Northern Diamonds

by Frank Lillie Pollock

  CHAPTER X

  The mouth of the Smoke River was so rough that the boys could not enterit in the canoe; and the dense growth of birch and willow along theshores 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--andattached one end of it to the bow of the canoe. Peter Macgregorharnessed himself to the other end, and started up the narrow, rockystrip of shore; Horace waded beside the canoe in order to fend her offthe boulders. Fred, carrying the fire-arms and a few other articlesthat 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 hundredyards long; after that, they were able to pole for a mile or so, andonce indeed, the stream broadened so much that they could use thepaddles. Then came a precipitous cascade, then a difficult carry, andthen another stretch of poling.

  They had gone about five miles up the river when Horace, who had beenwatching the shores carefully, pointed to a tree and gave a shout. Itwas a large spruce, on the trunk of which was a blazed mark that lookedless than a year old.

  "It's my mark," said Horace. "I made it last August. Right here Ifound 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 anotion that we'll have to go nearly to the head of the river to findthe country we want."

  On they went, shoving the canoe against the current with the iron-shodcanoe poles. They had all been looking up the kind of soil in whichdiamonds are usually found, and now they closely observed the erodedbanks on both sides of the river. According to Horace's theory, theriver, or one of its tributary streams, must cut through thediamond-beds of blue clay. But as yet the shores showed nothing exceptordinary 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 dashedrapidly to the head of the lake. There, rapids and a long carryconfronted them! They had made little more than fifteen miles that daywhen finally they went into camp; they were almost too tired to cooksupper. And they knew that that day's work was only a foretaste ofwhat was coming, for from now on they would be continually "bucking therapids."

  The next day they found rapids in plenty, indeed. They seemed to comeon an average of a quarter of a mile apart, and sometimes two or threein such close succession that it was scarcely worth while to launch thecanoe again after the first portage. It was slow, toilsome work; theygrew very tired as the afternoon wore on, and shortly before sunsetthey came to one of the worst spots they had yet encountered.

  It was a pair of rapids, less than a hundred yards apart. Over thefirst one the water rushed among a medley of irregular boulders, andthen, after some ten rods of smooth, swift current, poured down acataract of several feet. Huge black rocks, split and tumbled, brokeup 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 thanthey were then, but they unpacked the canoe, and began to carry theoutfit around the broken water, as they had done so many tunes thatday. Once at the head of the upper rapid Horace began to get out thecooking-utensils.

  "I'll start supper," he said. "You fellows might see if you can't landa 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 fishingthat no fatigue could stifle. He took the steel fly-rod, and walked alittle 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 lessscientific fashion. As his rod and line were considerably shorter thanMac's, he got into the canoe, put a loop of the tracking-rope around arock, and let himself drift for the length of the rope, nearly to theedge of the rough water. Hung in this rather precarious position, hewas able to throw his hook into the foamy water just at the foot of thefall, and had a bite almost instantly, throwing out a good half-poundfish whose orange spots glittered in the sunlight.

  Peter meanwhile was fishing from the shore lower down. The thicketswere farther back from the water than usual, and he had plenty of roomfor the back cast. He was kept busy from the first, and when he hadtime to glance up Fred seemed to be having equally good luck.

  But at one of these hurried glances his eye caught something thatappalled him. The looped rope that held the straining canoe seemed tobe in danger of slipping from its hold on the rock.

  He shouted, but the roar of the water drowned his voice. He started upthe bank, shouting and gesticulating, but Fred was busy with a fish anddid not hear or see. Horace was cutting wood at a distance. And atthat moment the rope slipped free. The canoe shot forward, and beforeFred 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 andwater, and then Macgregor saw him floating down on the current belowthe rapid. He was on his back, with his face just above water, and hedid not move a limb.

  Mac yelled at him, but got no answer. Fred had not been under longenough to be drowned. He had evidently been stunned by striking hishead against a rock.

  Then Mac realized the boy's new and greater danger. Fred was driftingrapidly head first toward the second cataract, and no one could diveover that fall and live. The rocks at the bottom would brain thestrongest swimmer.

  Mac instinctively dropped his rod and rushed into the water. Thestrength of the swirling current almost swept him off his feet. It wastoo deep to wade, and he was not a good swimmer. He could never reachFred 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 theriver again, rod in hand, as far as he dared to wade. He measured thedistance 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 offlies across the water.

  Mac was an expert fly-caster. The difficulty was not in the length ofthe cast; it was to hook the flies in Fred's clothing. They fell ayard beyond the boy's body. Mac drew them in. The hooks seemed tocatch 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 Fredwas terribly near the cataract, and moving faster as the pull of thecurrent quickened. Mac waded a little farther into the stream, leaningagainst the current to keep his balance.

  The line whirled again, and shot out, and again the gut fell acrossFred's shoulders with the flies on the other side. With the greatestcare Mac drew in the line. The first fly dragged over the body asbefore. The other caught, broke loose, and caught again in Fred's coatnear the collar, and then the steel rod bent with the sudden strain ofa hundred and fifty pounds drawn down by the strong current.

  Mac knew that the rod was almost unbreakable, but he feared for hisline. The current pulled so hard that he dared not exert much force.Fred's body swung round with his head upstream, his feet toward thecataract, 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 hecould not hold it. The light tackle would never stand the strain.

  Mac had fought big fishes before, h
owever, and he knew how to get themost out of his tackle. With the check on the reel he let out lineinch by inch to ease the resistance; and meanwhile he endeavored toswing Fred across the current and nearer the shore.

  As he stood with every nerve and muscle strained on the fight hesuddenly saw Horace out of the corner of his eye. Horace was besidehim, coat and shoes off, with a long hooked pole in his hands, gazingwith compressed lips at his brother's floating body.

  There was not a word exchanged. Under the steady pull Fred came overin an arc of a circle, but for every foot that was gained Mac had tolet out more line. His legs were swinging already within a few yardsof the dangerous verge, but he was getting out of the center of thestream, and the current was already less violent.

  Inch by inch and foot by foot he came nearer, and all at once Horacerushed forward, nearly shoulder-deep, and hooked the pole over hisbrother'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 haddrawn Fred within reach, had gripped him, and waded ashore carrying himin his arms.

  "I'll never forget this of you, Mac!" he ejaculated as he passed themedical 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 senselessby 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 examinedhis cranium. The back of his neck was skinned, there was a bleedingcut on the top of his head and a big bruise on the back, but Macpronounced none of these injuries at all serious. While they wereexamining 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 asudden 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 leftstranded in the wilderness--almost as hopelessly as castaways at sea.

  Without another word Mac began to run at full speed down the bank inthe deepening twilight. If the canoe had drifted right down thestream, he might never have overtaken it, but luckily he came upon itwithin 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 railwas split off, but it was still water-tight.

  The next morning Fred was fairly recovered of his hurts, but felt weakand dizzy, so that not much progress was made. During the wholeforenoon they remained in camp. Horace went hunting with the shotgunand got a couple of ducks. None of them felt much inclined for anymore fishing in that almost fatal spot.

  On the following day, however, Fred was able to take his share of thework again, and the party proceeded. That day and many days after weremuch 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 goingover. They made back-breaking portages over places where they had tohew out a trail for a quarter of a mile. At night when they rolledthemselves into their blankets they were too tired to talk. But thehard training they had undergone before they started showed its resultsnow. Although they were dead tired at night, they were always readyfor the day's work in the morning. They suffered no ill effects fromtheir 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 inhunting until they reached the prospecting grounds; but a couple ofdays later meat came to them. They had reached the foot of the worstrapid they had yet encountered. It was a veritable cascade, for theriver, narrowing between walls of rock, leaped and roared over fiftyyards of boulders. The portage led up a rather steep slope. The threeboys, each heavily burdened, were struggling along in single file, whenHorace, who was in front, suddenly sank flat, and with his handcautioned 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 wriggledforward to look.

  Eighty yards away Fred saw the light-brown flank of a doe, and besideher, partly concealed by the underbrush, the head and large,questioning ears of a fawn. The animals were evidently excited, for asHorace lowered his rifle, not wishing to kill a mother with young, theybounded a few steps nearer, and stood gazing back at the thicket fromwhich they had come. The wind blew toward the boys, and the roar ofthe cataract had drowned the noise of their approach.

  Suddenly there was a commotion in the thicket, and two young bucksburst from the spruces and dashed past the doe and fawn toward theboys. At the same instant the lithe, tawny form of a lynx leaped out.It struck like lightning at the fawn, but the little fellow sprangaside and bounded after its mother. The lynx gave a few prodigiousleaps and then stood, with tufted ears erect, glaring indisappointment. It had all happened within a few seconds, and the deerwere disappearing behind some rocks and stunted spruces fifty yards tothe right before the boys thought again of their need of meat.

  At that moment, one of the bucks wheeled at the edge of the tanglebehind which the other deer had passed. For an instant he presented afair quartering shot.

  "Shoot quick!" whispered Macgregor, excitedly.

  As the repeater in Horace's hands cracked, the buck whirled round in ahalf-circle, leaped once, and fell.

  Fred uttered a wild shout, slipped the tumpline from his head, and ranforward. He was carrying the shotgun and held it ready; but the buck,shot behind the shoulder, was virtually dead, although he was kickingfeebly.

  The lynx had vanished; there was no sign of the other deer. Only therush 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 theafternoon when the boys had finished it and had brought up the rest oftheir outfit to the head of the cataract. "Buck Rapids" they named theplace. There was enough meat on the deer to last them for the nextweek at least. The slices they cut and fried that night, although nottender, were palatable and nourishing.

  The weather had been warmer that day, and for the first time mosquitoestroubled them. The boys slept badly, and got up the next morningunrefreshed and in no mood to "buck the river" again.

  "Why not stop here a couple of days and prospect?" Mac suggested atbreakfast.

  The proposal struck them all favorably. It was the real beginning ofthe search for fortune. Fred in particular was fired with instanthope, and immediately after breakfast he set out to explore the countrynorth of the river; he intended to make a wide circle back to the SmokeRiver and to come homeward down its bank. He carried a compass, theshotgun, and a luncheon of cold flapjacks and fried deer meat. Horacewent off to the south; Macgregor remained in camp, to jerk the venisonby smoking it over a slow fire.

  It was a sunny, warm day. Spring seemed to have come with a bound, andthe warmth had brought out the black flies in swarms. All the boys hadsmeared themselves that morning with "fly dope" that they had bought atthe railway station, but even that black, ill-smelling varnish on theirhands and faces was only partly effectual. Great clouds of the littlepests hovered round them.

  Fred struck straight north from the river, and then turned a little tothe west. He examined the ground with the utmost care. The land layin great ridges and valleys, and he soon found that prospecting wasalmost as rough work as fighting the river. In the valleys the earthwas mucky with melting snow water; on the hills it was rocky, with hugeboulders, tumbled heaps of shattered stone, slopes of loose gravel;everywhere was a tangle of stunted, scrubby birch and poplar, spruceand jack-pine.

  After half an hour he ca
me upon a small creek that flowed from thenorthwest. With a glance at his compass, he started to follow it. Fornearly three hours he plodded along the creek, digging into the bankswith a stick and examining every spot where there seemed a chance offinding blue clay; but he found nothing except ordinary sand andgravel. At last, disappointed and disheartened, he turned back towardthe 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 onwardthrough the rough, unprofitable country.

  But if he did not find diamonds, he came on plenty of game. Ruffedgrouse and spruce partridges rose here and there and perched in thetrees. He saw many rabbits, and there were signs where deer or moosehad browsed on the birch twigs. Once, as he came over a ridge, hecaught a glimpse of a black bear digging at a pile of rotten logs inthe valley. The animal evidently had not been long out of winterquarters, 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 anyclay, but he happened upon something that caused him some apprehension.It was a steel trap, lying on the open ground, battered and rusted asif it had been there for some time. Scattered round it were some bonesthat he guessed had belonged to a lynx. Apparently the animal had beencaught in the trap, which was of the size generally used for martens,had broken the chain from its fastening, and had traveled until it hadeither 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 inthat district recently, perhaps during the last winter; was thestranger 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 wayfrom camp, and he did not reach the head of the cataract until nearlysunset.

  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 roughcountry 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 hisfears. The boys examined it and tested its springs. Horace took amore cheerful view of the matter.

  "The Ojibywas always trap through here in the winter," he said. "Theowner of that trap is probably down at Moose Factory now. Besides, thelynx might have traveled twenty or thirty miles from the place where itwas caught."

  In spite of the failure of the day's work they all felt hopeful; butthey resolved to push on farther before doing any more prospecting.

  The next morning they launched the canoe, and for four days more facedthe river. Each day the work was harder. Each day they had asuccession of back-breaking portages; sometimes they were able to polea little; they hauled the canoe for hours by the tracking-line, and inthose four days they traveled scarcely thirty miles.

  On the last day they met with a serious misfortune. While they werehauling the canoe up a rapid the craft narrowly escaped capsizing, andspilled out a large tin that contained twenty-five pounds of corn mealand ten pounds of rice--their entire stock. What was worse, the covercame off, and the precious contents disappeared in the water.

  About fifteen pounds of Graham flour and five pounds of oatmeal wereall the breadstuffs they had left now, and they had to use it mostsparingly.

  But they were well within the region where Horace thought that thediamond-beds must lie. On the map it had seemed a small area; but nowthey realized that it was a huge stretch of tangled wilderness, where adozen diamond-beds might defy discovery. Even Horace, the veteranprospector, admitted that they had a big job before them.

  "However, we'll find the blue clay if it's on the surface--and thesupplies 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 theyhad 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, withno success. The next day they again moved camp a day's journeyupstream; that brought them into the heart of the district from whichthey had expected so much. The river was growing so narrow and sobroken that it would be almost impossible for them to follow it fartherby 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 diamondhunt again with fresh energy. A warm, soft drizzle was falling, whichto some extent kept down the flies.

  Horace came back to camp first; he had had no success. He was tryingto find dry wood to rekindle the fire when he saw Fred coming down thebank at a run. The boy's face was aglow.

  "Look here, Horace! What's this?" he asked, as he came up panting. Inhis hand he held a large, wet lump of greenish-blue, clayey mud.Horace took it, poked into it, and turned it over. Then he glancedsympathetically 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 ashard as bricks."

  Fred pitched the stuff into the river and said nothing, but his faceshowed his disappointment. He had carried that lump of clay for overfour miles, in the conviction that he had discovered thediamond-bearing soil.

  Macgregor came in shortly afterward with nothing more valuable than twoducks that he had shot.

  The boys were discouraged that evening. After the rain they could findlittle dry wood. It was nearly dark before Fred began to stir up theusual pan of flapjacks, and "Mac" set himself to the task of cutting upone of the ducks to fry. They were too much depressed to talk, and thecamp was quiet, when suddenly a crackling tread sounded in theunderbrush.

  "What's that?" cried Horace sharply. And as he spoke, a man steppedout 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. Hospitalitycomes 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 ofmiddle age, with a tangled beard and black hair that straggled downalmost to his shoulders. He wore moccasins, Mackinaw trousers shinywith blood and grease, a buckskin jacket, and a flannel shirt. He wasbrown as any Ojibwa, and he, carried a repeating rifle and had a beltof cartridges at his waist.

  "Hunting?" he asked presently, with a nod at the deerskin that washanging 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 huntersallowed. Ye'll have to be out of here by to-morrow."