CHAPTER XV
Half awake, Fred made a blind snatch at the rifle that had been acrosshis lap. It was gone.
The sky was bright with dawn. Ten feet away stood three men withleveled rifles. Horace and Mac were sitting up, holding their handsabove their heads and looking dazed.
"I said you pups wouldn't bark so loud next time," remarked one of thenewcomers. It was the man that had pretended to be a ranger. With himwas the slim, dark fellow whom they had seen outside the trappers'shack, and the third was a tall, elderly, bearded man, who looked moreintelligent and more vicious than the others.
None of the boys said anything, but Horace gave Fred a reproachfulglance that almost broke his heart. It was his fault that this hadhappened, and he knew it. Tears of rage and shame started to his eyes.He looked about desperately for a weapon. He would gladly risk hislife to get his companions out of the awkward scrape into which hisnegligence 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 theanimals, and talked eagerly in low voices. The boys watched them insuspense. Were they going to kill the foxes?
Presently two of the men picked up the cage and carried it down to theriver. The light was strong enough now so that Fred could see the bowof a bark canoe drawn up on the shore. They put the cage into thecanoe. Then the half-breed laid his rifle and the stolen shotgunbeside it, and paddled down the river. The other two men lifted theboys' Peterboro into the water.
"You aren't going to rob us of our firearms and our canoe, too, areyou?" cried Horace desperately. "You might as well murder us!"
"Guess you won't need the guns," said the third trapper. "You've gotgrub, 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 downthe river at a rapid pace. In two minutes they were out of sight rounda bend.
There was a dead silence. Fred could not meet the eyes of hiscompanions. He turned away, pretended to look for something, andfairly broke down.
"Brace up, Fred!" said his brother. "It can't be helped, and we're notblaming you. It might have happened to any of us."
"If you'd been awake you might have got shot," said Mac, "and thatwould have been a good deal worse for every one concerned."
But Fred was inconsolable. Through his tears, he stammered that hewished he had been shot. They had lost the foxes, they were strandedand destitute, and they stood a good chance of never getting out alive.
"Nonsense!" said Mac, with forced cheerfulness. "We were in a farworse fix last winter, and we came out on top."
"The first thing to do is to have some grub," added Horace. "Thenwe'll talk about it."
Looking with calculating eyes at the lump of meat, he cut the slices ofvenison very thin. There was about twenty pounds left. They roastedthe meat he had cut off, and ate it; then Horace unfolded his pocketmap and spread it on the ground.
They were probably forty miles from the Height of Land. It was twelvemiles across the long carry, and at least forty more to the nearestinhabited 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 hardlymake it in less than two weeks. Besides, our shoes are nearly gonenow."
"And that piece of venison will never last us for two weeks!" criedMacgregor.
"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'drun 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 followingthem without a canoe. The boys would have all they could do to savetheir 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. "Wemust put ourselves on rations of about half a pound of meat a day, andwe'll lay a bee-line course by the compass for the trail over theHeight 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 breakcamp and start on that journey which would perhaps prove fatal to allof them. They lingered, talking, discussing, hesitating, reluctant tomake the start.
Fred had not contributed a single word to the discussion. He hadbarely managed to swallow a little breakfast, and was too miserable tojoin in the talk. He knew how slim their chances were; he imagined howthe party would struggle on, growing weaker daily, until--
If only they had a canoe! If only they could run the robbers down andambush them in their turn! And as he puzzled on the problem, anidea--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 canovertake those fellows--catch 'em--cut 'em off before they getanywhere--and get back our grub, and the foxes, and thecanoe--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 hereto the mouth of the Smoke River, and turn up it to their camp. Theydidn'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 cutstraight across country--this way--we'd strike the Smoke in twenty-fivemiles, 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 acuteangle. Between twenty and thirty miles straight to the northwest wouldbring them out on the former stream somewhere in the neighborhood of"Buck Rapids."
"Let's see!" calculated Horace hurriedly. "They can run down to themouth of the Smoke in a few hours from here. After that it'll beslower work, but they'll have the portage trails that we cut, and theyought to get up beyond the long lake by this evening. Can we getacross 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, andwith the food we have, but this venison will last us across to theSmoke."
"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 foldingpieces of the raw deerhide round them and lashing them in place withthongs. It was clumsy work at the best; but Mac rolled up the rest ofthe hide to take with him, in case they should have to make furtherrepairs.
Horace consulted the map and the compass again, and picked up the lumpof venison, which, with the deerskin, constituted their only luggage.In less than half an hour from the time Fred had hit upon his plan theywere off, running through the undergrowth on the twenty-five-mile raceto the Smoke River.
None of them knew what sort of country the course would pass over. Themap for that part of the region was incomplete and no more thanapproximately accurate, so that the boys were not at all sure thattheir guess at the distance to the Smoke River was correct. But theydid know that now that they had started on the race, their livesdepended upon their winning it. Fred took the lead at once, tearingthrough the thickets, tripping, stumbling.
"Easy, there!" called Horace. "We mustn't do ourselves up at thestart."
Fred slackened his pace somewhat, but continued to keep in front. Fornearly a mile from the river the land sloped gently upward throughdense thickets of birch. Then the birches thinned, and finally gaveway to evergreen, and the rising ground became rough with gravel androck.
The slope changed to undulating billows of hills, covered withstone of every size, from gravel to small boulders, and over it allgrew a stubbly jungle of cedar and jack-pine, seldom more than six feethigh.
It was a rough, broken country, and the boys had to slacken their pacesomewhat; to make things worse, it presently began to rain. First camea driving drizzle, then a heavy downpour, with a strong southwest wind.The rocks streamed with water, and the boys were drenched; but theheavy rain presently settled again to a soaking drizzle that threatenedto continue all day.
Through the rain they struggled ahead; sometimes they found a clearspace where they could run; sometimes they came upon wet, tangledshrubbery that impeded them sadly. They kept hoping for easiertraveling; but those broken, rocky hills stretched ahead for miles. Atlast the trees became even more sparse, and the boys encountered awhole hillside covered with a mass of split rock.
Over this litter of sandstone they crawled and stumbled at what seemeda snail's pace. They were desperately anxious to hurry, but they knewthat 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 travelingover low, rolling hills clothed in jack-pine scrub.
With marvelous endurance Fred still held the lead. He went as ifdriven by machinery, with his head down and his lips clenched; he didnot speak a word. He was supposed to be the weakest of the party, buteven Macgregor, a trained cross-country runner, found himself fallingfarther 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 ofvenison. There was no need of sparing the meat now. Either plenty offood 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 continuallyto lower levels; the woods thickened into a sturdy, tangled growth ofhemlock and tamarack that they had hard work to penetrate. Theypresently caught a glimpse of water ahead, and came to the shore of asmall, narrow lake that curved away between rounded, dark hillsides.They had to go round the lake, and lost two or three miles by thedetour. As they hurried up the shore a bull moose sprang from thewater, 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 thetop, and saw ahead of them an endless stretch of wild hills andforests; there was not a landmark that they recognized.
Horace guessed that they had come about fifteen miles. Mac thoughtthat it was much more. They agreed that they had broken the back ofthe journey, and that if their strength held out, they could reach theSmoke that day.
"Suppose we were--to find the diamond-beds now!" said Mac, betweenquick breaths.
"Don't talk to me about diamonds!" said Horace. "I never want to hearthe word again."
On they went, up and down the hills, through the thickets and over theridges; but they no longer went with the energy they had shown in themorning. With every mile their pace grew slower, and they were allbeginning to limp. Fred still kept in front, with his face set in grimdetermination. About the middle of the afternoon Horace came up withhim, 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 spottedwith red blotches, and he breathed heavily through his open mouth.
"You've got to stop!" said his brother firmly. "You're going on yournerves. 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 itin 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 stretchedthemselves flat to rest. But in spite of their fatigue, they were toohighly strung to stay quiet. They knew that a delay of an hour mightlose the race for them. After resting for less than half an hour, theygot up and went plunging through the woods again.
They believed now that the Smoke River could not be more than five orsix miles away. From every hilltop they hoped to catch sight of it, orat least to see some spot that they had passed while prospecting.
But although all the landscape seemed strange, they doggedly continuedthe struggle. The sun was sinking low over the western ridges now;toiling desperately on, they left mile after mile behind, but still theSmoke River did not come into sight. At last Macgregor sat downabruptly 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 becamping, too, about this time. If we don't rest now we'll probablynever get to the Smoke at all."
Staggering with fatigue, he set about getting wood for a fire. Mac andFred helped him, and when they had built a fire they broiled some ofthe deer meat. Fred could hardly touch the food. Horace and Macgregorate only a little, and almost as they ate they nodded, and droppedasleep 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 tautwire. Leaving his companions asleep, he started to scout ahead. Hewent like one in a dream, hardly conscious of anything except theoverwhelming necessity of getting forward. His course took him over awooded ridge and down a hillside, and at last he came upon a tinycreek. Stumbling, sometimes falling, but always pushing on, hefollowed the course of the creek for a mile or two; suddenly he foundhimself on the shore of a large and rapid river, into which the creekemptied.
Furious at the obstacle, he looked for a place where he could cross theriver.
It was too deep for him to wade across it, and too swift for him toswim it. He hurried up the bank, looking for a place where he couldford 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 theundergrowth. 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 dazedbrain cleared.
He recognized the spot. He recognized the trail that he himself hadhelped to cut. He had found the Smoke River!
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