n; its tremendous current, roaring over rocks and rapids, would
carry them along at a rapid pace. They would have to do some careful
steering, however, if they did not wish to upset.

As the most skillful canoeman, Horace took the stern; Macgregor sat in
the bow, and Fred in the middle behind a huge pile of dunnage.

For a quarter of a mile they shot down the river; then they had to land
and make a fifty-yard carry. Another swift run in the canoe followed,
and then another and longer portage.

It was like that for about fifteen miles. Then they caught sight of
wider water ahead, and the little river poured into a great, brown,
swift-flowing stream a hundred yards wide. It was the Missanabie.

During the rest of that day they ran over forty miles. The current
carried them fast, and the river was so big and deep that it was seldom
broken by dangerous rapids.

The country grew lower and less hilly; it was covered with a rather
stunted growth of spruce, tamarack, and birch. Ducks splashed up from
the water as the canoe came in sight; and when the boys stopped to make
camp for the night they found at the river's edge the tracks of a moose.

It was wintry cold in camp that night, and there was ice in the pools
the next morning. Shortly after sunrise the boys launched the canoe
again, and it was not much more than an hour later when a sound of
roaring water began to grow loud in their ears. With vast commotion
and foam a smaller stream swept into the Missanabie from the southwest.

"Hurrah! I've been here before!" cried Horace. "It's the Smoke River.
Up here real work begins."

"And up here," Peter said, gazing at the wild, swift stream, "is the
diamond country."

CHAPTER X

The mouth of the Smoke River was so rough that the boys could not enter
it in the canoe; and the dense growth of birch and willow along the
shores would make portaging difficult.

"We'll have to track the canoe up," Horace decided.

They got out the "tracking-line"--a long, stout, half-inch rope--and
attached one end of it to the bow of the canoe. Peter Macgregor
harnessed himself to the other end, and started up the narrow, rocky
strip of shore; Horace waded beside the canoe in order to fend her off
the boulders. Fred, carrying the fire-arms and a few other articles
that a wetting would have ruined, scrambled through the thickets.

The water was icy cold, but it was never more than hip-deep.
Fortunately, the very broken st