Northern Diamonds Part 16

Up here real work begins."

"And up here," Peter said, gazing at the wild, swift stream, "is the diamond country."

CHAPTER X

The mouth of the Smoke River was so rough that the boys could not enter it in the canoe; and the dense growth of birch and willow along the sh.o.r.es 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--and attached one end of it to the bow of the canoe. Peter Macgregor harnessed himself to the other end, and started up the narrow, rocky strip of sh.o.r.e; Horace waded beside the canoe in order to fend her off the boulders. Fred, carrying the fire-arms and a few other articles that 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 hundred yards long; after that, they were able to pole for a mile or so, and once indeed, the stream broadened so much that they could use the paddles. Then came a precipitous cascade, then a difficult carry, and then another stretch of poling.

They had gone about five miles up the river when Horace, who had been watching the sh.o.r.es carefully, pointed to a tree and gave a shout. It was a large spruce, on the trunk of which was a blazed mark that looked less than a year old.

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

On they went, shoving the canoe against the current with the iron-shod canoe poles. They had all been looking up the kind of soil in which diamonds are usually found, and now they closely observed the eroded banks on both sides of the river. According to Horace's theory, the river, or one of its tributary streams, must cut through the diamond-beds of blue clay. But as yet the sh.o.r.es showed nothing except ordinary 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 dashed rapidly to the head of the lake. There, rapids and a long carry confronted them! They had made little more than fifteen miles that day when finally they went into camp; they were almost too tired to cook supper. And they knew that that day's work was only a foretaste of what was coming, for from now on they would be continually "bucking the rapids."

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

It was a pair of rapids, less than a hundred yards apart. Over the first one the water rushed among a medley of irregular boulders, and then, after some ten rods of smooth, swift current, poured down a cataract of several feet. Huge black rocks, split and tumbled, broke up the cataract, and the hoa.r.s.e 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 than they were then, but they unpacked the canoe, and began to carry the outfit around the broken water, as they had done so many tunes that day. Once at the head of the upper rapid Horace began to get out the cooking-utensils.

"I'll start supper," he said. "You fellows might see if you can't land a few trout. There ought to be big fellows between these two cascades."

It did look a good place for trout, and Mac had an appet.i.te for fishing that no fatigue could stifle. He took the steel fly-rod, and walked a little 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 less scientific fashion. As his rod and line were considerably shorter than Mac's, he got into the canoe, put a loop of the tracking-rope around a rock, and let himself drift for the length of the rope, nearly to the edge of the rough water. Hung in this rather precarious position, he was able to throw his hook into the foamy water just at the foot of the fall, and had a bite almost instantly, throwing out a good half-pound fish whose orange spots glittered in the sunlight.

Peter meanwhile was fishing from the sh.o.r.e lower down. The thickets were farther back from the water than usual, and he had plenty of room for the back cast. He was kept busy from the first, and when he had time to glance up Fred seemed to be having equally good luck.

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

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

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

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

Mac instinctively dropped his rod and rushed into the water. The strength of the swirling current almost swept him off his feet. It was too deep to wade, and he was not a good swimmer. He could never reach Fred in time. They would go over the fall together.

Fred was more than thirty feet from sh.o.r.e. Mac thought of a long pole, and splashed madly ash.o.r.e 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 the river again, rod in hand, as far as he dared to wade. He measured the distance 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 of flies across the water.

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

The line whirled again, and shot out, and again the gut fell across Fred's shoulders with the flies on the other side. With the greatest care Mac drew in the line. The first fly dragged over the body as before. The other caught, broke loose, and caught again in Fred's coat near the collar, and then the steel rod bent with the sudden strain of a hundred and fifty pounds drawn down by the strong current.

Mac knew that the rod was almost unbreakable, but he feared for his line. The current pulled so hard that he dared not exert much force.

Fred's body swung round with his head upstream, his feet toward the cataract, 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 he could not hold it. The light tackle would never stand the strain.

Mac had fought big fishes before, however, and he knew how to get the most out of his tackle. With the check on the reel he let out line inch by inch to ease the resistance; and meanwhile he endeavored to swing Fred across the current and nearer the sh.o.r.e.

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

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

Inch by inch and foot by foot he came nearer, and all at once Horace rushed forward, nearly shoulder-deep, and hooked the pole over his brother'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 had drawn Fred within reach, had gripped him, and waded ash.o.r.e carrying him in his arms.

"I'll never forget this of you, Mac!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed as he pa.s.sed the medical 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 senseless by 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 examined his cranium. The back of his neck was skinned, there was a bleeding cut on the top of his head and a big bruise on the back, but Mac p.r.o.nounced none of these injuries at all serious. While they were examining him Fred opened his eyes again.

"Fished me out, Mac? Guess you saved my life," he murmured.