Northern Diamonds Part 11

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 c.o.c.king its ears in their direction. Then, without showing any particular alarm, it walked on, and pa.s.sing 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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' appet.i.tes 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 a.s.sented, 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 pa.s.s.

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, m.u.f.fled 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 pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.s 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 m.u.f.fling _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:--