Northern Diamonds Part 2

But for that day they were safe. They rushed ahead, forcing the pace a little, after all, in a swinging single file, with the toboggan gliding behind. In great curves the river wound through the woods and frozen swamps, and only twice that day had they to go ash.o.r.e to get round roaring, unfrozen rapids. Each of those obstructions cost the boys half an hour of labor before they could get the toboggan through the dense underbrush that choked the portage. But they had counted on such delays.

Not a breath of wind stirred, and the forest was profoundly still.

Full of wild life though it undoubtedly was, not a sign of it was visible, except now and then a chain of delicate tracks along the sh.o.r.e.

Evening comes early in that lat.i.tude and season. At sunset Macgregor estimated that they had covered thirty miles.

"Time to camp, boys!" he shouted from the rear. "Look out for a good place--shelter and lots of dry wood."

Two or three miles farther on they found it--a spot where several large spruce trees had fallen together, and lay dry and dead near the sh.o.r.e.

They drew up the toboggan and exchanged their skating-boots for moccasins. Maurice began to cut up wood with a small axe; the others trampled down the snow in a circle.

Dusk was already falling when the fire blazed up, making all at once a spot of almost home-like cheerfulness. Fred chopped a hole in the ice in order to fill the kettle, and while it was boiling, they cut down a number of small saplings, and placed them in lean-to fashion against a ridgepole. The balsam twigs that they trimmed off they threw inside, until the snow was covered with a great heap of fragrant boughs. On it they spread the sleeping-bags to face the fire.

They supped that night on fried bacon, dried eggs, oatmeal cakes, and tea--real _voyageur's_ tea, hot and strong, flavored with brown sugar and wood smoke, and drunk out of tin cups.

Leaning back on the balsam couch, they made merry over their meal, while the stars came out white and clear over the dark woods. There was every prospect now of their reaching the trappers' cabin in two days more, at most. There were only the two serious dangers--a snowstorm might spoil the ice, and Macgregor might not be able to hit upon the right place.

The boys were tired enough to be drowsy as soon as they had finished supper. Little by little their conversation flagged; the chance of finding diamonds ceased to interest them, and presently they built up the fire and crawled into their sleeping-bags. It was a cold night, and except for the occasional cry of a hunting owl or lynx, the wilderness was silent as death.

The boys were up early the next morning; smoke was rising from their fire before the sun was well off the horizon. The weather seemed slightly warmer, and a wind was rising from the west, but it was not strong enough to impede them.

After breakfast, they repacked the kit on the toboggan. The spot had been home for a night; now nothing was left except a pile of crushed twigs and a few black brands on the trampled snow.

The travelers were fresh again; now they settled down to a long, steady stroke that carried them on rapidly. Three times they had to land to pa.s.s round open rapids or dangerous ice, but about eleven o'clock Macgregor saw what he had been looking for. It was a spot where several trees had been cut down on the sh.o.r.e. A rather faint trail showed through the cedar thickets. It was the beginning of the main portage that ran three miles northwest, straight across country to the Abitibi River. They had been mortally afraid of overrunning the spot.

They boiled the noon kettle of tea to fortify themselves for the long crossing. Then they unshipped the runners from the toboggan, put on their moccasins and snowshoes, and started ash.o.r.e across a range of low, densely wooded hills.

The trail was blazed at long intervals, but not cleared, and it was hard, exasperating work to get the toboggan through the snowy tangle.

After two hours they came out on the crest of a hill overlooking a great river that ran like a gleaming steel-blue ribbon far into the north.

"The Abitibi!" cried Macgregor.

They had come a good seventy miles from Waverley. At that rate, they might expect to reach their destination the next day; and, greatly encouraged, they coasted on the toboggan down to the ice, and set out again on skates.

During the tramp the sky had grown hazy, and the northwest wind was blowing stronger. For some time it was not troublesome, for it came from the left, but it continued to freshen, and the clouds darkened ominously.

Late in the afternoon the travelers came suddenly upon the second of the known landmarks. From the west a smaller river, nameless, as far as they knew, poured past a bluff of black granite into the Abitibi, making a fifty-yard stretch of open water that tumbled and foamed with a hoa.r.s.e uproar among ice-bound boulders. Here they had to change their course, for according to Macgregor's calculation, it was about fifty miles up this river that the cabin stood.

Again they went ash.o.r.e, and after struggling through two hundred yards of dense thickets reached the little nameless river from the west.

The change in their course brought them squarely into the eye of the wind, and they felt the difference instantly. The breeze had risen to half a gale; the whole sky had clouded. It was only an hour from sunset, but no one mentioned camping; they were resolved to go on while the light lasted. And suddenly Fred, struggling on with bent head against the wind, saw that the front of his blue sweater was growing powdered with white grains.

"We're caught, boys!" he exclaimed; and they stopped to look at the menacing sky.

Snow was drifting down in fine powder, and glancing over the ice past their feet. Straight down from the great Hudson Bay barrens the storm was coming, and the roar of the forest, now that they stopped to listen, was like that of the tempestuous sea.

"'Snow meal, snow a great deal,'" Macgregor quoted, with forced cheerfulness.

"Let's hope not!" exclaimed Maurice.

And Fred added: "Anyhow, let's get on while we can."

On they went, skating fast. As yet the snow was no hindrance, for it spun off the smooth ice as fast as it fell. It was the wind that troubled them, for it roared down the river channel with disheartening force.

It was especially discouraging to be checked thus on the last lap, but none of them thought of giving up. They settled doggedly to the task, although it took all their strength and wind to keep going. But all three were in pretty good training, and they stuck to it for more than an hour. The forest was growing dark, and the snow was coming faster.

Then Maurice, rather dubiously, suggested a halt.

"Nonsense! We're good for another ten miles, at least!" cried Peter, who seemed tireless.

They shot ahead again. Evening settled early, with the snow falling thick. The ice was white now; skates and toboggan left black streaks, immediately obliterated by fresh flakes. Just before complete darkness fell, the boys made a short halt, built a fire, and boiled tea. No more was said of camping. They had tacitly resolved to struggle on as long as they could keep going, for they knew that they would have no chance to use their skates after that night.

It grew dark, but never pitch dark, for the reflection from the snow gave light enough for them to see the road. Even yet the snow lay so light that the blades cut it without an effort.

The wind, however, was hard to fight against. In spite of his amateur championship, Fred was the first to give out. For some time he had felt himself flagging, dropping behind, and then recovering; but all at once his legs gave way, and he collapsed in a heap on the ice, half unconscious from fatigue.

Macgregor and Stark bent over him.

"Got to put him on the toboggan," declared the Scotchman.

Maurice felt that it was madness for two of them to try to haul the greater load, but without protest he helped to roll the dazed youngster in the blankets, and to strap him on the sledge. The next stage always seemed to him a sort of waking nightmare; he never quite knew how long it lasted. The wind bore against him like a wall; the drag of the toboggan seemed intolerable. Half dead with exhaustion and fatigue, he fixed his eyes on Macgregor's broad back, and went on with short, forced strokes, with the feeling that each marked the extreme limit of his strength.

Suddenly his leader stopped. A great black s.p.a.ce seemed to have opened in the white road ahead.

"Another portage!" Macgregor shouted in Maurice's ear.

A long, unfrozen rapid was thundering in the gloom. With maddening difficulty, Maurice and Macgregor hacked a road through willow thickets and got the toboggan past.

Again they were on the ice, with the rapid behind them. It seemed to Maurice that the horror of that exertion would never end; then suddenly the night seemed to turn pitch black, and he felt himself shaken by the shoulder.

"Get on the toboggan, Maurice! Come, wake up!" Macgregor was saying.

"Wake up!"

Dimly he realized that he was sitting on the ice--that they had stopped--that Fred was up again. Too stupefied to question anything, he rolled into the blanket out of which Fred had crawled, and instantly went sound asleep.

It seemed only a moment until he was roused again. Drunk with sleep, he clutched the towrope blindly, while Fred, who was completely done this time, again took his place on the sledge. Only Macgregor seemed proof against fatigue. Bent against the gale, he skated vigorously at the forward end of the line, and his strong voice shouted back encouragements that Maurice hardly heard.

The snow was now growing so deep on the ice that the skates ploughed through it with difficulty. Still the boys labored on, minute after minute, mile after mile. Maurice felt numb with fatigue and half asleep as he skated blindly, and suddenly he ran sharply into Macgregor, who had stopped short. There was another break just ahead--a long cascade this time, where snowy pocks showed like white blurs on the black water.

"Going to portage?" mumbled Maurice.

"No use trying to go any farther," replied the medical student, and his voice was hoa.r.s.e. "Fred's played out. Snow's getting too deep, anyway. Better camp here."

Maurice would have been glad to drop where he stood. But they dragged the toboggan ash.o.r.e somehow, caring little where they landed it. Peter rolled Fred off into the snow. The boy groaned, but did not waken, and they began to unpack the supplies with stiffened hands.

"Got to get something hot into us quick," said Peter thickly. "Help me make a fire."

Probably they were all nearer death than they realized. Maurice wanted only to sleep. However, in a sort of daze, he broke off branches, peeled bark, and they had a fire blazing up in the falling snowflakes.

The wind whirled and scattered it, but they piled on larger sticks, and Macgregor filled the kettle from the river. When the water was hot he poured in a whole tin of condensed milk, added a cake of chocolate, a handful of sugar and another of oatmeal, too stiffened to measure out anything.