



Produced by Al Haines










[Frontispiece: LOWERED THE CAN CAUTIOUSLY BY A STRING]





NORTHERN DIAMONDS


BY

FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK



_With Illustrations_




BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1917




COPYRIGHT, 1914 AND 1915, BY PERRY MASON COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

_Published September 1917_




NOTE

This book has appeared in the _Youth's Companion_ in the form of a
serial and sequel, and my thanks are due to the proprietors of that
periodical for permission to reprint.

FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK




ILLUSTRATIONS


LOWERED THE CAN CAUTIOUSLY BY A STRING...... _Frontispiece_

THE OTHER BOYS HAD BEEN BUSY

"THAT IS OUR CABIN.  LET US COME IN, I SAY"

DRAGGED HIM UP, PROTESTING, AND RUBBED SNOW ON HIS EARS

FLUNG THE SACK INTO THE MAN'S LAP


_From drawings by Harry C. Edwards_




NORTHERN DIAMONDS



CHAPTER I

It was nearly eleven o'clock at night when some one knocked at the door
of Fred Osborne's room.  He was not in the least expecting any caller
at that hour, and had paid no attention when he had heard the doorbell
of the boarding-house ring downstairs, and the sound of feet ascending
the steps.  He hastened to open the door, however, and in the dim
hallway he recognized the dark, handsome face of Maurice Stark, and
behind it the tall, raw-boned form of Peter Macgregor.

Both of them uttered an exclamation of satisfaction at seeing him.
They were both in fur caps and overcoats, for it was a sharp Canadian
December night, and at the first glance Fred observed that their faces
wore an expression of excitement.

"Come in, boys!" he said.  "I wasn't going to bed.  Here, take your
coats off.  What's up?  You look as if something was the matter."

"Is Horace in town?" demanded Peter.

Fred shook his head.  Horace was his elder brother, a mining engineer
mostly employed in the North Country.

"He's still somewhere in the North Woods.  I haven't heard from him
since October, but I'm expecting him to turn up almost any day now.
Why, what's the matter?"

"The matter?  Something pretty big," returned Maurice.

Maurice Stark was Fred's most intimate friend in Toronto University,
from which he had himself graduated the summer before.  He knew
Macgregor less well, for the big Scotch-Canadian was in the medical
school.  His home place was somewhere far up in the North Woods, but he
had a great intercollegiate reputation as a long-distance runner.  It
was, in fact, chiefly in a sporting way that Fred had come to know him,
for Fred held an amateur skating championship, and was even then
training for the ice tournament to be held in Toronto in a few weeks.

"It's something big!" Maurice repeated.  "I wish Horace were here,
but--could you get a holiday from your office for a week or ten days?"

"I've got it already," said Fred.  "I reserved my holidays last summer,
and things aren't busy in a real estate office at this time of year.  I
guess I could get two weeks if I wanted it.  I'm spending most of my
time now training for the five and ten miles."

"Could you skate a hundred and fifty miles in two days?" demanded
Macgregor.

"I might if I had to--if it was a case of life and death."

"That's just what it is--a case of life and death, and possibly a
fortune into the bargain!" cried Maurice.  "You see--but Mac has the
whole story."

The Scottish medical student went to the window, raised the blind and
peered out at the wintry sky.

"No sign of snow yet," he said in a tone of satisfaction.

"What's that got to do with it?" demanded Fred, who was burning with
curiosity by this time.  "What's going on, anyway?  Hurry up."

"Spoil the skating," said Macgregor briefly.  "Well," he went on after
a moment, "this is how I had the story.

"I live away up north of North Bay, you know, at a little place called
Muirhead.  I went home for a little visit last week, and the second day
I was there they brought in a sick Indian from Hickson, a little
farther north--sick with smallpox.  The Hickson authorities wouldn't
have him at any price, and they had just passed him on to us.  The
people at Muirhead didn't want him either.  It wasn't such a very bad
case of smallpox, but the poor wretch had suffered a good deal of
exposure, and he was pretty shaky.  Everybody was in a panic about him;
they wanted to ship him straight down to North Bay; but finally I got
him fixed up in a sort of isolation camp and looked after him myself."

"Good for you, Mac!" Fred ejaculated.

"Oh, it was good hospital training, and I'd been recently vaccinated,
so I didn't run any danger.  It paid me, though, for when I'd pulled
him around a bit he told me the story, and a queer tale it was."

Macgregor paused and went to look out of the window again with anxiety.
Fred was listening breathlessly.

"It seems that last September this Indian, along with a couple of
half-breeds, went up into the woods for the winter trapping, and built
a cabin on one of the branches of the Abitibi River, away up northeast
of Lake Timagami.  I know about where it was.  I suppose you