Northern Diamonds Part 8

Luckily, they had food for the dogs; one of the "breeds" presently produced six frozen whitefish and carried them outside, where he gave one to each dog with much dexterity. The fish were bolted in a twinkling, and the unhappy brutes began to look for a sheltered spot where they could sleep through the sub-Arctic night.

After supper the French, stuffed to repletion, lay back and engaged in an animated conversation in a dialect that seemed to be a mixture of French, English, and Ojibwa. They laughed uproariously, and seemed thoroughly happy. But Mitch.e.l.l said little, and continually examined the interior of the hut with keen, restless eyes.

The next morning the visitors showed no anxiety to be off. They fed the dogs, lounged about, smoked, and stayed until dinner time. After dinner Mitch.e.l.l announced that the dogs were tired, and would have to rest that day.

It is very unusual to take a day off the trail for the sake of the dogs, but the boys made no objection, although secretly much annoyed.

The presence of the strangers inspired them all with uneasiness.

Besides, they could not continue their search or speak freely of it.

The next morning the strangers said nothing about moving on. They sat about the fire, and evading a suggestion that they help to cut wood, played cards nearly all day.

"What's the matter with them? Are they going to stay here all winter?"

said Fred, in great irritation.

Certainly the dogs needed no more rest. They pervaded the place, trying to bolt into the warm cabin whenever the door was opened, and spending much time in leaping vainly but hopefully at the frozen carca.s.s of the deer, swung high on a bough in the open air.

The prodigious appet.i.tes of the newcomers had not diminished in the least, and the carca.s.s was rapidly growing less. The boys thought that at the least their guests might help replenish the larder, and the next morning Macgregor proposed that they all go after deer.

"No good to-day," said Mitch.e.l.l gruffly. "Snow's coming. You boys go if you want to. We'll mind camp."

That was the last straw; there was no sign whatever of storm. Peter went out of the cabin to consult with his friends.

"They think we're greenhorns from the city, and they're trying to impose on us!" he said angrily. "If they don't make a move by to-morrow morning, I'll give them a pretty strong hint."

All the same, fresh meat had to be procured, and after dinner Macgregor and Maurice took the two rifles and went back to the deer yard to see if the herd might not have returned. Fred stayed to watch, for the boys disliked to leave their guests alone.

The quartette were playing cards as usual, and Fred presently began to feel lonely. After hanging about the hut for a time, he went out to pa.s.s the time in cutting wood.

It was very cold, but he much preferred the outer air to the smoky atmosphere of the shack, and he soon grew warm in handling the axe. He spent nearly the whole afternoon at this exercise, and it was after four o'clock when he finally reentered the cabin.

He opened the door rather quietly, and was astounded at what he saw.

The card game had been abandoned. The shanty was in a state of confusion and disorder. Blankets and bedding were strewn pell-mell; the contents of the dunnage sacks were tossed upon the floor.

Everything movable in the place seemed to have been moved, and a great part of the moss c.h.i.n.king had been torn from one of the walls, as if a hurried and desperate search had been made for something.

And the object of the search had been found. The four men were bent together over the table, watching intently, while Mitch.e.l.l took something from a small leather sack. They were all so feverishly intent that Fred tiptoed up close behind them un.o.bserved.

Mitch.e.l.l was shaking out little lumps from the sack; each was wrapped in paper, and each, when he unwrapped it, was a small pebble that flashed fire.

Fred's heart jumped, and he gasped. The diamonds! Horace had really found them, then! The sack seemed to contain a large handful--it was appalling to think what they might be worth! And then it flashed upon the boy with increased certainty that his brother must be dead, for otherwise he would never have left them there.

Mitch.e.l.l looked up and round at that instant. At his explosive oath, the Frenchmen wheeled like a flash. For a moment there was a deathly silence, while the four men glared at the boy with scowling faces.

Fred realized that not only the possession of the stones, but probably his life, hung on his presence of mind.

"Those things are my brother's, Mr. Mitch.e.l.l," he said, with an outward coolness that astonished himself. "He hid them in this cabin. I don't know how you came to find them, but I'll ask you to hand them back."

His voice broke the spell of silence. One of the French said something in the ear of another, and then dropped quietly back toward the corner where the men's four rifles stood together.

But Mitch.e.l.l swept the pebbles together back into the bag. "Your brother's?" he said. "Why, I bought 'em myself from a gang of Ojibwas down on Timagami. Rock crystals they call 'em, and I reckon to get ten or twelve dollars for 'em at Cochrane."

He spoke with such a.s.surance that Fred was taken aback, and did not know what to say. Then his eye fell on one of the sc.r.a.ps of paper in which a stone had been wrapped. He leaned forward and picked it up.

"Did you put this on it?" he exclaimed indignantly. "Look! It's my brother's handwriting. 'October second, Nottaway River, near Burnt Lake,' it says. That's where he found it. And look at that!" He swept his hand round the devastated cabin. "What did you tear the place to pieces for if you weren't hunting for something?"

"They're mine, anyway," retorted the woodsman, slipping the precious bag into his pocket. "Them papers was wrapped round 'em when I got 'em."

"Impossible!" said Fred. "I tell you--"

"Shut up!" said Mitch.e.l.l suddenly, with a snarl.

A sense of his peril cooled Fred's anger like an icy douche, and he was silent. There was death in the four grim faces that regarded him. He had no doubt that the men would murder for a far less sum than the value of that sackful of precious stones.

For an instant he thought hard. He was entirely unarmed, and the men's rifles stood just behind them. He would have to wait for reinforcements. It was surely almost time for Maurice and Peter to be back, and they must be warned of the danger before they entered the cabin.

"All right," he said, with sudden mildness. "If you can prove that the stones are really yours, I'm satisfied. The sack looked like my brother's, that's all."

Mitch.e.l.l gave a contemptuous grin. The Canadians lighted their pipes again.

Fred felt that they watched him closely, however. He lounged about the cabin with a.s.sumed nonchalance for a quarter of an hour, and then ventured to go out on the pretext of bringing in a fresh log for the fire. But once outdoors, he put on his snowshoes and rushed down the trail to intercept his friends.

CHAPTER V

In deadly fear of hearing a shot or a shout from behind, Fred did not stop running until he was out of sight of the cabin. He knew the direction from which the hunters would be sure to return, and he posted himself in ambush, in a spot whence he could keep watch in front and rear.

Fortunately, he was not pursued. Fortunately, too, he had not very long to wait there, for it was bitter cold. In the course of half an hour, he discerned two black specks crossing a strip of barrens to the north.

Fred ran to meet them. The hunters had no deer, but each of them carried a great bunch of partridges.

"What's the matter? Is the camp on fire?" shouted Macgregor, as Fred dashed up.

He had to stop to regain breath before he could gasp out an account of what had happened.

"The diamonds!" Maurice exclaimed.

"But, don't you see, this makes it certain that Horace never left that cabin alive!" Fred said heavily.

It looked like it, indeed, and no one found anything to say.

Macgregor's face had grown very grim.

"Anyhow, Horace risked his life for those stones,--perhaps lost it,--and we 're not going to let those wretches carry them off," he said. "Besides, the diamonds are the least important thing. Those fellows have got our cabin, grub, ammunition, everything. We're stranded if we don't get them back."

"We must take them by surprise," said Fred. "I'd been thinking that we might come up to the cabin quietly, throw the door open suddenly, and hold them up."

"They have four rifles," suggested Maurice.