Northern Diamonds Part 9

"Yes, but they won't be ready to use them," said the Scotchman. "It's the only way."

He threw open the chamber of his rifle, glanced in, then fumbled in his pockets.

"Lend me a couple of cartridges, Maurice."

"Don't say you haven't any! I used the last of mine on those partridges."

"Then we're done!" Peter exclaimed, and he struck his hand furiously on the breech of the empty repeater. "Not a shot between us."

They looked at one another hopelessly.

"Come, we've got to do something--or starve in the snow," said Peter, at last. "We'll hold them up, anyhow--with empty guns."

"But suppose they fire on us?" Fred asked.

"At the first move any one makes toward a gun, we'll jump for him. The cabin's too small to use rifles in, and if it comes to a rough-and-tumble, why, we'll just have to keep our end up. But I don't think it will come to that. We'll have them bluffed."

Certainly it seemed a long chance to take, but, as Peter said, it was better than starving in the snow. They laid down the partridges, and began to move toward the cabin.

"Take the axe, if it's by the door, Fred," Macgregor advised. "You'll go first, and open the door. We'll aim over your shoulders. And remember, at the first hostile movement, jump for them with clubbed rifles and the axe."

They went on, rather slowly. The cabin came in view, with no one in sight, and they made a detour through the hemlocks so as to get as close to the door as possible without showing themselves.

"Now for it!" muttered Macgregor.

With hearts beating tumultuously, they burst out from the evergreen screen. But they had taken only two or three steps, when the cabin door opened a few inches, and four black rifle barrels were thrust out.

"_Halte-la_!" shouted one of the Canadians.

The boys stopped in their tracks. They could see nothing of the men within, nothing except those four ominous muzzles in the streak of firelight that shone through the crack.

"What do you mean?" cried Macgregor boldly. "Don't you know who we are? Put those guns away, and let us in!"

He ventured another step, but a second voice roared from the doorway, "Stop!"

It was Mitch.e.l.l. Peter stopped suddenly. The hoa.r.s.e voice bellowed again, "Git!"

"What's the matter with you?" Peter persisted. "That is our cabin.

Let us come in, I say."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THAT IS OUR CABIN. LET US COME IN, I SAY"]

"Git, _I_ say!" Mitch.e.l.l repeated. "After this, we'll shoot on sight.

I give ye till I count three. One--two--"

"Back off. We 're caught!" Peter muttered.

They backed away slowly. When they were at the edge of the thickets, Mitch.e.l.l shouted again:--

"When we're gone, you can come back! Now keep away for your own good!"

The cabin door closed as they stepped back into the undergrowth.

Macgregor's face was black as he tucked the useless rifle under his arm. They were all boiling with rage and mortification.

"If we'd only turned those scoundrels out yesterday!" Peter muttered.

"We couldn't foresee this," said Maurice. "Those fellows evidently knew that the diamonds were here--or strongly suspected it. They must have heard of it from your sick Indian, or from the third trapper.

They must have been astonished to find us on the spot."

"Very likely," said Fred, "but the present question is what we're going to do to-night."

"We must make the best camp we can in the snow," remarked Maurice.

"I don't see how we'll cut wood without an axe," said Peter. "It's going to be a savage cold night. We have no blankets, either. Lucky we shot those partridges."

But when they came to the spot where they had dropped the partridges, a fresh disappointment awaited them. The famished sledge dogs had found them. There was nothing left of the fourteen grouse except a litter of feathers and a few blood-stains on the snow.

Their night was to be supperless as well as cold, it seemed. Darkness was already falling, with the weird desolation that the winter night always brings down on the wilderness. It had been always impressive, but now, as they faced the night without food or shelter, it was appalling.

Dest.i.tute of an axe, they would have to make a camp where they could find fuel, and they scattered to look for it. It was rapidly growing too dark to search, but Fred presently came upon a large, dead spruce, lying half buried in snow, but spiked thickly with dry branches. He was breaking these off by the armfuls when the other boys came up in answer to his calls.

They trampled down the snow, gathered birch bark and spruce splinters, and laid the kindling against the big back log. Maurice set about pulling twigs for a couch, in case the temperature permitted them to sleep.

"How about matches? I haven't one on me," said Fred, in sudden anxiety.

Macgregor discovered four rather damp ones in his pockets; Maurice had a dozen or more, but the snow had got into his pocket, and wet them.

They used up five matches in lighting the fire, but finally the birch bark flared up, curling, and the spruce twigs began to crackle.

They were sure, at any rate, of a fire, and this little success raised their spirits wonderfully. They started at once to bring in all the loose wood they could find; but it proved to be little, for snow covered everything except the largest logs. However, they counted on the big spruce trunk to burn all night.

Without an axe, it was impossible to build any sort of shelter; so they sat down close beside the fire, and huddled together to escape the cold, which was growing hourly more piercing.

In spite of all their efforts, the fire was a poor one. The spruce trunk proved rotten and damp, and merely smouldered and smoked. The dead branches went off in a rapid flame, and they had to economize them to make them last the night out.

That was a terrible night. The temperature must have gone far below zero. A foot away from the fire, they could hardly feel its warmth; their backs and feet were numb, and their faces smoked and scorching.

Two of the boys were tired with a long snowshoe tramp, and all of them were hungry. Macgregor's feet were still far from being in a condition to stand further exposure; they would have frozen again easily, and he kept them as close to the wretched fire as possible. Sleep was out of the question, for they would have frozen to death at six feet away from the fire. They sat with their arms round each other, as close to the blaze as possible, and turned now their faces and now their backs to the warmth.

Fortunately, there was no wind. About midnight a pallid moon came up behind light clouds. Far in the woods they heard strange, lugubrious noises, moans, hootings, and once a shrill, savage scream.

Now and then they talked, but they were too miserable from the cold to say much. In spite of the cold, they grew drowsy. Fred could have gone dead asleep if he had allowed himself to. He got up, stamped, and engaged in a rather spiritless bout of wrestling with Peter. Then they all straggled off to try to find more wood.

Finally, that night of horror wore itself away. The light of a pale, cold dawn began to show.

Feeling twenty years older, they scattered to bring wood again. They built up the fire to a roaring blaze that gave some real warmth.

"Aren't those fellows likely to make off the first thing this morning, and take all our outfit with them?" said Maurice.