Northern Diamonds Part 25

"Look! Look here!" he cried, wildly. "What fools we are! We can overtake those fellows--catch 'em--cut 'em off before they get anywhere--and get back our grub, and the foxes, and the canoe--everything--why--"

"What's that? What do you mean?" cried Horace and Mac together.

Fred placed a trembling finger on the map.

"See, this is where we are, isn't it? Those thieves will go down here to the mouth of the Smoke River, and turn up it to their camp. They didn't have much outfit with them; so they'll go back to their shanty.

It's about fifty miles round by the way they'll go, but if we cut straight across country--this way--we'd strike the Smoke in twenty-five miles, and be there before them."

"I do believe you've hit something, Fred!" Mac exclaimed.

In fact, the Smoke and the Missanabie Rivers made the arms of an acute angle. Between twenty and thirty miles straight to the northwest would bring them out on the former stream somewhere in the neighborhood of "Buck Rapids."

"Let's see!" calculated Horace hurriedly. "They can run down to the mouth of the Smoke in a few hours from here. After that it'll be slower work, but they'll have the portage trails that we cut, and they ought to get up beyond the long lake by this evening. Can we get across in time to head 'em off?"

"We must. Of course we can!" Fred insisted. "It's our only chance, and you both know it. We never could get home with our boots gone, and with the food we have, but this venison will last us across to the Smoke."

"Patch our boots up with the deerskin!" cried Mac. "We'll ambush 'em.

We'll catch 'em on a hard carry. Only let me get my hands on 'em!"

"Then we haven't a minute to lose!" said Horace.

"Let's be off!" cried Fred, springing up.

First of all, however, they repaired their tattered boots by folding pieces of the raw deerhide round them and las.h.i.+ng them in place with thongs. It was clumsy work at the best; but Mac rolled up the rest of the hide to take with him, in case they should have to make further repairs.

Horace consulted the map and the compa.s.s again, and picked up the lump of venison, which, with the deerskin, const.i.tuted their only luggage.

In less than half an hour from the time Fred had hit upon his plan they were off, running through the undergrowth on the twenty-five-mile race to the Smoke River.

None of them knew what sort of country the course would pa.s.s over. The map for that part of the region was incomplete and no more than approximately accurate, so that the boys were not at all sure that their guess at the distance to the Smoke River was correct. But they did know that now that they had started on the race, their lives depended upon their winning it. Fred took the lead at once, tearing through the thickets, tripping, stumbling.

"Easy, there!" called Horace. "We mustn't do ourselves up at the start."

Fred slackened his pace somewhat, but continued to keep in front. For nearly a mile from the river the land sloped gently upward through dense thickets of birch. Then the birches thinned, and finally gave way to evergreen, and the rising ground became rough with gravel and rock. The slope changed to undulating billows of hills, covered with stone of every size, from gravel to small boulders, and over it all grew a stubbly jungle of cedar and jack-pine, seldom more than six feet high.

It was a rough, broken country, and the boys had to slacken their pace somewhat; to make things worse, it presently began to rain. First came a driving drizzle, then a heavy downpour, with a strong southwest wind.

The rocks streamed with water, and the boys were drenched; but the heavy rain presently settled again to a soaking drizzle that threatened to continue all day.

Through the rain they struggled ahead; sometimes they found a clear s.p.a.ce where they could run; sometimes they came upon wet, tangled shrubbery that impeded them sadly. They kept hoping for easier traveling; but those broken, rocky hills stretched ahead for miles. At last the trees became even more spa.r.s.e, and the boys encountered a whole hillside covered with a ma.s.s of split rock.

Over this litter of sandstone they crawled and stumbled at what seemed a snail's pace. They were desperately anxious to hurry, but they knew that a slip on those wet rocks might mean a broken leg.

A rain-washed slope of gravel came next; they went down it at a trot, and then encountered another hillside covered with huge, loose stones.

They scrambled over it as best they could, and ran down another slope; then trees became more abundant, and soon they were again traveling over low, rolling hills clothed in jack-pine scrub.

With marvelous endurance Fred still held the lead. He went as if driven by machinery, with his head down and his lips clenched; he did not speak a word. He was supposed to be the weakest of the party, but even Macgregor, a trained cross-country runner, found himself falling farther and farther behind.

At eleven o'clock Horace called a halt. The rain had almost stopped, and the boys, lighting a small fire, roasted generous slices of venison. There was no need of sparing the meat now. Either plenty of food or death was at the end of the journey.

No sooner had they eaten it than Fred sprang up again.

"How you fellows can sit here I can't understand!" he exclaimed, nervously. "I'm going on. Are you coming?"

Mac and Horace followed him. The land seemed to be sloping continually to lower levels; the woods thickened into a st.u.r.dy, tangled growth of hemlock and tamarack that they had hard work to penetrate. They presently caught a glimpse of water ahead, and came to the sh.o.r.e of a small, narrow lake that curved away between rounded, dark hillsides.

They had to go round the lake, and lost two or three miles by the detour. As they hurried up the sh.o.r.e a bull moose sprang from the water, paused an instant to look back, and crashed into the thickets.

It would have been an easy shot if they had had the rifle.

Round the end of the lake low hills rose abruptly from the sh.o.r.e.

After scrambling up the slippery slope of the hills they reached the top, and saw ahead of them an endless stretch of wild hills and forests; there was not a landmark that they recognized.

Horace guessed that they had come about fifteen miles. Mac thought that it was much more. They agreed that they had broken the back of the journey, and that if their strength held out, they could reach the Smoke that day.

"Suppose we were--to find the diamond-beds now!" said Mac, between quick breaths.

"Don't talk to me about diamonds!" said Horace. "I never want to hear the word again."

On they went, up and down the hills, through the thickets and over the ridges; but they no longer went with the energy they had shown in the morning. With every mile their pace grew slower, and they were all beginning to limp. Fred still kept in front, with his face set in grim determination. About the middle of the afternoon Horace came up with him, stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, and looked into his face.

Fred's eyes were bright and feverish. His face was pale and spotted with red blotches, and he breathed heavily through his open mouth.

"You've got to stop!" said his brother firmly. "You're going on your nerves. A little farther, and you'll collapse--go down like a shot."

"I--I'm all right!" said Fred thickly. "Got to get on--got to make it in time!"

But Horace was firm. First they built a smudge to keep off the flies; then they made fresh repairs to their shoes; and finally they stretched themselves flat to rest. But in spite of their fatigue, they were too highly strung to stay quiet. They knew that a delay of an hour might lose the race for them. After resting for less than half an hour, they got up and went plunging through the woods again.

They believed now that the Smoke River could not be more than five or six miles away. From every hilltop they hoped to catch sight of it, or at least to see some spot that they had pa.s.sed while prospecting.

But although all the landscape seemed strange, they doggedly continued the struggle. The sun was sinking low over the western ridges now; toiling desperately on, they left mile after mile behind, but still the Smoke River did not come into sight. At last Macgregor sat down abruptly upon a log.

"I'd just as soon die here as anywhere," he said.

"You're right. We'll stop, and go on by moonrise," said Horace.

"Grub's what we need now."

"Why, we're almost at the end! We can't stop now!" Fred cried.

"We won't lose anything," said his brother. "The trappers will be camping, too, about this time. If we don't rest now we'll probably never get to the Smoke at all."

Staggering with fatigue, he set about getting wood for a fire. Mac and Fred helped him, and when they had built a fire they broiled some of the deer meat. Fred could hardly touch the food. Horace and Macgregor ate only a little, and almost as they ate they nodded, and dropped asleep from sheer fatigue.

Fred knew that he, too, ought to sleep, but he could not even lie down.

His brain burned, his muscles twitched, and he felt strung like a taut wire. Leaving his companions asleep, he started to scout ahead. He went like one in a dream, hardly conscious of anything except the overwhelming necessity of getting forward. His course took him over a wooded ridge and down a hillside, and at last he came upon a tiny creek. Stumbling, sometimes falling, but always pus.h.i.+ng on, he followed the course of the creek for a mile or two; suddenly he found himself on the sh.o.r.e of a large and rapid river, into which the creek emptied.

Furious at the obstacle, he looked for a place where he could cross the river.

It was too deep for him to wade across it, and too swift for him to swim it. He hurried up the bank, looking for a place where he could ford it, and at last came to a stretch of short, violent rapids.

He was about to turn back when he caught sight of axe marks in the undergrowth. Some one had cut a trail for the carry round the rapid.

He stared at the axe marks, and then at the river. Suddenly his dazed brain cleared.