Northern Diamonds Part 7

He had stepped on an airhole lightly crusted over with snow. He went down to his neck without touching bottom, and the black water surged up to his face. It was the gun that saved him; it caught across the hole, and he clung to it fiercely. As the current fortunately was not rapid, he was able to draw himself up and out upon the ice.

But he found himself unable to extricate his feet. The long-tailed snowshoes had gone down point foremost, and now were crossed under the ice, and refused to come up. He dared not cut them loose, for in the deep snow he would have been helpless. Growing fainter at every moment, he struggled in the deadly chill of the water for four or five minutes before at last he succeeded in bringing them up end first, as they had gone down.

When he staggered back stiffly upon the snow the very life seemed withdrawn from his bones. His heavy clothing had frozen into a coat of mail almost as hard as iron plate. There was no sensation left in his limbs, and he trembled with a numb shuddering.

Long forest training told him what must be done. He must have a fire at once. He would have to find a dry birch tree, or a splintered pine that would light easily.

His benumbed brain clung to this idea, and he began to stumble toward sh.o.r.e, his snowshoes sheets of ice, and his clothes rattling as he went. But with a hunter's instinct he stuck to his gun, tucking it under his icy arm.

He could see no birch tree, and the bank was bordered with an impenetrable growth of alders. He dragged himself up the river, and each step seemed to require a more and more intolerable exertion.

He could not feel his feet as he lifted and put them down; when he saw them moving they looked like things independent of himself. He had ceased to feel cold. He no longer felt anything, except a deadly weariness that was crus.h.i.+ng him into the snow.

He went on, however, driven by the fighting instinct, till of a sudden he saw it--the birch tree he was seeking, s.h.i.+ning spectrally among the black spruces by the river.

It was an old, half-dead tree, covered with great curls of bark that would flare up at the touch of a match. He had matches in a water-proof box, and he contrived to get them out of his frozen pocket.

He dropped the box half a dozen times in trying to open it, opened it at last with his teeth, and dropped it again, spilling the matches into the snow.

Snow is as dry as sand at that temperature, however, and he sc.r.a.ped them up, and tried to strike one on the gun barrel. But he was unable to hold the bit of wood in his numbed fingers; there was absolutely no feeling in his hands, and the match fell from his grasp at every attempt. This is a familiar peril in the North Woods, where dozens of men have frozen to death with firewood and matches beside them, from sheer inability to strike a light.

Mac beat his hands together without effect. He began to grow indifferent; and as he fumbled again for the dropped match he fell at full length into the snow.

A sense of pleasant relief overcame him, and he decided to rest there for a few minutes. The snow was soft, and he had never before realized how warm it was. His shoulders were propped against the roots of the birch, and with a hazy consciousness that game might be expected, he dragged his gun across his knees and c.o.c.ked it. Then, with a comfortable sense of duty done, he closed his eyes.

Curious and delightful fancies began at once to flood his brain, fancies so vivid that he seemed not to lose consciousness at all. How long he lay there he never knew. But he grew alive at last to a vise-like pressure on his left arm that seemed to have lasted for years, and which was growing to excruciating pain.

He opened his eyes with a great effort. There were savage, hairy faces close to his own, pouring out clouds of steaming breath into the frosty air. Something had him by the arm with such force that he almost felt the bones cracking, and something was tugging at his leg.

The nervous shock aroused him as nothing else on earth could have done.

A tingle of horrified animation rushed through his body. He was on the point of being torn to pieces by the wolf pack that had trailed him, and the powerful stimulus of the new peril called out the last reserves of strength.

He made a convulsive start. His frozen hand was on the trigger of the shotgun, and both barrels went off. At the sudden flash and report the half-dozen wolves bolted incontinently--all but one gray monster that got the full force of the buckshot and dropped in its tracks.

Macgregor staggered to his feet, full of terrible cramps and pains in every muscle. But his head had cleared somewhat. He saw the dry birch tree and again tried to fumble for a match. Almost by sheer luck he succeeded in striking it. The birch bark caught fire and flamed crackling up the trunk. The dry trunk itself caught and burned like a torch.

Macgregor rubbed his face and hands savagely with snow. They hurt intensely, but he welcomed the pain, for it showed that they were not frozen. He was beginning to feel a little more life when he heard the creak and flap of snowshoes, and saw Fred and Maurice hurrying up the river toward him.

"What's the matter?" they shouted, as soon as within hearing distance.

"We heard the shot. See any wolves?"

Mac tried to shout something in answer, but found that he could not speak distinctly.

"I see you've bagged one," cried Fred, rus.h.i.+ng up. "Why, man, you're covered with ice! What's happened to you?"

"Been in the river," Peter managed to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e. "Get my moccasins off, boys--rub feet with snow. Afraid--I'm going--to lose toes!"

With exclamations of sympathy the boys got his frozen outer clothing off,--broke it off, in fact, from the caked ice,--removed his moccasins and socks, and rubbed his feet with snow. Several of the toes had whitened, but they regained color after some minutes' rubbing, and began to hurt excruciatingly. Peter squirmed with the pain.

"But I don't mind it," he said. "Rub away, boys. I certainly thought I was going to lose part of my feet."

Perhaps the solid cake of ice that had instantly formed over his heavy socks and moccasins had actually protected them from freezing. At any rate, he got off much more easily than he would have thought possible.

The attack of the wolves had left little mark on him, either. He had a few light lacerations on his hands and face, but for the most part the beasts seemed to have laid hold on him where the thick, ice-caked cloth was almost like armor plate. And no doubt the arrival of the pack had saved him from death by freezing.

Fred dragged up the carca.s.s of the fallen wolf and skinned its head and ears for the Government bounty. The rest of the pelt was so terribly torn with buckshot as to be worthless.

"Your scheme didn't work, Mac," he remarked.

"It did work. It worked only too well," Macgregor protested. "It's the best scheme for catching wolves I ever heard of."

"You don't want to try it again, do you?"

"Well--that's a different thing!" he admitted. "No, I don't know that I do. But if I hadn't gone through the ice we would probably have bagged nearly the whole pack."

After thorough snow friction Mac considered it safe to approach the fire by degrees. The ice thawed off his clothing, but left him wet to the skin. It was certain that he ought to get back to the cabin and dry clothing as soon as possible, and he thought he would be able now to travel. It was less than two miles.

It proved a painful two miles, but he reached the cabin at last, where his companions put him to bed in one of the bunks, covered him warmly, and dosed him with boiling tea. It was then growing close to three o'clock in the morning.

Naturally they did not get up as early as usual for breakfast.

Macgregor's feet were sore and somewhat swollen, but there was no longer any danger of serious trouble. He had to remain in the cabin that day and was unable to put on his moccasins, but he was much elated at his luck in getting off so lightly. It was snowing and stormy, besides; none of the boys went out much, except for the endless task of cutting firewood. They lounged about the cabin and discussed the problems that perplexed them so much--whether Horace had really discovered any diamonds, and what had become of him, and how and why--until the subject was utterly worn out. Maurice then made a checkerboard, and they played matches till they wearied of this amus.e.m.e.nt also.

The next day they had to fall back on it again, however, for the weather was still stormy. During the afternoon it snowed heavily.

Mac's feet were much better, and he wore his moccasins, but judged it unsafe to go out into the snow for another day. In the midst of the storm Fred and Maurice cut down a couple of dead hemlocks, and chopped part of them up for fuel. It was amazing to see what a quant.i.ty of wood the rough fireplace consumed.

"If we had acres of diamond beds we couldn't afford such fires in town," Maurice remarked.

The next day the weather cleared, but turned bitterly cold. In the afternoon Maurice ventured out to look for game, and came back about four o'clock with three spruce grouse and a frost-bitten nose. The boys were all standing outside the cabin door, when Fred suddenly started.

Round the bend a sledge had just appeared on the river. It was drawn by six dogs, coming at a flagging trot through the deep snow; four men on snowshoes ran behind and beside it. For a moment the men seemed to hesitate as they caught sight of the hut. But they came on, turned up the sh.o.r.e, and drove straight to the cabin at a gallop.

Three of the _voyageurs_ were plainly French Canadians, or possibly French half-breeds, wiry, weather-beaten men, dark almost as Indians; the fourth was big and heavily built, and wore a red beard that was now a ma.s.s of ice. All of them wore cartridge belts, and four rifles lay on the packed sledge.

"_Bo' jou'_!" cried the dark-faced men, as they came within hailing distance.

"_Bon jour_!" Maurice shouted back. He was the only one who knew any French, and he knew but little. He was searching his memory for a few more words, when the red-bearded man came forward and nodded.

"Didn't know any one was living here this winter," he said. "Trapping?"

"Hunting a little," said Macgregor. "Unharness your dogs and come inside. It's a cold day for the trail."

"You bet!" said one of the French, and they made no difficulty about accepting the invitation. They rapidly unhitched the dogs, which had sat down, snarling and snapping in their traces; then they unpacked the sledge and carried the dunnage inside the cabin.

They were a wild-looking set. The French Canadians were probably woodsmen, shanty-men or hunters, apparently good-natured and jovial, but rough and uncivilized. The Anglo-Saxon, who seemed to be their leader, was more repellent, and when he took off his _capote_, he revealed a countenance of savage brutality, with small eyes, a cruel mouth, and a protuberant jaw, framed in ma.s.ses of bricky red hair and beard.

"I don't much like the looks of this crowd!" Maurice whispered in Macgregor's ear.

"Rough lot, but they'll be away in the morning," answered Peter.

In the North it is obligatory to be hospitable, and the boys prepared to feed and entertain the party as if they were the most welcome guests. At the usual time they prepared supper. The four newcomers ate enormously. During the meal the red-bearded man explained that his name was Mitch.e.l.l, that he was "going north with these breeds," as he rather vaguely put it, and that they had run somewhat short of provisions.