home. They left the trapper sitting on the
rock, glaring after them.

Now that the strain was over and the fight won, the boys felt utterly
exhausted. They kept on at as fast a pace as they could, however, and
reached the Missanabie River a little after noon. There they stopped
to cook dinner.

Once more they had hot, black _voyageurs'_ tea, and fried flapjacks,
and salt pork. It seemed the most delicious meal they had ever eaten;
but when they had finished, they felt too weary to start up the
Missanabie, and reckless of consequences, they lay down and slept for
almost two hours.

Then they continued their journey with double energy, and made good
progress for the rest of the day.

They were entirely out of fresh meat, and had nothing whatever to give
the foxes, but fortunately Mac shot three spruce grouse that evening.
They dropped the heads of the birds into the cage; the foxes devoured
them with a voracity that indicated that the trappers had fed them
nothing. Early the next morning Horace by a long shot killed a deer at
the riverside.

It was a rough journey up the Missanabie, but not nearly so hard as the
trip up the Smoke River had been. For eight days they paddled, poled,
tracked, and portaged, until they came at last to the point where they
had first launched the canoe.

The "long carry" over the Height of Land now confronted them. It is
true that they had by no means so much outfit to carry now, but, on the
other hand, they had no packers to help them. They had to make two
journeys of it, and, as a further difficulty, one of the boys had to
remain with the fox cage. As they reached the top of the ridge on
their first journey, Macgregor turned and looked back over the wild
landscape to the northwest.

"Somewhere over there," he murmured, "is the diamond country."

"Shut up!" exclaimed Horace, in exasperation.

"I never want to hear the word 'diamond' again," added Fred.

They left the foxes together with the rest of their loads at the end of
the "carry," and Fred remained to guard them, while Peter and Horace
went back for the remainder of the outfit. While they were gone Fred
noticed that one of the cubs was not looking well. It refused to eat
or drink; its fur was losing its gloss, and it lay in a sort of a doze
most of the time. Plainly captivity did not agree with it.

Horace and Peter were much concerned about its condition when they came
back. None of them had any idea what to d