ys.

"That was too much for the nerve of the Indian, and he slipped away and
started for the settlements south. But he had waited too long. He had
the germs in him. He sickened in the woods, but had strength enough to
keep going till he came to the first clearings. Somebody rushed him in
to Hickson, and so he was passed on to my hands."

"And what became of the white man and the other trapper?" demanded Fred.

"Ah, that's what nobody knows. The Indian said that the remaining
half-breed was falling sick when he left. The white man may be dead by
this time, or perhaps still living but deserted, or he may be well on
the road to recovery. But I left out the sensational feature of the
whole thing. My Indian said that the white man had a buckskin sack on
him full of little stones that shone like fire. He seemed to set great
store by them, and threatened to blow the head off anybody who touched
the bag."

"Shining stones? Perhaps they were diamonds!" ejaculated Fred.

"It looks almost as if he might have found the diamond fields, for a
fact," said Peter, with sparkling eyes.

Canada was full of rumors of diamond discoveries just then. Every
Canadian must remember the intense excitement created by the report
that diamonds had been found in the mining regions of northern Ontario.
Several stones had actually been brought down to Toronto and Montreal,
where tests showed them to be real diamonds, though they were mostly
small, flawed, and valueless. One, however, was said to have brought
nine hundred dollars, and the news set many parties outfitting to
prospect for the blue-clay beds. But they met with no success. In
every case the stones had either been picked up in river drift or
obtained from Indians who could give no definite account of where they
had been found.

Could it be that this strange white man had actually stumbled on the
diamond fields--only to fall sick and perhaps to die with the secret of
his discoveries untold? Fred gazed from Peter to Maurice, almost
speechless.

"Naturally, my first idea was to get up a rescue party to bring out the
sick prospector," Maurice went on. "But the woods are in the worst
kind of shape for traveling. The streams are all frozen hard, but
there has been remarkably little snow yet--not near enough for
snowshoes or sledges. It would be impossible to tramp that distance
and pack the supplies. Besides, when I came to think it over it struck
me that the thing was