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 stretch of the river was only a hundred yards long; after that, they were able to pole for a mile or so, and once indeed, the stream broadened so much that they could use the paddles. Then came a precipitous cascade, then a difficult carry, and then another stretch of poling.
They had gone about five miles up the river when Horace, who had been watching the shores carefully, pointed to a tree and gave a shout. It was a large spruce, on the trunk of which was a blazed mark that looked less than a year old.