Northern Diamonds Part 12

"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 embarra.s.sment. "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.