Northern Diamonds Part 15

"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 circ.u.mstances, 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 pa.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sed over the top of his forehead.

Thus burdened they jogged round the track at a fast walk.

They were the b.u.t.t 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 a.s.siduously. 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 a.s.sorted loads of sh.e.l.ls. 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 pa.s.sed they were thankful that they had brought along the half-breed packers, who strode along st.u.r.dily 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.