ize from a
small shot to a large pea. They looked like lumps of gum arabic, but
their edges and angles reflected brilliant sparks in the firelight.

"Those little things? Are they diamonds?" cried Fred, in some
disappointment.

"Little things? Why, if they were all perfect stones, they'd be worth
a small fortune. Unfortunately, the biggest has a flaw in it that you
can see even without cutting it, and some of the others are yellowish
and off color. It will take an expert to say what they 're worth. But
the great triumph is to have found diamonds up here at all."

"Yes, and there must be more where these came from," said Maurice,
brightening. "If you've discovered the beds--"

"I haven't, though," Horace returned. "Three of these stones I bought
from a camp of Ojibwas. The rest I found in the gravel of the
creek-beds, mostly along the Nottaway River, but none of them within a
quarter of a mile of another. Whenever I thought the gravel looked
promising, I sifted some of it. But I didn't find a trace of the blue
soil that always forms the diamond-beds; if there are diamond-beds up
here, they must be somewhere beyond the region that we have explored."

"But they must be here somewhere," cried Peter, "and there must be more
diamonds where you found those! I'll certainly come up here next
summer and try my own luck."

"I've thought of doing so myself; that is, if this lot turns out to be
any good. But getting back to town is the present problem, and we've
got to consider how to recapture the cabin and your outfit of supplies."

"But not before we eat again," said Fred.

Macgregor, who was as famished as any of them, consented, and they
prepared such a banquet as the three castaways had not seen since they
left the cabin. It almost exhausted the supplies that Horace had
brought, but it did them all a great deal of good. With a new feeling
of being able to grapple with the problem, they settled down to
consider the question of war.

"We might set fire to the cabin," Fred suggested, "and try to capture
the fellows when they rush out."

"Out of the question," declared Peter, "for, even if it worked, the
provisions would be burned up. I had thought of stopping up their
chimney during the night. The smoke would suffocate them in their
sleep, and we could go in and drag them out insensible."

"I am afraid it would waken them first," said Horace. "We'd have them
coming out with rifles. Now I'd been thi