The boys were thunderstruck at the stranger's assertion. They knew of several forest reserves in northern Ontario where timber and game are closely protected, but they had never heard of one in this district.
"I guess you're wrong," said Horace. "There isn't any Government reserve north of Timagami."
"Made last fall," the stranger retorted. "I ought to know. I'm one of the rangers. We've got a camp up the river, and we've been here all winter to keep out hunters and lumbermen."
Horace looked at him closely, but said nothing.
"Prospecting's allowed, isn't it?" Fred blurted out.
"Prospect all ye want to, but ye can't stake no claims."
"Where's the limit of this reserve?" asked Mac.
"Ten miles down the river from here. Ye'll have to be down below there by to-morrow night. Or, if ye want to stay, ye'll have to give up your guns. No guns allowed here."
"I suppose you've got papers to show your authority?" Mac inquired.
"'Course I have. They 're back at camp. Oh, ye'll get all ye want. Why," pointing to the fresh hide, "ye killed that there deer out of season. Ye've got the law agin ye for that."
"It was for our own food. You can kill deer for necessary supplies."
"Not on this ground. Now ye can do as ye like—give up your guns till ye 're ready to leave, or get out right away. I've warned ye."
The "ranger" got up and glanced round threateningly.
"If you can show us that you're really a Government ranger, we'll go," Horace said. "But I know the Commissioner of Crown Lands; I saw him before we started, and I didn't hear of any new reserve being made. I don't believe in you or your reserve, and we'll stay where we are till you show us the proof of your authority."
"I'll show youthis!" exclaimed the man fiercely, slapping the barrel of his rifle.
"You can't bluff us. We've got guns, too, if it comes to that!" cried Fred.
"I've give ye fair warning," repeated the man. "Ye'll find it mighty hard to buck agin the Gover'ment, and ye'll be sorry if ye try it. Ye'll see me again."
Turning, he stepped into the shadows and was gone. The boys looked at one another.
"What do you make of it?" Peter asked. "Is he a ranger—or a prospector?"
"They don't hire that kind of man for Government rangers," replied Horace. "And I'm certain there's no forest reserve here. Why, there's no timber worth preserving. He's a hunter or a prospector, and from his looks he's evidently been in the woods all winter, as he said. Perhaps he belongs to a party of prospectors who found a good thing last fall, and got snowed in before they could get out."
"Hunters wouldn't be so anxious to drive us away," said Fred. "They must be prospectors. Suppose they've found the diamond fields!"
They had all thought of that. There was a gloomy silence.
"One thing's certain," said Horace, "we must trail those fellows down, and see what sort of men they are and where they 're camped. We'll scout up the river to-morrow."
They all felt nervous and uneasy that evening. They stayed up late, and when they went to bed they loaded their guns and laid them close at hand.
But the night passed without any disturbance, and after breakfast they set out at once to trail the ranger. They followed the river for about four miles, to a point where the stream broke through the hills in a succession of cascades and rapids; but although they searched all the landscape with the field-glass from the top of the hills, they saw no sign of man. Beyond the ridges, however, the river turned sharply into a wooded valley. They struggled through the undergrowth, found another curve in the river, rounded it—and then stepped hastily back into cover.
About two hundred yards upstream stood a log hut on the shore, at the foot of a steep bluff. A wreath of smoke rose from its chimney, but no one was in sight. Talking in low tones, the boys watched it for some time. Then they made a détour through the woods, and crept round to the top of the bluff. Peering cautiously over the edge, they saw the cabin below them, not fifty yards away.
It looked like a trappers' winter camp. It was built of spruce logs, chinked with mud and moss. A deep layer of scattered chips beside the remains of a log pile showed that the place had been used all winter.
Presently a man came out of the door, stretched himself lazily, and carried a block of wood into the cabin. It was not the man they had seen, but a slender, dark fellow, dressed in buckskin, who looked like a half-breed. In a moment he came out again, and this time the ranger came with him. There was a third man in the cabin, for they could hear some one speaking from inside the shack.
For some moments the men stood talking; their voices were quite audible, but the boys could not make out what they were saying. The two men examined a pile of steel traps beside the door and a number of pelts that were drying on frames in the open air.
"These aren't rangers. They're just ordinary trappers," Mac whispered to Horace.
"They've certainly been trapping. But why do they want to run us out of the country?"
In a few minutes both men went into the cabin, came out with rifles, and started down the river-bank.
"They may be going down to our camp," Horace said, "and we must be there to meet them. We'd better hurry back."
The boys started at as fast a pace as the rough ground would allow. Owing to dense thickets, swamps, and piled boulders, they could not make much speed. In about twenty minutes Fred heard a sound of falling water in front, and supposed that they were approaching the river. He was mistaken. Within a few yards they came upon a tiny lake fed by a creek at one end and closed at the other by a pile of logs and brush. Curious heaps of mud and sticks showed here and there above the water. Horace uttered an exclamation.
"A beaver pond!" he cried. "That explains it all."
In a moment the same thought flashed over Fred and Macgregor. The killing of beaver is entirely prohibited in Ontario; but in spite of that, a good deal of illicit trapping goes on in the remote districts, and the poachers usually carry their pelts across the line into the Province of Quebec, where they can sell the fur. Naturally, the trappers had resented the appearance of the three boys in the vicinity of the beaver pond; the men had no wish to have their illegal trapping discovered. It was the first beaver pond the boys had ever met with, and in spite of their hurry they stopped to look at it. They came upon two or three traps skillfully set under water, and one of them contained a beaver, sleek and drowned, held under the surface. Apparently the men intended to clean out the pond, for the season was already late for fur.
After a few minutes the boys hurried on. They met no one on the way, and they found everything undisturbed in camp; they kept a sharp lookout all day, but no one came near them.
On the whole, they felt considerably relieved by the result of their scouting. The lawbreakers had no right to order them off the ground. For their own part, the boys felt under no obligation to interfere with the beaver trappers.
"If we meet any of them again, we'll let them know plainly that we know how things stand," said Mac. "We'll let them alone if they let us alone, and I don't think there'll be any more trouble."
It rained hard that evening—a warm, steady downpour that lasted almost until morning. The tent leaked, and the boys passed a wretched night. But day came pleasant and warm, with a moist, springlike air; the leaves had unfolded in the night. The warmth brought out the flies in increased numbers. They smeared their skins with a fresh application of "fly dope," and with little thought for the fur poachers, started out again to prospect. All that day and the next they worked hard; they saw nothing of the trappers, and found nothing even remotely resembling blue clay.
The condition of their footwear had begun to worry them. The rough usage was beginning to tell heavily on their boots, which were already ripping, and which had begun to wear through the soles; they would hardly hold together for another fortnight. But the boys bound them up and patched them with strips of the deerskin, and kept hard at work.
In the course of the next two days they thoroughly examined all the country within five miles of their present camp. On the evening of the second day they finished the last of the oatmeal, and Horace examined the remaining supply of Graham flour with anxiety.
"Just about enough to get home on, boys," he said, looking dubiously at his companions.
"But we're not going home!" cried Mac.
"The flour and beans'll be gone in another week, and we're a long way from civilization. Can we live on meat alone, Mac?"
"Pretty sure to come down with dysentery if we do—for any length of time," admitted the medical student reluctantly.
There was silence round the fire.
"We didn't start this expedition right," said Horace, at last. "I should have planned it better. We ought to have come with two or three canoes and with twice as much grub, and we should have brought several pairs of boots apiece."
He thrust out his foot; his bare skin showed through the ripped leather.
"Make moccasins," Mac suggested.
"They wouldn't stand the rough traveling for any time."
"What do you think we ought to do, Horace?" asked Fred.
"Well, I hate to retreat as much as any one," said Horace, after a pause. "But I know—better than either of you—the risk of losing our lives if we try to run it too fine on provisions. At the same time I do think that we oughtn't to give up till we've reached the head of this river. It's probably not more than ten or fifteen miles up."
After some discussion they decided that Macgregor and Fred should make the journey to the head of the river, carrying provisions for three days; that would give them one day in which to prospect at the source. Meanwhile, Horace was to strike across country to the northwest, to the headwaters of the Whitefish River, about fifteen miles away.
The next morning, therefore, they carefully cached the canoe, the tent, and the heavy part of the outfit, and started. They were all to be back on the third evening at the latest, whether they found anything or not.
Fred and Mac made a wide détour to avoid the hut of the trappers. They had a hard day's tramp over the rough country, but reached their destination rather sooner than they expected. The river, shrunk to a rapid creek, ended in a tiny lake between two hills.
The general surface of the country was the same as that which had already grown so monotonously familiar, except that there was rather more outcrop of bedrock. Nowhere could they see anything that seemed to suggest the presence of blue clay, and although they spent the whole of the next twenty-four hours in making wide circles round the lake, they found nothing.
The following morning they started back, depressed and miserable. If Horace's trip should also prove fruitless, the chances of their finding the diamonds would be slim indeed. The Smoke River made a wide turn to the west and north, and they concluded that a straight line by compass across the wilderness would save them several miles of travel, and would also give them a chance to see some fresh ground. They left the river, therefore, and struck a bee-line to the southeast. The new ground proved as unprofitable as the old, and somewhat rougher. The journey had been hard on shoe leather; Fred was limping badly.
Late in the afternoon the boys stopped to rest on the top of a bare, rocky ridge, where the black flies were not so bad as in the valleys. They guessed that they were about four or five miles from camp. The sun shone level and warm from the west, and the boys sat in silence, tired and discouraged.
"I'm afraid we're not going to make a million this trip, Mac," said Fred, at last.
"No," Peter replied soberly. "Unless Horace has struck something."
"It's too big a country to look over inch by inch. If there really are any diamond-beds—"
"Oh, there must be some. Horace found scattered stones last summer, you know. But of course the beds may be far underground. In South Africa they often have to sink deep shafts to strike them."
Fred did not answer at once. He had taken out the field-glass that he carried, and was turning it aimlessly this way and that, when Mac spoke suddenly:—
"What's that moving in the ravine—see! About a hundred yards up, below the big cedar on the rock."
"Ground hog, likely," said Fred, turning the glass toward the rocky gorge, through which ran a little stream that lay at the base of the ridge. "I don't see anything. Oh—yes, now I've got 'em. One—two—three—four little animals. Why, they're playing together like kittens! They look like young foxes, only they're far too dark-colored."
Mac suddenly snatched the glass. But Fred, now that he knew where to look, could see the moving black specks with his unaided eye. Just behind them was a dark opening that might be the mouth of a den.
"They are foxes!" said Mac. "It's a family of fox cubs. You're right. And—and—why, man, they're black—every one of them!"
He lowered the glass, almost dropping it in his excitement, and stared at his companion.
"Fred, it's a den of black foxes!"
"Black foxes!" cried Fred. "Mac, give me the glass!"
"Black, all right," Macgregor said. "Four of them, black as jet. See the fur shine! I can't see the old ones. There, I believe I saw something move just inside the burrow! Anyhow, all the cubs are going in."
He handed the glass to Fred, who raised it to his eyes just in time to see the black, bushy tail of the last cub disappear into the hole.
"Black foxes!" he said, in an awed whisper. "Four of them! Why, Mac, they're worth a fortune, aren't they?"
"And probably two old ones," said the medical student. "A fortune? Rather! Why, in London a good black fox pelt sometimes brings two or three thousand dollars. The traders here pay only a few hundreds, but if I had a couple of good skins I'd take them over to London myself."
"But we haven't got them. And we've no traps."
"One of us might watch here with the rifle for the old ones. I could hit a fox from here, but the bullet would tear the skin awfully."
"Yes, and it's too late in the spring now for the fur to be any good, I'm afraid," said Fred.
"Not first-class, that's a fact," Mac admitted sadly. "But what can we do? We can't wait here all summer for the cubs to grow up."
"Let's go down and take a look at the den," Fred proposed.
"Better not. If the old foxes get suspicious they'll move the den and we'll never find it again. I think we'd best go quietly away. This is too big a thing for us to take chances on."
They took careful note of the spot before they left, and in order to make assurance doubly sure, Mac blazed a tree every ten paces or so until they struck the river again.
They had followed the river downward for about two miles when they saw the smoke rising from their camping-ground. Hurrying up, they found that Horace had come in already. He had brought out the supplies and was frying bacon.
"What luck?" cried Fred, forgetting the foxes for a moment in his anxiety to hear the result of Horace's trip.
"None," said Horace curtly. He looked tired, dirty, and discouraged. "I went clear to the Whitefish—nothing doing. But what are you fellows grinning about? What did you find at the head of the river? You haven't—it isn't possible that you've hit it!"
"No, not diamonds," said Mac. "But we 've found something valuable." And he told of their discovery of the black foxes. "But the problem is how to get them," he finished. "The only way I can see is to shoot them at long range."
"Shoot them! Are you crazy?" exclaimed Horace, who was even more stirred by the news than they had expected. "Never! Catch 'em alive! They're worth their weight in gold."
"Alive! I never thought of that!" exclaimed Fred.
"Why, their fur is no good now. Besides, suppose you did get a wretched thousand dollars or so for the pelts—what's that? Why, down in Prince Edward Island a pair of live black foxes for breeding was sold for $45,000."
"Gracious!" gasped Fred.
"Down there every one is wild about breeding fur. A big syndicate has a ranch that's guarded with watchmen and burglar alarms like a bank. Their great trouble is to get the breeding stock, and they'll pay almost any price for live, uninjured black foxes. If we could manage to catch this pair of old ones and the four cubs without hurting them, they ought to bring—I'd be afraid to guess how much! Maybe a hundred thousand dollars! Kill them? Why, you'd kill a goose that laid golden eggs!"
"That's right! I've heard of those fox ranches, of course," said Mac, "but I didn't think of them at the moment. A hundred thousand dollars! But how on earth can we catch them? We might dig the cubs out of their den, but we couldn't get the old ones that way. If we only had a few traps!"
"Why, there's that trap I found in the woods!" exclaimed Fred suddenly.
They had all forgotten it; they had dropped the trap into the dunnage, and had not seen or thought of it since. Now, however, they eagerly rummaged it out, and examined it critically.
It was badly rusted, but not broken. Mac knocked off the dirt and rust scales, rubbed it thoroughly with grease, and set it. When he touched the pan with a stick the jaws snapped. The springs were a little stiff, but after they had been worked several times and well greased, the trap seemed to be almost as good as new.
"We should have three or four of them," said Peter. "Having only one trap gives us a slim chance. But suppose we do get them, what then?"
"Why, we'll have to have some sort of cage ready in which to carry them; then we'll make all the speed we can back to Toronto," replied Horace.
"And give up the diamond hunt?" cried Mac, in disappointment.
"What else can we do, anyhow?" replied Horace. "The flour is almost gone and we're almost barefoot. And see here, boys," he went on, earnestly, "I hate to admit it, but I'm afraid my calculations were wrong on these diamond-beds. I thought it all out while I was coming home from Whitefish River. Somewhere up here in the North there must be a place where those diamonds came from—but I'm beginning to believe it isn't in this part of the country. You see, the geological formation is all different from the kind where diamond matrix is ever found. Those stones I picked up may have been traveling for a thousand years down one creek and another. They may have come down in the glacial drift. I was altogether too hasty, I see now, in assuming that they originated in one of the rivers where I found them.
"They may have come from a river a hundred miles away. Or perhaps from deep underground. We should have made a study of the geological structure of this whole North Country, the direction of the glacial drift, and everything. Then we should have come in here prepared to travel a thousand miles and stay all summer, or for two summers, if necessary."
"Hanged if I'll give it up," said Mac stubbornly. "However," he added, "we must certainly try to catch these black diamonds, and we can keep on prospecting at the same time."
They uncached their outfit, pitched the tent again, and prepared supper; meanwhile they talked of the foxes until they reached a high pitch of enthusiasm. Even Mac admitted that the black foxes bade fair to be as profitable as a small diamond-bed would be. As for Fred, it was almost with relief that he let the diamond hunt take second place in his mind. The continual strain of labor and failure had robbed the search for the blue clay of much of its fascination.
Early the next morning they paddled up the river to the point where Mac's blazed trail came down to the shore, and set out to reconnoiter the den. After half an hour's tramping across the woods they reached the rocky ridge; through the field-glass they scrutinized the lair, which was about two hundred yards away.
Not a hair of a fox was in sight, but the burrow looked as if it could be opened with spade and pick. Horace thought they ought to do that first of all; in that way they could capture the cubs before there was any possible danger of the old foxes' moving the den.
On their way back to camp, Mac stopped at a marshy pool and cut a great armful of willow withes.
"It's lucky that I once used to watch an old willow worker making baskets and chairs," he said. "I'll see if I've forgotten the trick of it. We've got to make a cage, for we'll need one the instant we capture one of those cubs."
He made a strong framework of birch, with bars as thick as his wrist, which he notched together, and lashed with deer-hide. Then he had the framework of a box about three feet long, two feet wide, and two feet deep, through which he now began to weave the tough, pliable withes.
He did not altogether remember the trick of it, and he had to stop frequently to plan it out. He worked all that afternoon, and continued his labor by firelight. He did not finish the cage until the middle of the next forenoon. It was rough-looking, but light, and nearly as strong as an iron trunk, and had a door in the top.
All that remained for them to do now was to catch the game. They ate a hasty luncheon, and carrying the cage, the trap, the axe, the spade and pick, two blankets, and the guns, started back along Mac's blazed trail. So great was their eager hurry that they stumbled over roots and stones.
Clambering down the ravine, they cautiously approached the foxes' den. The opening to the burrow was a triangular hole between two flat rocks. From it came a faint odor of putrid flesh. The ground in front was strewn with muskrat tails, small bones, and the beaks and feet of partridges and ducks. From the rocks Fred picked off two or three black hairs.
The boys looked into the dark hole and listened intently. They could not hear a sound, but they knew that the cubs, at any rate, must be within. Mac cut a sapling, trimmed it down and sharpened one end of it; with that as a lever the boys loosened the rocks at the entrance of the burrow, and rolled them aside. The burrow ran backward and downward into the ground, but there seemed to be nothing in their way now except earth, gravel, and roots. Horace picked up the spade and began to dig; occasionally he had to stop to cut a tree root or pick out a rock. Meanwhile, Peter and Fred stood close behind him, ready to stuff the blankets into the hole in case the occupants should try to bolt.
They uncovered the burrow for about four feet; then they had to dislodge another rather large stone. There seemed to be a large, dark cavity down behind it. When they stopped to listen, they could hear a slight sound of movement in the darkness, and a faint squeaking.
"They're there," said Horace; "not a yard away. Now who's going to reach in and pull 'em out?"
Macgregor volunteered at once; he crept up to the hole and cautiously thrust in his arm. There was a sound of scrambling inside and a sharp squeal. Mac, with a strained expression on his face, groped about with his hand inside the hole.
When he withdrew his arm, there was blood on his hand, but he held by the neck a little jet-black animal with a bushy tail, as large as a kitten.
"Open the cage—quick!" he cried.
Fred held the door up, and Mac dropped the cub in. For a moment the animal rushed from side to side, and then crouched trembling in a corner.
"Nipped me on the thumb," said Mac, examining his hand. "They've got teeth like needles. But the old one doesn't seem to be there now, and I can easily get the rest."
He fished the second out without being bitten, and caged it safely. But his hold on the third cub could not have been very secure, for the little creature managed by struggling frantically to squirm out of his hand. It turned over in the air, landed on its four feet, and darted swiftly away.
The boys shouted in dismay. Fred flung himself sprawling upon the cub; but it evaded him like lightning, and bolted into the undergrowth. It would have been useless to pursue it.
The boys were greatly chagrined.
"It was my fault," said Peter, in disgust. "But it can't be helped now, and there's another to come out."
He had trouble in getting hold of the last of the cubs. Twice he winced with pain as the animal bit him, but at last he hauled it into view. It was a little larger than the others; it scratched and bit like a fury, and nearly broke away before they got it into the cage.
The boys gathered round and gloated over their prizes. With their glossy jet coats, bushy tails, prick-eared faces, and comical air of intense intelligence, the cubs were beautiful little creatures; but they were all in a desperate panic, and huddled together in the farthest corner of the cage.
"If we can only get them home in good condition they should be worth fifteen thousand," said Horace. "But I'm much afraid they won't live unless we can get the mother to travel with them. But now that we have the cubs it should be rather easy to catch her, and maybe the father, too."
They set the cage back into the hollow made by the ruined burrow, and laid spruce branches over it so that it was well hidden. Then they wrapped the jaws of the trap with strips of cloth so that they would not cut the fox's skin, and set it directly in front of the cage. Finally they scattered dead leaves over the trap. The cubs themselves would act as bait.
"A fox never deserts her young," Horace said. "She's sure to come back to-night, probably along with her mate, to carry off the cubs, and we've a good chance to catch one or both of them."
It seemed dangerous to go away and leave that precious cageful of little foxes at the mercy, perhaps, of the beaver trappers; perhaps prowling lynxes or wolves. However, the boys had to take the risk. As to the trappers, they had seen nothing of them for so long that they had little fear of them.
They went back to camp and tried to pass the time; but they could talk of nothing except black foxes. Fred conceived the idea of using their stock to start a breeding establishment of their own, and Macgregor was elaborating the plan, when suddenly he stopped with a frown.
"Is it so certain that the parents of those cubs are black?" he asked. "I've heard that black foxes are an accident, a sport, and that the mother or father is very often red."
"That's something that naturalists have never settled," replied Horace. "Some think that the black fox is a distinct strain, others that it's merely a 'sport,' as you say. However, when all the cubs in the litter are pure black, I think it's safe to assume that the parents are black also."
It was scarcely daylight the next morning before the boys were hurrying along the blazed trail again. Shaking with suppressed excitement, they approached the ravine of the foxes. When they came in sight of the den and the cage their anticipation was succeeded by bitter disappointment. The trap was undisturbed. Nothing had been caught. The cubs were still in the cage, as frightened as ever.
But they found that one at least of the old foxes had visited the place, for the dry leaves were disturbed; there were marks of sharp teeth on the willows of the cage, and inside the cage were the tails of a couple of wood mice. Unable to get her cubs out of the cage, the mother had brought them food.
It seemed too bad to take advantage of her mother love, but as Horace remarked, all they desired was to restore her to her family; once on the fox ranch, she would be treated like a queen.
They put the cage farther back and piled rocks round it, so that it could be approached only by one narrow path. In the path they placed the trap, and again covered it carefully with leaves.
The cubs had to be left for another night, and the boys had another hard day of waiting. None of them had the heart to try to prospect. Macgregor went after ducks with the shotgun; the others lounged about, and killed time as best they could. They all went to bed early, and before sunrise again started for the den.
It was fully light when they came to the hill over the ravine, and as they sighted the den, a cry of excitement broke from all three of them at once.
From where they stood they could see the cage, and the crouching form of a black animal beside it, evidently in the trap. And over the beast with the dark fur stood a man in a buckskin jacket, with a club raised to strike.
Fred and Mac, who were carrying the guns, fired wildly at the man at the trap; they took no aim, for their only purpose was to startle him and to keep him from killing the fox. When the shots rang out, the man straightened up, saw the boys rushing down the hill toward him, and dropped his club. Stepping back, he picked up his rifle, and as they dashed up, held it ready to shoot.
Fred gave a whoop when he saw that the animal in the trap was really a black fox; moreover, it was the mother fox. Her black coat was glossy and spotless.
Horace turned to the man. "Let that fox alone!" he cried. "That's our fox!"
"Yours? It's my fox!" retorted the man angrily. "Why, that's my trap!"
"I don't believe it; we found it in the woods. Anyway, you can have the trap if you like, but the fox is certainly ours. We've been after her for some time."
"Me and my pardners have been after this fox all winter," declared the trapper. "Now that we've got her we 're going to keep her—you can bet on that."
He made a movement toward the fox.
"None of that!" cried Mac, sharply, and snapped a fresh cartridge into the rifle chamber.
"You would, would you?" cried the trapper, and instantly covered Peter with his gun. Fred had reloaded the shotgun, and he covered the man in his turn.
So for a moment they all stood at a deadlock.
"Put down your guns!" said Horace. "A fox pelt isn't worth killing a man for, and this pelt's no good, anyway. It's too late in the season. We're going to take this fox away with us alive. Stick to your beavers, for you can't steal this animal from us—and you can bet on that!" he added, with great emphasis.
"You might shoot one of us, but you'd have a hole in you the next minute," said Mac. "You'd better drop it, now, and get out!"
The trapper glared at them with a face as savage as a wildcat's. For a second Fred really expected him to shoot. Then, with a muttered curse, the man lowered his gun.
"You pups won't bark so loud when I come back!" he snarled. Then he turned, and started away at a rapid pace.
"Bluffed!" Fred exclaimed, trembling now that the strain was over.
"He's gone for the rest of his gang!" Mac cried. "Quick, we've got to get out of here!"
"Yes, and far away, too," said Horace, "now that we've caught the mother fox. We should never have got the male, anyway. Let's get this beauty into her box."
The black fox was indeed a beauty, but there was no time to admire her. Snarling viciously, she laid back her ears and showed her white teeth. Her hind leg was in the trap, but did not appear to have been injured by the padded jaws.
Horace cut two strong forked sticks, with which the boys pinned her down by the neck and hips. Fred opened the jaws of the trap; Mac picked the fox up firmly by the back of her neck, and in spite of her frantic struggles, thrust her into the cage.
Horace and Mac then seized the box, one at either end, and started toward the river; Fred carried the guns and kept a sharp lookout in front. The cage of foxes was not heavy, but it was so clumsy that the boys had hard work carrying it over the rough ground. After stumbling for a few rods, they cut a long pole and slipped it through the handles in the ends of the cage. After that they made somewhat better progress, although even then they could not travel at a very rapid pace.
"If those fellows have a canoe," panted Mac, "they'll be down the river before we can get to camp!"
"You may be sure they'll do their best," said Horace. "These foxes are probably worth ten times their winter catch. We'll have to break camp instantly and make for home as fast as we can."
They went plunging along through the thickets, and up and down the rocky hills; it was well that the cage was strong.
After more than an hour of this arduous tramping they heard the rush of the river. "We'd best scout a little way ahead before we go any farther," Horace declared.
They set down the cage, crept forward to the river and reconnoitered the bank. Their canoe was where they had left it, concealed behind a cedar thicket, and no other canoe was in sight up or down the river. Horace swept the shore with the field-glass.
"Nothing in sight," he reported. "We may have time to pack our outfit and get off, after all. Possibly those fellows haven't a canoe."
They quickly launched the canoe, and put the cage of black foxes amidships; Fred sat behind it in order to hold it steady. Horace took the stern paddle, and Peter the bow.
The river ran swift and rather shallow, but there were no dangerous rapids between them and camp. They swept down the current, and in a few minutes the tent came in sight. Horace took up the glass again, but he could see no sign of the trappers. They paddled on, intending to land at their usual place, but when they were scarcely twenty yards from the tent, Fred uttered a suppressed cry.
"Look! A canoe—lower down!" He spoke barely loud enough for his brother to hear him. He had caught a glimpse of the bow of a birch canoe, which was thrust back almost out of sight behind a willow clump below the campground.
"Run straight past!" Horace commanded, instantly. "Dig in your paddle, Mac!"
The canoe shot forward, and at doubled speed swept by the tent. As they passed it a man rose from behind a thicket and yelled hoarsely:—
"Stop, there! Halt!"
Bang!went a rifle somewhere behind them, and then the rapidcrack! crack! crack!of more than one repeater. A bullet clipped through the sides of the canoe, fortunately well above the water-line. Another glanced from a rock, and hummed past them.
As the boys whirled by the ambushed birch canoe, Fred snatched up the shotgun, and sent two loads of buckshot tearing through its sides.
"That'll cripple them for a while!" he cried.
Bang!A better-aimed bullet dashed the steering paddle from Horace's hands. The canoe swerved, and heeled in the current. Horace snatched the extra paddle that lay in the stern, and brought the craft round just in time to prevent it from upsetting. As the paddle that had been hit floated past, Fred picked it up; it had a round hole through the handle.
The canoe was a hundred yards from the tent now, and was going so fast that it offered no easy target to the men behind, who, however, still continued to shoot. Another bullet nicked the stern. Glancing over his shoulder, Fred saw the three trappers running down the shore, and firing as they ran. But in another moment the canoe swept round a bend in the river, and was screened from the trappers by the wooded shore.
"Keep it up! Make all the speed you can!" cried Horace.
Down the fast current they shot like an arrow. As they went round another curve, they heard the roar of rushing water ahead; a short but turbulent rapid confronted them. There the river, foaming and surging, dashed down over the black rocks; the shore was rough and covered with dense thickets. The boys remembered the hard work they had had making a portage here on the way up; but there was no time to make a portage now.
"Down we go! Look sharp for her bow, Mac!" Horace sang out.
The rush of the rapid seemed to snatch up the canoe like a leaf. Fred caught his breath; the pit of his stomach seemed to sink. There was a deafening roar all around him, a chaos of white water, flying spray, and sharp rocks that sprang up and flashed behind. Then, before he had recovered his breath, they shot out into the smooth river below.
Six inches of water was slopping in the bottom of the canoe, but they ran on without stopping to bale it out. For over half a mile the smooth, swift current lasted; then came another rapid. It was longer and more dangerous than the other, and the boys carried the canoe and the foxes round it. They would not risk spilling the precious cage, and for the present they thought that they had outrun their pursuers.
For another mile or two they descended the river, until they came to another carry. They made the portage, and stopped at the bottom to discuss their situation and make their plans. They had escaped the trappers, indeed, and they had the foxes; but except the canoe, a blanket, the guns, and the light axe that Mac had at his belt, they had nothing else. "I guess this settles our prospecting, boys," said Horace. "What are we to do now? Shall we go on, or—"
"Or what?" Fred asked, as his brother stopped.
"I hardly know. But here we are, without supplies, and at least a hundred and fifty miles from any place where we can get them. We all know what a hard road it is, and going back it'll be up-stream all the way, after we leave this river."
"Do we have to go back the way we came?"
"Well, instead of turning up the Missanabie River when we come to it, we might go straight down it to Moose Factory, the Hudson Bay Company's post at the mouth; but if we did that, these foxes would never live till we got back to Toronto. It would be too long and hard a trip for them."
"That settles it. We don't go that way," said Mac. "Surely we can get home in ten or twelve days the way we came, and we ought to be able to kill enough to live on during that time."
"How many cartridges have we?" asked Horace dubiously.
Macgregor had nineteen cartridges in his belt, and there were six more in the magazine of the rifle. Fred had only ten shells in his pockets, and the shotgun was empty. They had left the fishing tackle at camp, but luckily they had plenty of matches.
"If we can get a deer within the next day or so, or even a few ducks or partridges, we may make it," said Horace. "But I've noticed that game is always scarce when you need it most. Now if we turned back and tried to recover our outfit, we should certainly have to fight the trappers, and probably we'd be worsted, for they outmatch us in weapons. One of us might be killed, and we'd be almost certain to lose the foxes."
"Trade these foxes for some flour and bacon? I'd starve first!" said Fred.
"So would I!" cried Macgregor. "But we won't starve. We didn't starve last winter, when we hadn't a match or a grain of powder, and when the mercury was below zero most of the time, too."
"Well, we'll go on, if you say so," said Horace. "It's a mighty dangerous trip, but I don't see what else we can do."
"Forward it is, then!" cried Fred.
"And hang the risk!" exclaimed Mac, springing up to push the canoe into the water.
"Do you think those men will really follow us, Horace?" asked Fred.
"Sure to," replied his brother. "It'll take them a few hours to patch up their canoe, but they 're probably better canoemen than we are, and we'll have to work mighty hard to keep ahead of them."
Fred was more optimistic. "They'll have to work mighty hard to keep up with us," he said, as they launched the canoe.
Going down the river was very different from coming up it. The current ran so swiftly that the boys could not add much to their speed by paddling; all they had to do was to steer the craft. The water was so high that they could run most of the rapids, and stretches that they had formerly toiled up with tumpline or tracking-line they now covered with the speed of a bullet.
Toward noon Fred became intolerably hungry; but neither of the others spoke of eating, and he did not mention his hunger. Mac, in the bow, put the shotgun where he could easily reach it, and scanned the shores for game as closely as he could; but no game showed itself. They traveled all day without seeing anything except now and then a few ducks, which always took wing while still far out of range.
At last they came to "Buck Rapids," where they had shot the deer. The river there was one succession of rapids, most of which were too dangerous to run through. It was the place where, on the way up, they had made only four miles in a whole day; and they did not cover more than ten miles this afternoon.
When they came to the long, narrow lake on the lower reaches of the river, the sun was setting. They were all pretty much exhausted with the toil and excitement of the day.
"I vote we stop here," said Mac. "There'll be a moon toward midnight, and we can go on then. We ought to get some sleep."
"I'm too hungry to sleep," said Fred.
"Well, so am I," Mac admitted. "But we can rest, anyway."
So they drew up the canoe and lighted a fire, partly from force of habit and partly to drive away the mosquitoes. They carefully lifted the fox cage ashore.
"We've nothing for them to eat," Horace said anxiously, "but they ought to have water, at any rate."
The difficulty was that they had nothing to put water into. Mac made a sort of cup from an old envelope, and filled it with water, but the animals shrank away and would not touch it. Feeling sure, however, that they must be thirsty, the boys carried the cage to the river, and set one end of it into the shallow water. For a few minutes the mother fox was shy, but presently she drank eagerly; then the cubs dipped their sharp noses into the water.
The boys spread their only blanket on a few hemlock boughs and lay down. Although they were so thoroughly tired, none of them could sleep. Fred's stomach was gnawed by hunger; he was still much excited, and in the rush of the river he fancied every minute or two that he heard the trappers approaching.
They lay there for some time, talking at intervals, and at last Mac got up restlessly. He threw fresh wood on the fire, in order to make a bright blaze; then from an old pine log close by he began to cut a number of resinous splinters. When he had collected a large handful of them, he went down to the canoe, and tried to fix them in the ring in the bow of the craft.
"What in the world are you doing?" asked Fred, who had got up to see what Peter was about.
Peter hammered the bundle of splinters home. "If we don't get meat in twelve hours we won't be able to travel fast—can't keep up steam," he said. "There's only one way to shoot game at night, and that's—"
"Jack light," said Horace, who recognized the device. "It's a regular pot-hunter's trick, but pot-hunters we are, and no mistake about that. I only hope it works."