e stuff into the river and said nothing, but his face
showed his disappointment. He had carried that lump of clay for over
four miles, in the conviction that he had discovered the
diamond-bearing soil.

Macgregor came in shortly afterward with nothing more valuable than two
ducks that he had shot.

The boys were discouraged that evening. After the rain they could find
little dry wood. It was nearly dark before Fred began to stir up the
usual pan of flapjacks, and "Mac" set himself to the task of cutting up
one of the ducks to fry. They were too much depressed to talk, and the
camp was quiet, when suddenly a crackling tread sounded in the
underbrush.

"What's that?" cried Horace sharply. And as he spoke, a man stepped
out of the shadow, and advanced into the firelight.

"_Bo' soir_! Hello!" he said, curtly.

"Hello! Good evening!" cried Fred and Mac, much startled.

"Sit down. Grub'll be ready in a minute," Horace added. Hospitality
comes before everything else in the North.

"Had grub," answered the man; but he sat down on a log beside the fire,
and surveyed the whole camp with keen, quick eyes.

All the boys looked at him with much curiosity. He was apparently of
middle age, with a tangled beard and black hair that straggled down
almost to his shoulders. He wore moccasins, Mackinaw trousers shiny
with blood and grease, a buckskin jacket, and a flannel shirt. He was
brown as any Ojibwa, and he, carried a repeating rifle and had a belt
of cartridges at his waist.

"Hunting?" he asked presently, with a nod at the deerskin that was
hanging to dry.

"Now and again," said Horace.

"Well, ye can't hunt here," said the man deliberately, after a pause.
"Don't ye know that this is a Government forest reserve? No hunters
allowed. Ye'll have to be out of here by to-morrow."

CHAPTER XI

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 w