CHAPTER V
In deadly fear of hearing a shot or a shout from behind, Fred did notstop running until he was out of sight of the cabin. He knew thedirection from which the hunters would be sure to return, and he postedhimself in ambush, in a spot whence he could keep watch in front andrear.
Fortunately, he was not pursued. Fortunately, too, he had not verylong to wait there, for it was bitter cold. In the course of half anhour, he discerned two black specks crossing a strip of barrens to thenorth.
Fred ran to meet them. The hunters had no deer, but each of themcarried a great bunch of partridges.
"What's the matter? Is the camp on fire?" shouted Macgregor, as Freddashed up.
He had to stop to regain breath before he could gasp out an account ofwhat had happened.
"The diamonds!" Maurice exclaimed.
"But, don't you see, this makes it certain that Horace never left thatcabin 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 lostit,--and we 're not going to let those wretches carry them off," hesaid. "Besides, the diamonds are the least important thing. Thosefellows have got our cabin, grub, ammunition, everything. We'restranded if we don't get them back."
"We must take them by surprise," said Fred. "I'd been thinking that wemight come up to the cabin quietly, throw the door open suddenly, andhold them up."
"They have four rifles," suggested Maurice.
"Yes, but they won't be ready to use them," said the Scotchman. "It'sthe only way."
He threw open the chamber of his rifle, glanced in, then fumbled in hispockets.
"Lend me a couple of cartridges, Maurice."
"Don't say you haven't any! I used the last of mine on thosepartridges."
"Then we're done!" Peter exclaimed, and he struck his hand furiously onthe 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. Thecabin's too small to use rifles in, and if it comes to arough-and-tumble, why, we'll just have to keep our end up. But I don'tthink it will come to that. We'll have them bluffed."
Certainly it seemed a long chance to take, but, as Peter said, it wasbetter than starving in the snow. They laid down the partridges, andbegan to move toward the cabin.
"Take the axe, if it's by the door, Fred," Macgregor advised. "You'llgo first, and open the door. We'll aim over your shoulders. Andremember, at the first hostile movement, jump for them with clubbedrifles and the axe."
They went on, rather slowly. The cabin came in view, with no one insight, and they made a detour through the hemlocks so as to get asclose to the door as possible without showing themselves.
"Now for it!" muttered Macgregor.
With hearts beating tumultuously, they burst out from the evergreenscreen. But they had taken only two or three steps, when the cabindoor 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 menwithin, nothing except those four ominous muzzles in the streak offirelight that shone through the crack.
"What do you mean?" cried Macgregor boldly. "Don't you know who weare? Put those guns away, and let us in!"
He ventured another step, but a second voice roared from the doorway,"Stop!"
It was Mitchell. Peter stopped suddenly. The hoarse voice bellowedagain, "Git!"
"What's the matter with you?" Peter persisted. "That is our cabin.Let us come in, I say."
"THAT IS OUR CABIN. LET US COME IN, I SAY"]
"Git, _I_ say!" Mitchell 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,Mitchell 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 hisarm. 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 evidentlyknew that the diamonds were here--or strongly suspected it. They musthave 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 goingto 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'sgoing to be a savage cold night. We have no blankets, either. Luckywe shot those partridges."
But when they came to the spot where they had dropped the partridges, afresh disappointment awaited them. The famished sledge dogs had foundthem. There was nothing left of the fourteen grouse except a litter offeathers and a few blood-stains on the snow.
Their night was to be supperless as well as cold, it seemed. Darknesswas already falling, with the weird desolation that the winter nightalways brings down on the wilderness. It had been always impressive,but now, as they faced the night without food or shelter, it wasappalling.
Destitute of an axe, they would have to make a camp where they couldfind fuel, and they scattered to look for it. It was rapidly growingtoo dark to search, but Fred presently came upon a large, dead spruce,lying half buried in snow, but spiked thickly with dry branches. Hewas breaking these off by the armfuls when the other boys came up inanswer 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 aboutpulling twigs for a couch, in case the temperature permitted them tosleep.
"How about matches? I haven't one on me," said Fred, in sudden anxiety.
Macgregor discovered four rather damp ones in his pockets; Maurice hada 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 birchbark flared up, curling, and the spruce twigs began to crackle.
They were sure, at any rate, of a fire, and this little success raisedtheir spirits wonderfully. They started at once to bring in all theloose wood they could find; but it proved to be little, for snowcovered everything except the largest logs. However, they counted onthe big spruce trunk to burn all night.
Without an axe, it was impossible to build any sort of shelter; so theysat down close beside the fire, and huddled together to escape thecold, which was growing hourly more piercing.
In spite of all their efforts, the fire was a poor one. The sprucetrunk proved rotten and damp, and merely smouldered and smoked. Thedead branches went off in a rapid flame, and they had to economize themto make them last the night out.
That was a terrible night. The temperature must have gone far belowzero. 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 themwere hungry. Macgregor's feet were still far from being in a conditionto stand further exposure; they would have frozen again easily, and hekept them as close to the wretched fire as possible. Sleep was out ofthe question, for they would have frozen to death at six feet away fromthe fire. They sat with their arms round each other, as close to theblaze as possible, and turned now their faces and now their backs tothe warmth.
Fortunately, there was no wind. About midnight
a pallid moon came upbehind light clouds. Far in the woods they heard strange, lugubriousnoises, moans, hootings, and once a shrill, savage scream.
Now and then they talked, but they were too miserable from the cold tosay much. In spite of the cold, they grew drowsy. Fred could havegone dead asleep if he had allowed himself to. He got up, stamped, andengaged in a rather spiritless bout of wrestling with Peter. Then theyall 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. Theybuilt 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.
"They're almost certain to. We must keep watch on the cabin," saidFred.
"We must hope they don't," added Peter. "We'd have to followthem--follow them till we dropped or captured them. For they'd betaking away our lives with them."
In view of this danger, they sent Maurice at once to reconnoiter theplace, which was not more than a quarter of a mile distant. He wasgone nearly half an hour, and on his return reported that smoke wasrising from the cabin, but that there were no signs that the menintended to depart.
And he had had a stroke of luck. A couple of partridges had flown upand perched stupidly on a log, so close to him that he had been able toknock one of them over with a cleverly thrown club.
In less than a minute that partridge's feathers were scattered on thesnow, and it was cut up and roasting on sharp sticks before the fire.Too ravenous to wait until it was thoroughly cooked, the boys began toeat it, but Maurice made a wry face at his second mouthful.
"No salt!" he remarked.
The half-cooked flesh was nauseous without salt, and hungry though theywere, they got it down with difficulty. It did them good, however, andthey all felt more capable of facing the situation.
"The first thing we must do," said Peter, "is to find a bettercamping-place, put up some sort of shelter, and gather plenty of wood."
"Why, you don't expect to live like this long?" cried Fred, lookingstartled.
"It's hard to say. You know we're fearfully handicapped. Our onlychance is to get those fellows off their guard, for if we strike onceand fail, we'll probably never get another chance. We must lie low,and make them think that we've gone away, or that we're dead. We'llput our new camp half a mile away, or more, and one of us must keepwatch near the cabin from sunrise to sunset."
It sounded disheartening, but they could think of no other plan.Eventually, Maurice went to stand guard, while Fred and Macgregorsearched for a camp-site.
They could not find what they wanted. Dead timber in any quantity wasscarce. At the end of a couple of hours Fred went to relieve Maurice,and found him walking round and round a tree in order to keep fromfreezing.
"I thought I might get a chance to collar the axe," said Maurice, withchattering teeth. "But they've carried it inside. They've taken inthe rest of the venison, too, and they've even got the dogs inside theshanty. Afraid we'd shoot them, I suppose."
Maurice tramped off to aid Peter in his search, while Fred stampedabout in the trees. No one was in sight about the hut, but after along time one of the French Canadians came out and went down to theriver with a pail for water.
It made Fred's blood boil to think of the warmth and comfort in thatcabin, from which they had been so treacherously turned out. Hepuzzled his brain to devise some plan of retaliation, but he couldthink of nothing except setting fire to the place, and that woulddestroy the supplies of friend and foe alike.
His feet grew numb, and he adopted Maurice's plan of running round in acircle. He fancied that his ears and nose were frosted, and he rubbedthem with snow. A long time passed; he wondered what had become of hiscompanions. It was nearly noon when Maurice hurried up with his facefull of consternation. "The fire is out," he said, "and we've used thelast match!"