+"And that piece of venison will never last us for two weeks!" cried
+Macgregor.
+
+"Oh, you can often knock down a partridge with a stick," said Horace.
+
+"If we only had a canoe!" Mac exclaimed, with a burst of rage.  "I'd
+run those thieves down if I had to follow them to Hudson Bay!"
+
+They all agreed on that point, but it was useless to think of following
+them without a canoe.  The boys would have all they could do to save
+their own lives; a hundred-mile journey on foot across that wilderness,
+without arms and with almost no provisions, was a desperate undertaking.
+
+"Well, we've got no choice," said Horace, after a dismal silence.  "We
+must put ourselves on rations of about half a pound of meat a day, and
+we'll lay a bee-line course by the compass for the trail over the
+Height of Land."
+
+He marked the course on the map, and the boys studied it in silence.
+The sun had risen by this time, but the boys were not anxious to break
+camp and start on that journey which would perhaps prove fatal to all
+of them.  They lingered, talking, discussing, hesitating, reluctant to
+make the start.
+
+Fred had not contributed a single word to the discussion.  He had
+barely managed to swallow a little breakfast, and was too miserable to
+join in the talk.  He knew how slim their chances were; he imagined how
+the party would struggle on, growing weaker daily, until--
+
+If only they had a canoe!  If only they could run the robbers down and
+ambush them in their turn!  And as he puzzled on the problem, an
+idea--an inspiration--flashed into his mind.
+
+He bent over, and studied the map intently for a second.
+
+"Look!  Look here!" he cried, wildly.  "What fools we are!  We can
+overtake those fellows--catch 'em--cut 'em off before they get
+anywhere--and get back our grub, and the foxes, and the
+canoe--everything--why--"
+
+"What's that?  What do you mean?" cried Horace and Mac together.
+
+Fred placed a trembling finger on the map.
+
+"See, this is where we are, isn't it?  Those thieves will go down here
+to the mouth of the Smoke River, and turn up it to their camp.  They
+didn't have much outfit with them; so they'll go back to their shanty.
+It's about fifty miles round by the way they'll go, but if we cut
+straight across country--this way--we'd strike the Smoke in twenty-five
+miles, and be there before them."
+
+"I do believe you've hit something, Fred!" Mac exclaimed.
+
+In fact, the Smoke and the Missanabie Rivers made the arms of an acute
+angle.  Between twenty and thirty miles straight to the northwest would
+bring them out on the former stream somewhere in the neighborhood of
+"Buck Rapids."
+
+"Let's see!" calculated Horace hurriedly.  "They can run down to the
+mouth of the Smoke in a few hours from here.  After that it'll be
+slower work, but they'll have the portage trails that we cut, and they
+ought to get up beyond the long lake by this evening.  Can we get
+across in time to head 'em off?"
+
+"We must.  Of course we can!" Fred insisted.  "It's our only chance,
+and you both know it.  We never could get home with our boots gone, and
+with the food we have, but this venison will last us across to the
+Smoke."
+
+"Patch our boots up with the deerskin!" cried Mac.  "We'll ambush 'em.
+We'll catch 'em on a hard carry.  Only let me get my hands on 'em!"
+
+"Then we haven't a minute to lose!" said Horace.
+
+"Let's be off!" cried Fred, springing up.
+
+First of all, however, they repaired their tattered boots by folding
+pieces of the raw deerhide round them and lashing them in place with
+thongs.  It was clumsy work at the best; but Mac rolled up the rest of
+the hide to take with him, in case they should have to make further
+repairs.
+
+Horace consulted the map and the compass again, and picked up the lump
+of venison, which, with the deerskin, constituted their only luggage.
+In less than half an hour from the time Fred had hit upon his plan they
+were off, running through the undergrowth on the twenty-five-mile race
+to the Smoke River.
+
+None of them knew what sort of country the course would pass over.  The
+map for that part of the region was incomplete and no more than
+approximately accurate, so that the boys were not at all sure that
+their guess at the distance to the Smoke River was correct.  But they
+did know that now that they had started on the race, their lives
+depended upon their winning it.  Fred took the lead at once, tearing
+through the thickets, tripping, stumbling.
+
+"Easy, there!" called Horace.  "We mustn't do ourselves up at the
+start."
+
+Fred slackened his pace somewhat, but continued to keep in front.  For
+nearly a mile from the river the land sloped gently upward through
+dense thickets of birch.  Then the birches thinned, and finally gave
+way to evergreen, and the rising ground became rough with gravel and
+rock.  The slope changed to undulating billows of hills, covered with
+stone of every size, from gravel to small boulders, and over it all
+grew a stubbly jungle of cedar and jack-pine, seldom more than six feet
+high.
+
+It was a rough, broken country, and the boys had to slacken their pace
+somewhat; to make things worse, it presently began to rain.  First came
+a driving drizzle, then a heavy downpour, with a strong southwest wind.
+The rocks streamed with water, and the boys were drenched; but the
+heavy rain presently settled again to a soaking drizzle that threatened
+to continue all day.
+
+Through the rain they struggled ahead; sometimes they found a clear
+space where they could run; sometimes they came upon wet, tangled
+shrubbery that impeded them sadly.  They kept hoping for easier
+traveling; but those broken, rocky hills stretched ahead for miles.  At
+last the trees became even more sparse, and the boys encountered a
+whole hillside covered with a mass of split rock.
+
+Over this litter of sandstone they crawled and stumbled at what seemed
+a snail's pace.  They were desperately anxious to hurry, but they knew
+that a slip on those wet rocks might mean a broken leg.
+
+A rain-washed slope of gravel came next; they went down it at a trot,
+and then encountered another hillside covered with huge, loose stones.
+They scrambled over it as best they could, and ran down another slope;
+then trees became more abundant, and soon they were again traveling
+over low, rolling hills clothed in jack-pine scrub.
+
+With marvelous endurance Fred still held the lead.  He went as if
+driven by machinery, with his head down and his lips clenched; he did
+not speak a word.  He was supposed to be the weakest of the party, but
+even Macgregor, a trained cross-country runner, found himself falling
+farther and farther behind.
+
+At eleven o'clock Horace called a halt.  The rain had almost stopped,
+and the boys, lighting a small fire, roasted generous slices of
+venison.  There was no need of sparing the meat now.  Either plenty of
+food or death was at the end of the journey.
+
+No sooner had they eaten it than Fred sprang up again.
+
+"How you fellows can sit here I can't understand!" he exclaimed,
+nervously.  "I'm going on.  Are you coming?"
+
+Mac and Horace followed him.  The land seemed to be sloping continually
+to lower levels; the woods thickened into a sturdy, tangled growth of
+hemlock and tamarack that they had hard work to penetrate.  They
+presently caught a glimpse of water ahead, and came to the shore of a
+small, narrow lake that curved away between rounded, dark hillsides.
+They had to go round the lake, and lost two or three miles by the
+detour.  As they hurried up the shore a bull moose sprang from the
+water, paused an instant to look back, and crashed into the thickets.
+It would have been an easy shot if they had had the rifle.
+
+Round the end of the lake low hills rose abruptly from the shore.
+After scrambling up the slippery slope of the hills they reached the
+top, and saw ahead of them an endless stretch of wild hills and
+forests; there was not a landmark that they recognized.
+
+Horace guessed that they had come about fifteen miles.  Mac thought
+that it was much more.  They agreed that they had broken the back of
+the journey, and that if their strength held out, they could reach the
+Smoke that day.
+
+"Suppose we were--to find the diamond-beds now!" said Mac, between
+quick breaths.
+
+"Don't talk to me about diamonds!" said Horace.  "I never want to hear
+the word again."
+
+On they went, up and down the hills, through the thickets and over the
+ridges; but they no longer went with the energy they had shown in the
+morning.  With every mile their pace grew slower, and they were all
+beginning to limp.  Fred still kept in front, with his face set in grim
+determination.  About the middle of the afternoon Horace came up with
+him, stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, and looked into his face.
+
+Fred's eyes were bright and feverish.  His face was pale and spotted
+with red blotches, and he breathed heavily through his open mouth.
+
+"You've got to stop!" said his brother firmly.  "You're going on your
+nerves.  A little farther, and you'll collapse--go down like a shot."
+
+"I--I'm all right!" said Fred thickly.  "Got to get on--got to make it
+in time!"
+
+But Horace was firm.  First they built a smudge to keep off the flies;
+then they made fresh repairs to their shoes; and finally they stretched
+themselves flat to rest.  But in spite of their fatigue, they were too
+highly strung to stay quiet.  They knew that a delay of an hour might
+lose the race for them.  After resting for less than half an hour, they
+got up and went plunging through the woods again.
+
+They believed now that the Smoke River could not be more than five or
+six miles away.  From every hilltop they hoped to catch sight of it, or
+at least to see some spot that they had passed while prospecting.
+
+But although all the landscape seemed strange, they doggedly continued
+the struggle.  The sun was sinking low over the western ridges now;
+toiling desperately on, they left mile after mile behind, but still the
+Smoke River did not come into sight.  At last Macgregor sat down
+abruptly upon a log.
+
+"I'd just as soon die here as anywhere," he said.
+
+"You're right.  We'll stop, and go on by moonrise," said Horace.
+"Grub's what we need now."
+
+"Why, we're almost at the end!  We can't stop now!" Fred cried.
+
+"We won't lose anything," said his brother.  "The trappers will be
+camping, too, about this time.  If we don't rest now we'll probably
+never get to the Smoke at all."
+
+Staggering with fatigue, he set about getting wood for a fire.  Mac and
+Fred helped him, and when they had built a fire they broiled some of
+the deer meat.  Fred could hardly touch the food.  Horace and Macgregor
+ate only a little, and almost as they ate they nodded, and dropped
+asleep from sheer fatigue.
+
+Fred knew that he, too, ought to sleep, but he could not even lie down.
+His brain burned, his muscles twitched, and he felt strung like a taut
+wire.  Leaving his companions asleep, he started to scout ahead.  He
+went like one in a dream, hardly conscious of anything except the
+overwhelming necessity of getting forward.  His course took him over a
+wooded ridge and down a hillside, and at last he came upon a tiny
+creek.  Stumbling, sometimes falling, but always pushing on, he
+followed the course of the creek for a mile or two; suddenly he found
+himself on the shore of a large and rapid river, into which the creek
+emptied.
+
+Furious at the obstacle, he looked for a place where he could cross the
+river.
+
+It was too deep for him to wade across it, and too swift for him to
+swim it.  He hurried up the bank, looking for a place where he could
+ford it, and at last came to a stretch of short, violent rapids.
+
+He was about to turn back when he caught sight of axe marks in the
+undergrowth.  Some one had cut a trail for the carry round the rapid.
+He stared at the axe marks, and then at the river.  Suddenly his dazed
+brain cleared.
+
+He recognized the spot.  He recognized the trail that he himself had
+helped to cut.  He had found the Smoke River!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Fred never quite knew how he got back to camp after he had found the
+river.  He found his companions still sound asleep, but it did not take
+him long to rouse them and to tell them the news.
+
+"I couldn't see any tracks on the shore.  I don't think any one has
+passed," Fred said.
+
+In less than a minute the boys, wild with joy, were hurrying through
+the woods again.  It was almost dark when they reached the river;
+peering close to the ground they examined the trail carefully, to make
+sure that the trappers had not already passed.
+
+The heavy rain had washed the shores, and no fresh tracks showed in the
+mud.  The men had not been over the portage that day, and they could
+hardly have passed the rapids without making a carry.  They had
+evidently camped for the night at some point below, and would not come
+up the river until morning.
+
+After piling up some hemlock boughs for a bed, the boys lay down, and
+dropped into a heavy sleep.  Now that the strain was over, Fred slept,
+too.  In fact, for the last quarter of an hour he had hardly been able
+to stay on his feet.
+
+In the gray dawn Horace awakened them.  They were stiff from their
+thirty-mile race of the day before, and their feet were swollen.  Hot
+food--especially hot tea--was what they longed for; but they were
+afraid to make a fire, and they had to content themselves with a little
+raw venison for their breakfast.
+
+Horace thought that they could make their ambush where they were as
+well as anywhere else.  The portage was about thirty yards long, and
+the narrow trail passed over a ridge and ran through dense hemlock
+thickets.  If the trappers came up the trail in single file, carrying
+heavy loads, they could not use their rifles against a sudden attack.
+
+The boys armed themselves each with a hardwood bludgeon; then they
+ensconced themselves in the thickets where they could see the reaches
+of the river below--and waited.
+
+An hour passed.  It was almost sunrise, and there was no sign of the
+trappers on the river.  The boys grew nervous with dread and anxiety.
+The tree-tops began to glitter with sunlight.  It was almost six
+o'clock.
+
+"Could they have gone some other way?" asked Fred uneasily, staring
+upstream.
+
+At that very moment Macgregor grasped his arm and pointed down the
+river.  Two small objects had appeared round a bend, half a mile below.
+They were certainly canoes, making slow headway against the stiff
+current, but they were too far away for the boys to make them out
+plainly.  Minute by minute they grew nearer.
+
+"The front one's a Peterboro!" said Mac.  "There's one man in it, and
+two in the other.  I think I can see the fox cage."
+
+Without doubt it was the trappers.  The young prospectors slipped back
+through the thickets, almost to the upper end of the trail, and
+concealed themselves in the hemlocks.
+
+"Above all things, try to get hold of their guns!" said Horace.
+
+For a long while they waited in terrible suspense.  They could not see
+the landing, nor at first could they hear anything, for the tumbling
+water of the rapids roared in their ears.  After what seemed almost an
+hour, stumbling footsteps sounded near by on the trail, and the bow of
+the Peterboro hove in sight.  A man was carrying it on his head; he
+steadied it with one hand, and in the other grasped a gun--Horace's
+repeating rifle.
+
+When he was almost within arm's reach, Mac sprang and tackled him low
+like a football player.  The trapper dropped the gun with a startled
+yell, and went over headlong into the hemlocks--canoe and all.
+
+Horace leaped out to seize the gun that the man had dropped.  Before he
+could touch it, the second trapper rushed up the trail with his rifle
+clubbed.  Fred struck out at him with his bludgeon.  The blow missed
+the fellow's head, and fell on his arm.  Down clattered the rifle,
+discharging as it fell.  The trapper made a frantic leap aside, and
+disappeared into the bushes.
+
+As Fred snatched up the rifle, he caught a glimpse of the third
+trapper, the wiry half-breed, hastening up the path.
+
+"Halt!  Hands up!" shouted Horace, raising the repeater.
+
+The man stopped, fired a wild shot, turned and bolted back toward the
+landing.  Fred and his brother rushed after him; they reached the
+landing just in time to see him leap into the birch canoe, which still
+held the fox cage, shove off, and digging his paddle furiously into the
+water, shoot down the stream.
+
+"After him!  The canoe!  Quick!" shouted Horace.
+
+They dashed back.  The man that Fred had struck was nowhere to be seen.
+Macgregor had pinned his antagonist to the ground, and seemed to have
+him well subdued.
+
+"Never mind him, Mac!" Fred cried.  "Pick up that canoe in a hurry!
+One of the scoundrels has got away with the foxes!"
+
+All three of them seized the canoe and rushed it down to the landing.
+There they found the shore strewn with articles of camp outfit where
+the men had unloaded the canoes.
+
+"Load it in, boys!" cried Horace.  "Take what we need.  We're not
+coming back."
+
+They pitched an armful or two of supplies into the canoe.  Fred's
+shotgun was there, and several other articles that the boys recognized
+as their own.  The rest was a fair exchange for the outfit that they
+had abandoned in their tent.
+
+They shoved the canoe off.  The half-breed had gained a long lead by
+this time.  He was nearly a quarter of a mile ahead, paddling
+frantically; he did not even stop to fire at the boys.  But there were
+three paddles in pursuit, and the boys began to gain on him noticeably.
+More than two miles flashed by, and then the roar of rapids sounded
+ahead.
+
+"Got him!" panted Mac.  "He'll have to land now."
+
+Round another bend shot the birch canoe, with the Peterboro three
+hundred yards behind, and now the broken water came in sight.  It was a
+long, rock-staked chute, and the boys thought it would be suicidal to
+try to run it.  But the half-breed kept straight on in mid-channel.
+
+"He's going to try to run through!" Horace cried.  "He'll drown himself
+and the foxes!"
+
+The boys yelled at him; but the next instant the man's canoe had shot
+into the broken water.  For a moment they lost sight of him in a cloud
+of spray; then they saw him half-way down the rapids, going like a
+bullet.  With incredible skill, he was keeping his craft upright.
+
+The boys drove their canoe toward the landing, and still watched the
+man.  When he was almost through the rapids, they saw his canoe shoot
+bow upward into the air, hang a moment, and then go over.
+
+Shouting with excitement, they dragged the canoe ashore, picked it up,
+and went over the portage at a run.  Far down the stream they saw the
+birch canoe floating on its side, near the fox cage.  They had just
+launched the Peterboro at the tail of the rapids, when they saw
+something black bobbing in the swirling water.
+
+It was the head of the half-breed.  He was swimming feebly, and when
+they hauled him into the canoe, was almost unconscious.  He had a great
+bleeding gash just above his ear, where he had struck a rock; but he
+was not seriously injured.  The boys paid little attention to him, but
+hastened to rescue their treasure.  When they came up with the birch
+canoe, they found that the fox cage had been lashed to it with a strip
+of deerskin, and, to their great relief, that the foxes were there, all
+four of them, alive and afloat.
+
+They got the cage ashore as quickly as possible.  The foxes were
+dripping with water, but looked as lively as ever.  To all appearances,
+the ducking had not hurt them.
+
+The canoe itself had not come off so well.  It had a great rent in the
+bottom, and Horace stamped another hole through the bow.  Then the boys
+examined their new outfit.  From their own former store they had a
+kettle, a frying-pan, a box of rifle-cartridges, and a sack of tea.
+They had taken from the trappers' supplies half a sack of flour, a lump
+of salt pork, two blankets, and two rifles.
+
+The half-breed had recovered his wits by this time; sitting on the
+bank, he glared savagely at them.
+
+"You'll find your partners waiting for you up the river," Horace said
+to him.  "We've got what we need, and you'll find the rest of your kit
+on the shore where you unpacked it.  As for your rifles--"
+
+He picked them up and tossed them into six feet of water.  "By the time
+you've fished them out and mended your canoe I guess you won't want to
+follow us.  If you do, you won't catch us napping again, and we'll
+shoot you on sight.  _Savez_?"
+
+The half-breed muttered some sullen response.  The boys loaded the fox
+cage into the Peterboro, got in themselves, and shot down the river
+again in a fresh start for home.  They left the trapper sitting on the
+rock, glaring after them.
+
+Now that the strain was over and the fight won, the boys felt utterly
+exhausted.  They kept on at as fast a pace as they could, however, and
+reached the Missanabie River a little after noon.  There they stopped
+to cook dinner.
+
+Once more they had hot, black _voyageurs'_ tea, and fried flapjacks,
+and salt pork.  It seemed the most delicious meal they had ever eaten;
+but when they had finished, they felt too weary to start up the
+Missanabie, and reckless of consequences, they lay down and slept for
+almost two hours.
+
+Then they continued their journey with double energy, and made good
+progress for the rest of the day.
+
+They were entirely out of fresh meat, and had nothing whatever to give
+the foxes, but fortunately Mac shot three spruce grouse that evening.
+They dropped the heads of the birds into the cage; the foxes devoured
+them with a voracity that indicated that the trappers had fed them
+nothing.  Early the next morning Horace by a long shot killed a deer at
+the riverside.
+
+It was a rough journey up the Missanabie, but not nearly so hard as the
+trip up the Smoke River had been.  For eight days they paddled, poled,
+tracked, and portaged, until they came at last to the point where they
+had first launched the canoe.
+
+The "long carry" over the Height of Land now confronted them.  It is
+true that they had by no means so much outfit to carry now, but, on the
+other hand, they had no packers to help them.  They had to make two
+journeys of it, and, as a further difficulty, one of the boys had to
+remain with the fox cage.  As they reached the top of the ridge on
+their first journey, Macgregor turned and looked back over the wild
+landscape to the northwest.
+
+"Somewhere over there," he murmured, "is the diamond country."
+
+"Shut up!" exclaimed Horace, in exasperation.
+
+"I never want to hear the word 'diamond' again," added Fred.
+
+They left the foxes together with the rest of their loads at the end of
+the "carry," and Fred remained to guard them, while Peter and Horace
+went back for the remainder of the outfit.  While they were gone Fred
+noticed that one of the cubs was not looking well.  It refused to eat
+or drink; its fur was losing its gloss, and it lay in a sort of a doze
+most of the time.  Plainly captivity did not agree with it.
+
+Horace and Peter were much concerned about its condition when they came
+back.  None of them had any idea what to do; in fact it is doubtful if
+the most skilled veterinary surgeon could have prescribed.
+
+"The real trouble is their cramped quarters, of course," said Horace.
+"We must get home as quickly as possible, and get them out of this and
+into a larger cage.  Some of the others will sicken if we don't look
+sharp."
+
+They made all the speed they could, and, now that they were fairly on
+the canoe route south of the Height of Land, they felt that they were
+well toward home.  It was downstream now, and portages grew less and
+less frequent as the river grew.  They did not stop to hunt or fish;
+the paddled till dusk, and were up at dawn.  They felt that it was a
+race for the life of the valuable little animal, and they did not spare
+themselves.  Two days afterward, late in the afternoon, they came to
+the little railway village that had been their starting-point.
+
+The cub seemed no better--worse, if anything.  There was a train for
+Toronto at eight o'clock that night.  The boys hurried to the hotel
+where they had left their baggage, and changed their tattered woods
+garments for more civilized clothing.  There was time to eat a
+civilized supper, with bread and vegetables and jam,--almost forgotten
+luxuries,--and time also to send a telegram to Maurice Stark.
+
+They carried the cage of foxes to the hotel with them, for they were
+determined henceforth not to let the animals out of their sight for a
+moment.  The unusual spectacle of the three boys with their burden
+attracted much attention, and when the contents of the cage became
+known, nearly the whole population of the village assembled to have a
+look.
+
+The crowd followed them to the depot, and saw the foxes put into the
+baggage-car.  They had secured permission for one of them to ride with
+the cage and stand guard, and the boys took turns at this duty.  The
+other two tried to snatch a few hours of rest in the sleeper; but the
+berths seemed stifling and airless.  Accustomed to the open camp, they
+could not sleep a wink, and were rather more fatigued the next morning
+than when they had started.  It was still four hours to Toronto, but
+they reached the city at noon.  Macgregor was standing the last watch
+in the baggage-car, and as Fred and Horace came down the steps of the
+Pullman they saw Maurice Stark pushing through the crowd.
+
+"What luck?" Maurice demanded anxiously, lowering his voice as he shook
+hands.  "Did you find the--the--?"
+
+"Not any diamonds," replied Fred, with a laugh.  "But we brought back
+some black gold.  Come and see it."
+
+They went forward to the platform where the baggage was being unloaded.
+Macgregor was helping to hand out the willow cage.  It looked strangely
+wild and rough among the neat suit-cases and trunks.
+
+"What in the world have you got there?" cried Maurice, peering through
+the bars.
+
+Fred and Horace were also looking anxiously to learn the condition of
+the sick cub.
+
+"Why, he's dead!" exclaimed Fred, in bitter disappointment.
+
+"Yes," said Mac; "the little fellow keeled over just after I came on
+guard.  I didn't send word to you fellows, for I knew there was nothing
+to be done."
+
+The rest of the family were alive and looked in good condition.  The
+boys had already decided what they would do immediately, and, calling a
+cab, they drove with the foxes to the house of a well-known naturalist
+connected with the Toronto Zoological Park.  He was as competent as any
+one could be, and he readily agreed to take care of the foxes till they
+should be sold.
+
+Naturally, however, he declined to be responsible for their safety, and
+Horace at once attempted to insure their lives.  No insurance company
+would accept the risk, but after much negotiation he at last managed to
+effect a policy of two thousand dollars for one month, on payment of an
+exorbitant premium.  He was more successful in getting insurance
+against theft, and took out a policy for ten thousand dollars with a
+burglar insurance company, on condition of a day and night watchman
+being employed to guard the animals.
+
+It was plain that the foxes were going to be a source of terrible
+anxiety while they remained on the boys' hands.  Horace at once
+telegraphed to the manager of one of the largest fur-breeding ranches
+in Prince Edward Island, and received a reply saying that a
+representative of the company would call within a few days.
+
+The man turned up three days later, and inspected the foxes in a casual
+and uninterested way.
+
+"We'd hardly think of buying," he remarked.  "We've got about all the
+stock we need.  I was coming to Toronto just when I got your wire, and
+I thought I'd look in at them.  What are you thinking of asking for
+them?"
+
+"Fifty thousand dollars," said Horace.
+
+The fur-trader laughed heartily.
+
+"You'll be lucky if you get a quarter of that," he said.  "Why, we
+bought a fine, full-grown black fox last year for five hundred.  Your
+cubs are hardly worth anything, you know.  They 're almost sure to die
+before they grow up."
+
+"Professor Forsythe doesn't think so," replied Horace.
+
+"Well, I'm glad I saw them," said the dealer.  "If I can hear of a
+buyer for you I'll send him along, but you'll have to come away down on
+your prices.  You might let me have your address, in case I hear of
+anything."
+
+"It doesn't look as if we were going to sell them!" said Fred, who was
+not used to shrewd business dealing.  "Perhaps we can't get any price
+at all."
+
+Horace laughed.
+
+"Oh, that was all bluff.  I saw the fellow's eyes light up when he saw
+these black beauties.  He'll be back to see us within a day or two."
+
+Sure enough, the man did come back.  He scarcely mentioned the foxes
+this time, but took the boys out motoring.  As they were parting he
+said carelessly, "I think I might get you a buyer for your foxes, but
+he couldn't pay over fifteen thousand."
+
+"No use in our talking to him then," replied Horace, with equal
+indifference.
+
+That was the beginning of a series of negotiations that ran through
+fully a week.  It was interspersed with motor rides, dinner parties,
+and other amusements to which the parties treated one another
+alternately.  The Prince Edward Island man brought himself to make a
+proposal of twenty thousand, and Horace came down to thirty-five
+thousand, and there they stuck.  Finally Horace came down to thirty.
+
+"I'll give you twenty-five," said the furbreeder at last, "but I think
+I'll be losing money at that."
+
+"I'll meet you halfway," replied Horace.  "Split the difference.  Make
+it twenty-seven thousand, five hundred."
+
+Both parties were well wearied with bargaining by this time, and the
+buyer gave in.
+
+"All right!" he agreed.  "You'll make your fortune, young man, if you
+keep on, for you 're the hardest customer to deal with that I've met
+this year."
+
+The dealer went back next day to the east, taking the foxes with him,
+and leaving with the boys a certified check for $27,500.  It was not as
+much as they had hoped to clear, but it was a small fortune after all.
+
+"Comes to nearly seven thousand apiece," Fred remarked.
+
+"Not at all," remonstrated Maurice.  "I don't see where I have any
+share in it."
+
+"Oh, come!  We're rolling in money.  You must have something out of it.
+Mustn't he, Horace?"
+
+They knew that Maurice really needed the money, and it was not by his
+own will that he had failed to go with the expedition.  In the end he
+was persuaded to accept the odd five hundred dollars, but he refused to
+take a cent more.  The remainder made just nine thousand dollars apiece
+for each of the three other boys.
+
+"I've lost a year's varsity work," said Peter, "but I guess it was
+worth it.  Nine thousand is more than I ever expect to make in a year
+of medical practice.  Besides, we know there are diamonds in that
+country.  Horace found them.  Why can't we--"
+
+"Shut up!" cried Fred.
+
+"Take his money away from him!" exclaimed Horace.  "I don't want to
+hear any more of diamonds."
+
+"--And why can't we make another expedition," continued Peter, "and
+prospect for--"  But Fred and Horace pounced on him, and after a
+violent struggle got him down on the couch.
+
+"Prospect for what?" cried Fred, sitting on his chest.
+
+"Ow--let me up!" gurgled Mac.  "Why, for--for more black foxes!"
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+The Riverside Press
+
+CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
+
+U . S . A
+
+
+
+
+Dr. Tomlinson's Books
+
+The American boy will never tire of reading tales of the early colonial
+days and especially of the desperate encounters and struggles of the
+colonists with the natives of the forest.
+
+Dr. Tomlinson has read widely and has collected a mass of incident
+through family tradition and otherwise, which he has skillfully
+incorporated in the historical frameworks of several exceedingly
+interesting and instructive stories.  He has the knack of mixing
+history with adventure in such a way as to make his young readers
+absorb much information while entertaining them capitally.  His
+historical tales are filled with an enthusiasm which it is well to
+foster in the heart of every healthy-minded and patriotic American boy.
+
+The plots are all based upon events that actually occurred; and the boy
+heroes play the part of men in a way to capture the hearts of all boy
+readers.  Dr. Tomlinson shows scrupulous regard for the larger truths
+of history, and the same care that would naturally go into a book for
+older readers.
+
+
+The Boys of Old Monmouth
+
+A story of Washington's campaign in New Jersey in 1778.
+
+
+A Jersey Boy in the Revolution
+
+This story is founded upon the lives and deeds of some of the humbler
+heroes of the American Revolution.
+
+
+In the Hands of the Redcoats
+
+A tale of the Jersey ship and the Jersey shore in the days of the
+Revolution.
+
+
+Under Colonial Colors
+
+The story of Arnold's expedition to Quebec; of war, adventure, and
+friendship.
+
+
+A Lieutenant Under Washington
+
+A tale of Brandywine and Germantown.
+
+
+The Rider of the Black Horse
+
+A spirited Revolutionary story following the adventures of one of
+Washington's couriers.
+
+
+The Red Chief
+
+A story of the massacre at Cherry Valley, of Brant, the Mohawk chief,
+and of the Revolution in upper New York state.
+
+
+Marching Against the Iroquois
+
+An exciting story based on General Sullivan's expedition into the
+country of the Iroquois in 1779.
+
+
+Light Horse Harry's Legion
+
+A stirring story of fights with marauding Tories on the Jersey Pine
+Barrens.
+
+
+The Camp-Fire of Mad Anthony
+
+This story covers the period between 1774 and 1776 and follows the
+adventures of the Pennsylvania troops under "Mad Anthony" Wayne.
+
+
+Mad Anthony's Young Scout
+
+A story of the winter of 1777-1778.
+
+
+The Champion of the Regiment
+
+An absorbing story of the Siege of Yorktown, with Noah Dare, so well
+known to Tomlinson readers, for hero.
+
+
+The Young Minute-Man of 1812
+
+The young hero joins the garrison at Sacket's Harbor, is sent on an
+expedition down the St. Lawrence, and takes part in McDonough's victory
+on Lake Champlain.
+
+
+The Young Sharpshooter
+
+The experiences of a boy in the Peninsular Campaign of 1862, under
+McClellan.
+
+
+The Young Sharpshooter at Antietam
+
+Deals with Lee's invasion of Maryland in 1862, relating further
+exciting adventures of Noel, the young sharpshooter.
+
+
+Prisoners of War
+
+The experiences of the heroes of "The Young Sharpshooter" and "The
+Young Sharpshooter at Antietam," during the course of the war from
+Antietam to Appomattox.
+
+
+Each volume, illustrated, crown 8vo, $1.35 net.
+
+Houghton Mifflin Company
+
+Boston and New York
+
+
+
+BOOKS BY
+
+ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER
+
+"Some of the best boys' stories of the time carry Mr. Pier's name on
+the title page.  His Boys of St. Timothy's books have always been
+popular with young readers.  They are wholesome, lively, entertaining
+tales of schoolboy life and sports."--_Detroit Free Press_.
+
+
+THE JESTER OF ST. TIMOTHY'S
+
+Illustrated.  12mo, $1.00 net.
+
+
+THE CRASHAW BROTHERS
+
+Illustrated.  12mo, $1.25 net.
+
+
+THE NEW BOY
+
+Illustrated, 12mo, $1.25 net.
+
+
+HARDING OF ST. TIMOTHY'S
+
+Illustrated.  12mo, $1.25 net.
+
+
+GRANNIS OF THE FIFTH
+
+Illustrated, 12mo, $1.25 net.
+
+
+
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+
+BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Northern Diamonds, by Frank Lillie Pollock
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