rch had been found. The four men were bent
together over the table, watching intently, while Mitchell took
something from a small leather sack. They were all so feverishly
intent that Fred tiptoed up close behind them unobserved.

Mitchell was shaking out little lumps from the sack; each was wrapped
in paper, and each, when he unwrapped it, was a small pebble that
flashed fire.

Fred's heart jumped, and he gasped. The diamonds! Horace had really
found them, then! The sack seemed to contain a large handful--it was
appalling to think what they might be worth! And then it flashed upon
the boy with increased certainty that his brother must be dead, for
otherwise he would never have left them there.

Mitchell looked up and round at that instant. At his explosive oath,
the Frenchmen wheeled like a flash. For a moment there was a deathly
silence, while the four men glared at the boy with scowling faces.
Fred realized that not only the possession of the stones, but probably
his life, hung on his presence of mind.

"Those things are my brother's, Mr. Mitchell," he said, with an outward
coolness that astonished himself. "He hid them in this cabin. I don't
know how you came to find them, but I'll ask you to hand them back."

His voice broke the spell of silence. One of the French said something
in the ear of another, and then dropped quietly back toward the corner
where the men's four rifles stood together.

But Mitchell swept the pebbles together back into the bag. "Your
brother's?" he said. "Why, I bought 'em myself from a gang of Ojibwas
down on Timagami. Rock crystals they call 'em, and I reckon to get ten
or twelve dollars for 'em at Cochrane."

He spoke with such assurance that Fred was taken aback, and did not
know what to say. Then his eye fell on one of the scraps of paper in
which a stone had been wrapped. He leaned forward and picked it up.

"Did you put this on it?" he exclaimed indignantly. "Look! It's my
brother's handwriting. 'October second, Nottaway River, near Burnt
Lake,' it says. That's where he found it. And look at that!" He
swept his hand round the devastated cabin. "What did you tear the
place to pieces for if you weren't hunting for something?"

"They're mine, anyway," retorted the woodsman, slipping the precious
bag into his pocket. "Them papers was wrapped round 'em when I got
'em."

"Impossible!" said Fred. "I tell you--"

"Shut up!" said Mitchell suddenly, with a s