crawled and stumbled at what seemed
a snail's pace. They were desperately anxious to hurry, but they knew
that a slip on those wet rocks might mean a broken leg.

A rain-washed slope of gravel came next; they went down it at a trot,
and then encountered another hillside covered with huge, loose stones.
They scrambled over it as best they could, and ran down another slope;
then trees became more abundant, and soon they were again traveling
over low, rolling hills clothed in jack-pine scrub.

With marvelous endurance Fred still held the lead. He went as if
driven by machinery, with his head down and his lips clenched; he did
not speak a word. He was supposed to be the weakest of the party, but
even Macgregor, a trained cross-country runner, found himself falling
farther and farther behind.

At eleven o'clock Horace called a halt. The rain had almost stopped,
and the boys, lighting a small fire, roasted generous slices of
venison. There was no need of sparing the meat now. Either plenty of
food or death was at the end of the journey.

No sooner had they eaten it than Fred sprang up again.

"How you fellows can sit here I can't understand!" he exclaimed,
nervously. "I'm going on. Are you coming?"

Mac and Horace followed him. The land seemed to be sloping continually
to lower levels; the woods thickened into a sturdy, tangled growth of
hemlock and tamarack that they had hard work to penetrate. They
presently caught a glimpse of water ahead, and came to the shore of a
small, narrow lake that curved away between rounded, dark hillsides.
They had to go round the lake, and lost two or three miles by the
detour. As they hurried up the shore a bull moose sprang from the
water, paused an instant to look back, and crashed into the thickets.
It would have been an easy shot if they had had the rifle.

Round the end of the lake low hills rose abruptly from the shore.
After scrambling up the slippery slope of the hills they reached the
top, and saw ahead of them an endless stretch of wild hills and
forests; there was not a landmark that they recognized.

Horace guessed that they had come about fifteen miles. Mac thought
that it was much more. They agreed that they had broken the back of
the journey, and that if their strength held out, they could reach the
Smoke that day.

"Suppose we were--to find the diamond-beds now!" said Mac, between
quick breaths.

"Don't talk to me about diamonds!" said Horace. "I never