CHAPTER III
There was so grim an air of desolation about the hut that the boysstopped short with a sense of dread.
"Can this really be it?" Maurice muttered.
The hut and its surroundings were exactly as the Indian had describedthem. They ventured forward hesitatingly, reconnoitered, andapproached the door. It stood ajar two or three inches; a heavy driftof snow lay against it. Clearly no living man was in the cabin.
"We've come too late, boys," said Macgregor. "However, let's have alook."
Using one of his snowshoes as a shovel, he began to clear the doorway.Fred helped him. They scraped away the snow, and forced the door open.
For fear of infection, they contented themselves with peeping in fromthe entrance; a glance showed them that no man was in that diminterior, dead or alive.
The cabin was a mere hut, built of small logs, chinked with moss andmud, and was less than five feet high at the eaves. The floor was ofclay; the roof appeared to be of bark and moss thatch, supported onpoles. A small window of some skin or membrane let in a faint light,and the rough fireplace was full of snow that had blown down thechimney.
No one was there, but some one had left in haste. The whole interiorwas in the wildest confusion, littered with all sorts of articles offorest housekeeping flung about pell-mell--cooking-utensils, scraps ofclothing, blankets, furs, traps; they could not make out all thearticles that encumbered the floor.
"The fellow must have simply got well and gone away with the otherhalf-breed," said Macgregor, after they had surveyed the place insilence. "Well, that ends our hope of being millionaires next year.We've come on a fool's errand."
"Nothing for it now but to go home again, is there?" said Fred, indisgust.
"We've come one hundred and fifty miles to see this camp, and we oughtto look through it," said Maurice.
"We must disinfect the place before we can go in. And there's nochance of our finding any diamonds here," Fred remarked.
"I want to have a look through, anyway. Let's get out the fumigatingmachine."
It was a formaldehyde outfit, consisting simply of a can of thedisinfectant with a bracket attached underneath to hold a small spiritlamp. By the heat of the flame, formalin gas, one of the deadliestgerm-killers known, was given off.
Macgregor opened the can, lighted the pale spirit flame, and set theapparatus on a rude shelf that happened to be just inside the hut.They forced the door shut again, and sealed it by throwing wateragainst it, for the water promptly froze. It was not necessary toclose the chimney, for the germicidal gas is heavier than air, andfills a room exactly as water fills a tank.
As it would take the disinfectant ten or twelve hours to do its work,they hastened to construct a camp, for it was growing dark. It was arather melancholy evening. The nearness of the cabin, with itssinister associations, affected them disagreeably; and, moreover, theywere all tired with the day's tramp, and chagrined and mortified athaving come, as Peter said, "on a fool's errand." After all theirglittering hopes, there was nothing now for them except a week'ssnowshoe tramp back to Waverley, with barely enough provisions to seethem through.
Still they were curious about the cabin, and before breakfast the nextmorning they burst open the ice-sealed door. A suffocating odor issuedforth, so powerful that they staggered back.
"Good gracious!" gasped Fred, after a spasm of coughing. "It mustcertainly be safe after that!"
They found it impossible to go in until the gas had cleared away, andso, leaving the door wide open, they returned to breakfast. Afterwardthey idled about, trying to kill time; it was afternoon before theycould venture inside the cabin for more than a moment.
It was disagreeable even then, for the whole interior was filled withthe heavy, suffocating odor. They coughed, and their eyes watered, butthey managed to endure it.
As they had seen, the contents of the place were all topsy-turvy. Thefurniture consisted solely of a rough table of split planks, and acouple of rough seats. A heap of rusty, brown _sapin_ in a corner,covered with a torn blanket, represented a bed--possibly the one inwhich the trapper had died.
In one corner stood a double-barreled shotgun, still loaded. Threepairs of snowshoes were thrust under the rafters; several wornmoccasins lay on the floor, along with nearly a dozen steel traps, abundle of furs, some of which were valuable, a camp kettle, an axe,strips of hide, dry bones, a blanket, fishing-tackle--an unspeakablelitter of things, some worthless, some to men in a wilderness preciousas gold.
The last occupants had plainly left in such a desperate hurry that theyhad abandoned most of their possessions. Why had they done it? Theboys could not guess.
The heavy formalin fumes rose and choked them as they poked over therubbish. But they found nothing to show the fate of the prospector andthe surviving half-breed, or even to tell them whether this was reallythe cabin they were seeking.
"Throw this rubbish into the fireplace," said Macgregor. "Burning isthe best thing for it, and the fire will ventilate the place. There'sno danger of germs on the metal things."
"These furs are worth something," said Fred, who had been looking themover. "There are a dozen or so of mink and marten--enough to pay theexpenses of the trip."
They laid the furs aside, and cramming the rest of the litter into thesnowy fireplace, with the dead balsam boughs, set it afire. In the redblaze the hut assumed an unexpectedly homelike aspect.
"Not such a bad place for the winter, after all," Maurice remarked,casting his eye about. "I shouldn't mind spending a month trappinghere myself. What if we did, fellows, eh? Here are plenty of traps,and we might clear three or four hundred dollars, with a little luck."
"Here's something new," interrupted Peter, who had been grubbing aboutin a corner.
He came forward with a woodsman's "turkey" in his hands--a heavy canvasknapsack, much stained and battered, and rather heavy.
"Something in this," he continued, trying the rusty buckles. "Why,what's the matter, Fred?"
For Fred had uttered a sudden cry, and they saw his face turn deathlywhite. He snatched the sack, tore it open, and shook it out.
A number of pieces of rock fell to the floor, a couple of geologist'shammers, a pair of socks, and a couple of small, oilcloth-coverednotebooks.
On these Fred pounced, and opened them. They were full of pencilednotes.
"They're his!" the boy exclaimed wildly. "They're Horace's notebooks!I knew his turkey. Horace was here. Don't you see? _He_ was the sickman!"
For a minute his companions, hardly comprehending, looked on inamazement. Then Macgregor took one of the books from his hand. On theinside of the cover was plainly written, "Horace Osborne, Toronto."
"It's true!" he muttered. "It must really have been Horace." Then,collecting his wits, he added, "But he must be all right, since he'sgone away."
"No!" Fred cried. "He'd never have gone away leaving his notes andspecimens. It was his whole summer's work. He'd have thrown awayanything else. He must be dead."
"He was vaccinated. He's sure not to have died of smallpox," Peterurged.
Fred had collapsed on the mud floor, holding the "turkey," and fairlycrying.
"He had the diamonds on him. That half-breed may have murdered him,and then fled in a hurry. Things look like it," said Maurice aside toPeter.
"Yes, but then Horace's body would be here," the Scotchman returned."I don't understand it."
"They can't have both died, either, or they'd both be here. So theymust both have gone. But no trapper would have left these valuablepelts, any more than Horace would have left his notes."
"There's something mysterious here," said Fred, getting up resolutely,and wiping the tears from his eyes. "Horace has been here.Something's happened to him, and we've got to find out what it is."
"And we'll find out--if it takes all winter!" Macgregor assured him.
They searched the hut afresh, but found no clues. They now regrettedhaving burned the heap
of rubbish, which perhaps had containedsomething to throw light on the problem.
During the rest of that afternoon they searched and searched againthroughout the cabin, and prowled about its neighborhood. They duginto the snowdrifts, poked into the brushwood, scouted into the forestin the faint hope of finding something that would cast light onHorace's fate. All they found was the trapper's birch canoe, laid upashore, and buried in snow.
At dusk they got supper, and ate it in a rather gloomy silence.
"We've nothing to go on," said Macgregor. "I can't believe that Horaceis dead, though, and we must stay on the spot till we know somethingmore definite."
"Of course we must," Maurice agreed.
"I shouldn't have asked it of you, boys," said Fred. "I'd made up mymind to stay, though, till I found out something certain--and it wouldhave been mighty lonely."
"Nonsense! Do you think we'd have left you?" Maurice exclaimed."Aren't we all Horace's friends? The only thing I'm thinking of is thegrub. We have barely enough for a week more."
"What of that?" said Peter. "We have rifles, haven't we? The woodsought to be full of deer--plenty of partridges and small game, anyway.We must make a regular business of hunting till we get enough meat fora week, and we must economize, of course, on our bread and cannedstuff. Then there are sure to be whitefish or trout in the nearestlake, and we can fish through the ice. Lucky the Indians left theirhooks and lines. And we can trap, too."
"Boys," cried Fred, "you're both bricks. You're solid gold--" A chokein his voice stopped him.
"A pair of gold bricks!" laughed Maurice, with a suspicious huskinessin his own tones.
But the thing was settled.
It turned colder that night, and the next day dawned with blusteringsnow flurries. Their open camp was far from comfortable, and with somereluctance they moved into the cabin.
A good deal of fresh snow had drifted in, but they swept it out,brought in fresh balsam twigs for couches, and lighted a roaring fire.
The hut was decidedly homelike and cozy, and a vast improvement on theopen camp. The smell of formaldehyde had gone entirely. The lightfrom the skin-covered window was poor, but that seemed to be the onlydrawback, until, as the temperature rose, the roof showed a leak nearthe door. Snow water dripped in freely, in spite of their efforts tostop it, until Maurice finally clambered to the roof, cleared away thesnow, tore up the thatch, and covered the defective spot with a largepiece of old deer-hide.
In the afternoon it stopped snowing; Macgregor and Fred, with the tworifles, made a wide circuit round the cabin, but killed no game excepthalf a dozen spruce grouse. Not a deer trail did they see; probablythe animals were yarded for the winter.
Without being discouraged, however, Peter set out again the nextmorning, this time with Maurice. Fred, left alone, spent most of theday in cutting wood and storing it by the cabin door, and the huntersdid not return until just after sunset. They were empty-handed, but inhigh spirits, and had a great tale to tell.
Five miles from camp, Maurice and Peter had come upon the fresh trailof a moose, and had followed it nearly all day. Toward the middle ofthe afternoon, however, they were obliged to give up the chase and turnback, for they were fully fifteen miles from home.
On the way to the cabin they chanced upon a well-beaten deer trail thatthey felt certain must lead to a "yard." It was too late to follow itthat day, but they determined to have a great hunt on the morrow.
Killing yarded deer is not exactly sportsmanlike, and is unlawfulbesides; but law is understood to yield to the necessities of thefrontier, and the boys needed the meat badly.
The next morning they were off early. It was clear and cold. A littlewind blew the powdery snow like puffs of smoke from the trees, and thebiting air was full of life. It was impossible to be anything but gayin that atmosphere; even Fred, oppressed with anxiety as he was, feltits effect.
The fresh snow was criss-crossed here and there with the tracks ofsmall animals,--rabbits, foxes, and squirrels,--and now and again aspruce partridge rose with a roar. These birds were plentiful, and theboys might have made a full bag if they had ventured to shoot.
It was nearly noon before they reached the deer trail. They followedit back for some twenty minutes, and came down into a low bottom, grownup with small birch and poplar. Fred had only the vaguest idea what adeer yard was like; he half expected a dense huddle of deer in a small,beaten space, and he was consequently much startled when he suddenlyheard a sound of crashing and running in the thickets.
Macgregor's rifle banged almost in his ear. Maurice fired at the sameinstant. Something large and grayish had shot up into view behind athicket, and had departed with the speed of an arrow. Peter firedagain at the flying target, and Fred caught a single glimpse of a buck,with antlered head carried high, vanishing through a screen of birches.
"Hit!" shouted Macgregor, and he ran forward, clicking anothercartridge into his rifle.
They had walked right into the "yard." All round them the snow wastrampled into narrow trails where the herd had moved about, feeding onthe shrubbery. With a little more caution they might have got three orfour of the animals.
They found the buck a hundred yards away, dead in the snow. It was nosmall task to get him back to the cabin, for he was too fat and heavyto carry, even if they had cut him up. They had to haul the carcasswith a thong, like a toboggan, over the snow. The weather changed, andit was beginning to bluster again when they arrived, dead tired, tofind the fire gone out and the cabin cold. But they rejoiced at beingsupplied with meat enough to last them for perhaps a month.