Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: LOWERED THE CAN CAUTIOUSLY BY A STRING]
NORTHERN DIAMONDS
BY
FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK
_With Illustrations_
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1917
COPYRIGHT, 1914 AND 1915, BY PERRY MASON COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published September 1917_
NOTE
This book has appeared in the _Youth's Companion_ in the form of a
serial and sequel, and my thanks are due to the proprietors of that
periodical for permission to reprint.
FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK
ILLUSTRATIONS
LOWERED THE CAN CAUTIOUSLY BY A STRING . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
THE OTHER BOYS HAD BEEN BUSY
"THAT IS OUR CABIN. LET US COME IN, I SAY"
DRAGGED HIM UP, PROTESTING, AND RUBBED SNOW ON HIS EARS
FLUNG THE SACK INTO THE MAN'S LAP
_From drawings by Harry C. Edwards_
NORTHERN DIAMONDS
CHAPTER I
It was nearly eleven o'clock at night when some one knocked at the door
of Fred Osborne's room. He was not in the least expecting any caller
at that hour, and had paid no attention when he had heard the doorbell
of the boarding-house ring downstairs, and the sound of feet ascending
the steps. He hastened to open the door, however, and in the dim
hallway he recognized the dark, handsome face of Maurice Stark, and
behind it the tall, raw-boned form of Peter Macgregor.
Both of them uttered an exclamation of satisfaction at seeing him.
They were both in fur caps and overcoats, for it was a sharp Canadian
December night, and at the first glance Fred observed that their faces
wore an expression of excitement.
"Come in, boys!" he said. "I wasn't going to bed. Here, take your
coats off. What's up? You look as if something was the matter."
"Is Horace in town?" demanded Peter.
Fred shook his head. Horace was his elder brother, a mining engineer
mostly employed in the North Country.
"He's still somewhere in the North Woods. I haven't heard from him
since October, but I'm expecting him to turn up almost any day now.
Why, what's the matter?"
"The matter? Something pretty big," returned Maurice.
Maurice Stark was Fred's most intimate friend in Toronto University,
from which he had himself graduated the summer before. He knew
Macgregor less well, for the big Scotch-Canadian was in the medical
school. His home place was somewhere far up in the North Woods, but he
had a great intercollegiate reputation as a long-distance runner. It
was, in fact, chiefly in a sporting way that Fred had come to know him,
for Fred held an amateur skating championship, and was even then
training for the ice tournament to be held in Toronto in a few weeks.
"It's something big!" Maurice repeated. "I wish Horace were here,
but--could you get a holiday from your office for a week or ten days?"
"I've got it already," said Fred. "I reserved my holidays last summer,
and things aren't busy in a real estate office at this time of year. I
guess I could get two weeks if I wanted it. I'm spending most of my
time now training for the five and ten miles."
"Could you skate a hundred and fifty miles in two days?" demanded
Macgregor.
"I might if I had to--if it was a case of life and death."
"That's just what it is--a case of life and death, and possibly a
fortune into the bargain!" cried Maurice. "You see--but Mac has the
whole story."
The Scottish medical student went to the window, raised the blind and
peered out at the wintry sky.
"No sign of snow yet," he said in a tone of satisfaction.
"What's that got to do with it?" demanded Fred, who was burning with
curiosity by this time. "What's going on, anyway? Hurry up."
"Spoil the skating," said Macgregor briefly. "Well," he went on after
a moment, "this is how I had the story.
"I live away up north of North Bay, you know, at a little place called
Muirhead. I went home for a little visit last week, and the second day
I was there they brought in a sick Indian from Hickson, a little
farther north--sick with smallpox. The Hickson authorities wouldn't
have him at any price, and they had just passed him on to us. The
people at Muirhead didn't want him either. It wasn't such a very bad
case of smallpox, but the poor wretch had suffered a good deal of
exposure, and he was pretty shaky. Everybody was in a panic about him;
they wanted to ship him straight down to North Bay; but finally I got
him fixed up in a sort of isolation camp and looked after him myself."
"Good for you, Mac!" Fred ejaculated.
"Oh, it was good hospital training, and I'd been recently vaccinated,
so I didn't run any danger. It paid me, though, for when I'd pulled
him around a bit he told me the story, and a queer tale it was."
Macgregor paused and went to look out of the window again with anxiety.
Fred was listening breathlessly.
"It seems that last September this Indian, along with a couple of
half-breeds, went up into the woods for the winter trapping, and built
a cabin on one of the branches of the Abitibi River, away up northeast
of Lake Timagami. I know about where it was. I suppose you've never
been up in that country, Osborne?"
"Never quite as far as that. Last summer I was nearly up to Timagami
with Horace."
Fred had made a good many canoeing trips into the Northern wilderness
with his brother, and Horace himself, as mining engineer, surveyor, and
free-lance prospector, had spent most of the last five years in that
region. At irregular and generally unexpected times he would turn up
in Toronto with a bale of furs, a sack of mineralogical specimens, and
a book of geological notes, which would presently appear in the
"University Science Quarterly," or even in more important publications.
He was an Associate of the Canadian Geographical Society, and always
expected to hit on a vein of mineral that would make his whole family
millionaires.
"Well, I've been up and down the Abitibi in a canoe," Macgregor went
on, "and I think I know almost the exact spot where they must have
built the cabin. Anyhow, I'm certain I could find it, for the Indian
described it as accurately as he could.
"It seems that the three men trapped there till the end of October, and
then a white man came into their camp. He was all alone, and
complained of feeling sick. They were kind enough to him; he stayed
with them, but in a few days they found out what the matter was. He
had smallpox.
"Now, you know how the Indians and half-breeds dread smallpox. They
fear it like death itself, but these fellows seem to have behaved
pretty well at first. They did what they could for the sick man, but
pretty soon one of the trappers came down with the disease. It took a
violent form, and he was dead in a few days.
"That was too much for the nerve of the Indian, and he slipped away and
started for the settlements south. But he had waited too long. He had
the germs in him. He sickened in the woods, but had strength enough to
keep going till he came to the first clearings. Somebody rushed him in
to Hickson, and so he was passed on to my hands."
"And what became of the white man and the other trapper?" demanded Fred.
"Ah, that's what nobody knows. The Indian said that the remaining
half-breed was falling sick when he left. The white man may be dead by
this time, or perhaps still living but deserted, or he may be well on
the road to recovery. But I left out the sensational feature of the
whole thing. My Indian said that the white man had a buckskin sack on
him full of little stones that shone like fire. He seemed to set great
store by them, and threatened to blow the head off anybody who touched
the bag."
"Shining stones? Perhaps they were diamonds!" ejaculated Fred.
"It looks almost as if he might have found the diamond fields, for a
fact," said Peter, with sparkling eyes.
Canada was full of rumors of diamond discoveries just then. Every
Canadian must remember the intense excitement created by the report
that diamonds had been found in the mining regions of northern Ontario.
Several stones had actually been brought down to Toronto and Montreal,
where tests showed them to be real diamonds, though they were mostly
small, flawed, and valueless. One, however, was said to have brought
nine hundred dollars, and the news set many parties outfitting to
prospect for the blue-clay beds. But they met with no success. In
every case the stones had either been picked up in river drift or
obtained from Indians who could give no definite account of where they
had been found.
Could it be that this strange white man had actually stumbled on the
diamond fields--only to fall sick and perhaps to die with the secret of
his discoveries untold? Fred gazed from Peter to Maurice, almost
speechless.
"Naturally, my first idea was to get up a rescue party to bring out the
sick prospector," Maurice went on. "But the woods are in the worst
kind of shape for traveling. The streams are all frozen hard, but
there has been remarkably little snow yet--not near enough for
snowshoes or sledges. It would be impossible to tramp that distance
and pack the supplies. Besides, when I came to think it over it struck
me that the thing was too valuable to share with a lot of guides and
backwoodsmen. If we find that fellow alive, and he has really
discovered anything, it would be strange if he wouldn't give us a
chance to stake out a few claims that might be worth thousands--maybe
millions. And it struck me that there was a quicker way to get to him
than by snowshoes or dogs. The streams are frozen, the ice is clear,
and the skating was fine at Muirhead."
"An expedition on skates?" cried Fred.
"Why not? There's a clear canoe way, barring a few portages, and that
means a clear ice road till it snows. But it might do that at any
moment."
"A hundred and fifty miles in two days?" said Fred. "Sure, we can do
it. I'll set the pace, if you fellows can keep up."
"Anyhow, I came straight down to the city and saw Maurice about it. He
said you'd be the best third man we could get. But I had hoped we
could get Horace, so as to have his expert opinion on what that man may
have found."
"The last time I heard from Horace he was at Red Lake," said Fred, "but
I wouldn't have any idea where to find him now. He always comes back
to Toronto for the winter, and he can't be much later than this."
"Well, we can't wait for him," said Maurice regretfully. "I'm sorry,
but maybe next spring will do as well, when we go to prospect our
diamond claims."
"Yes, but we've got to get them first," said Peter, "and there's a
man's life to be saved--and it might snow to-night and block the whole
expedition."
"Then we'd get dogs and snowshoes," Maurice remarked, "but it would be
far slower traveling than on skates."
"We must rush things. Could we get away to-morrow?" Fred cried.
"We must--by the evening train. Maurice and I have been making out a
list of the things we need to buy. Have you a gun? Well, we have two
rifles anyway, and that'll be more than enough, for we want to go as
light as possible. You'll need a sleeping-bag, of course, and your
roughest, warmest woolen clothes, and a couple of heavy sweaters.
We'll carry snowshoes and moccasins with us, in case of a snowfall.
I'll bring a medicine case and disinfectants."
"Will we have to pack all that outfit on our shoulders?" Fred asked.
"No, of course not. I have a six-foot toboggan, which I'll have fitted
with detachable steel runners to-morrow, good for either ice or snow.
We'll haul it by a rope. But here's the main thing--the grub list."
Fred glanced over the scribbled rows of the carefully considered
items,--bacon, condensed milk, powdered eggs, beans, dehydrated
vegetables, meal, tea, bread,--and he was astonished.
"Surely we won't need all this for a week or ten days?"
"That's a man-killing country in the winter," responded the Scotchman
grimly. "I know it. You have to go well prepared, and you never can
depend on getting game after snow falls. Besides, we'll have no time
for hunting. Yes, we'll need every ounce of that, and it'll all have
to be bought to-morrow. And now I suppose we'd better improve the last
chance of sleeping in a bed that we'll have for some time."
He went to the window and again observed the sky, which remained clear
and starry, snapping with frost.
"No sign of snow, certainly. We can count on you, then, Osborne? Of
course it's understood that we share expenses equally--they won't be
heavy--and share anything that we may get out of it."
"Count on me? I should rather think so!" cried Fred fervently. "Why,
I'd never have forgiven you if you hadn't let me in on this. But we'll
have to do a lot of quick shopping to-morrow, won't we? Where do we
meet?"
"At my rooms, as soon after breakfast as possible," replied Mac. "And
breakfast early, and make all the preparations you can before that."
At this they went away, leaving Fred alone, but far too full of
excitement to sleep. He sorted out his warmest clothing, carefully
examined and oiled his hockey skates and boots, wrote a necessary
letter or two, and did such other things as occurred to him. It was
long past one o'clock when he did go to bed, and even then he could not
sleep. His mind was full of the dangerous expedition that he had
plunged into within the last hours. His imagination saw vividly the
picture of the long ice road through the wilderness, a hundred and
fifty miles to the lonely trappers' shack, where a white man lay sick
with a bag of diamonds on his breast--or perhaps by this time lay dead
with the secret of immense riches lost with him. And the ice road
might close to-morrow. Fred tossed and turned in bed, and more than
once got up to look out the window for signs of a snowstorm.
But he went to sleep at last, and slept soundly till awakened by the
rattle of his alarm-clock, set for half-past six. He had an early
breakfast and packed his clothes. At nine o'clock he telephoned the
real estate office where he was employed, and had no difficulty in
getting his holidays extended another week. Business was dull just
then.
At half-past nine he met Maurice and Peter, who were waiting for him
with impatience. Macgregor had already left his toboggan at a
sporting-goods store to be equipped with runners for use on ice. But
there remained an immense amount of shopping to do, and all the things
had to be purchased at half a dozen different places. Together they
went the rounds of the shops with a list from which they checked off
article after article,--ammunition, sleeping-bags, moccasins, food,
camp outfit,--and they ordered them all sent to Macgregor's rooms by
special delivery.
At four o'clock in the afternoon the boys went back, and found the room
littered with innumerable parcels of every shape and size. Only the
toboggan had not arrived, though it had been promised for the middle of
the afternoon.
"Gracious! It looks like a lot!" exclaimed Maurice, gazing about at
the packages.
"It won't look like so much when they're stowed away," replied Peter.
"Let's get them unwrapped, and, Fred, you'd better go down and hurry up
that toboggan. Stand over them till it's done, for we must have it
before six o'clock."
Fred hurried downtown again. The toboggan was not finished, but the
work was under way. By dint of furious entreaties and representations
of the emergency Fred induced them to hurry it up. It was not a long
job, and by a quarter after five Fred was back at Mac's room,
accompanied by a messenger with the remodeled toboggan.
The toboggan was of the usual pattern and shape, but the cushions had
been removed, and a thirty-foot moose-hide thong attached for hauling.
It was fitted with four short steel runners, only four inches high,
which could be removed in a few minutes by unscrewing the nuts, so that
it could be used as a sledge on ice or as a toboggan on deep snow.
During Fred's absence the other boys had been busy. All the kit was
out of the wrappers, and the room was a wilderness of brown paper.
Everything had been packed into four canvas dunnage sacks, and now
these were firmly strapped on the toboggan. The rifles and the
snowshoes were similarly attached, so that the whole outfit was in one
secure package. They hauled this down to the railway station
themselves to make sure that there would be no delay, and dispatched it
by express to Waverley, where they intended to leave the train. It was
then a few minutes after six.
[Illustration: THE OTHER BOYS HAD BEEN BUSY]
"Well, we're as good as off now," remarked Maurice, with a long breath.
"Our train goes at eight. We've got two hours, and now I guess I'll go
home and have supper with my folks and say good-bye. We'll all meet at
the depot."
Neither Fred nor Macgregor had any relatives in the city and no
necessary farewells to make. They had supper together at a downtown
restaurant, and afterwards met Maurice at the Union Depot, where they
took the north-bound express.
Next morning they awoke from uneasy slumbers to find the train rushing
through a desolate landscape of snowy spruces. Through the frosted
double glass of the windows the morning looked clear and cold, but they
were relieved to see that there was only a little snow on the ground,
and glimpses of rivers and lakes showed clear, shining ice. Evidently
the road was still open.
It was half-past ten that forenoon when they reached Waverley, and they
found that it was indeed cold. The thermometer stood at five above
zero; the snow was dry as powder underfoot, and the little backwoods
village looked frozen up. But it was sunny, and the biting air was
full of the freshness of the woods, and the spirits of all the boys
rose jubilantly.
The laden toboggan had come up on the same train with them, and they
saw it taken out of the express car. Leaving it at the station, they
went to the village hotel, where they ate an early dinner, and changed
from their civilized clothes to the caps, sweaters, and Hudson Bay
"duffel" trousers that they had brought in their suit-cases.
They had been the only passengers to leave the train, and their arrival
produced quite a stir in Waverley. It was not the season for camping
parties, nor for hunting, and no one went into the woods for pleasure
in the winter. The toboggan with its steel runners drew a curious
group at the station.
"Goin' in after moose?" inquired an old woodsman while they were at
dinner.
"No," replied Peter.
"Goin' up to the pulpwood camps, mebbe?"
"No."
"What might ye be goin' into the woods fer?" he persisted, after some
moments.
"We might be going in after gold," answered Maurice gravely.
He did not mean it to be taken seriously, but he forgot that gold is
mined in several parts of northern Ontario. Before many hours the word
spread that a big winter gold strike had been made up north, and a
party from the city was already going to the spot, so that for several
weeks the village was in a state of excitement.
The boys suspected nothing of this, but the public curiosity began to
be annoying.
"Can't we start at once?" Fred suggested.
"Yes; there's no use in stopping here another hour," Peter agreed. "We
ought to catch the fine weather while it lasts, and we can make a good
many miles in the rest of this day."
So they left their baggage at the hotel, with instructions to have it
kept till their return, secured their toboggan at the depot, and went
down to the river. The stream was a belt of clear, bluish ice, free
from snow except for a little drift here and there.
Half a dozen curious idlers had followed them. Paying no attention,
the boys took off their moccasins and put on the hockey boots with
skates attached. They slid out upon the ice and dragged the toboggan
after them.
The spectators raised a cheer, which the three boys answered with a
yell as they struck out. The ice was good; the toboggan ran smoothly
after them, so that they scarcely noticed its weight. In a moment the
snowy roofs of the little village had passed out of sight around a bend
of the river, and black spruce and hemlock woods were on either side.
The great adventure had begun.