er with you?" Peter persisted. "That is our cabin.
Let us come in, I say."

[Illustration: "THAT IS OUR CABIN. LET US COME IN, I SAY"]

"Git, _I_ say!" Mitchell repeated. "After this, we'll shoot on sight.
I give ye till I count three. One--two--"

"Back off. We 're caught!" Peter muttered.

They backed away slowly. When they were at the edge of the thickets,
Mitchell shouted again:--

"When we're gone, you can come back! Now keep away for your own good!"

The cabin door closed as they stepped back into the undergrowth.
Macgregor's face was black as he tucked the useless rifle under his
arm. They were all boiling with rage and mortification.

"If we'd only turned those scoundrels out yesterday!" Peter muttered.

"We couldn't foresee this," said Maurice. "Those fellows evidently
knew that the diamonds were here--or strongly suspected it. They must
have heard of it from your sick Indian, or from the third trapper.
They must have been astonished to find us on the spot."

"Very likely," said Fred, "but the present question is what we're going
to do to-night."

"We must make the best camp we can in the snow," remarked Maurice.

"I don't see how we'll cut wood without an axe," said Peter. "It's
going to be a savage cold night. We have no blankets, either. Lucky
we shot those partridges."

But when they came to the spot where they had dropped the partridges, a
fresh disappointment awaited them. The famished sledge dogs had found
them. There was nothing left of the fourteen grouse except a litter of
feathers and a few blood-stains on the snow.

Their night was to be supperless as well as cold, it seemed. Darkness
was already falling, with the weird desolation that the winter night
always brings down on the wilderness. It had been always impressive,
but now, as they faced the night without food or shelter, it was
appalling.

Destitute of an axe, they would have to make a camp where they could
find fuel, and they scattered to look for it. It was rapidly growing
too dark to search, but Fred presently came upon a large, dead spruce,
lying half buried in snow, but spiked thickly with dry branches. He
was breaking these off by the armfuls when the other boys came up in
answer to his calls.

They trampled down the snow, gathered birch bark and spruce splinters,
and laid the kindling against the big back log. Maurice set about
pulling twigs for a couch, in case the temperature permitted them to
sl