Perhaps a dozen yards from the fire, Tommy stumbled at a figure over which the falling snow was fast drifting. He called out to Sandy, who was only a short distance away, and the two lifted the unconscious form in their arms and staggered toward the fire.
"Why, it's nothing but a kid!" Sandy exclaimed.
"Don't you know who it is?" demanded Tommy.
"Never saw him before!" was the reply.
"It's Thede Carson!"
"Not that little monkey of a Thede Carson who's always getting the Beaver Patrol into trouble?" demanded Sandy. "What would he be doing up here? I guess you're losing the sense of sight."
"Sure, it's Thede Carson," insisted Tommy.
"Well, I guess he's about all in," Sandy volunteered.
"Get busy then, with your first aid," Tommy ordered. "Get some of his clothes off and get to work with snow, or his fingers and toes will drop off as soon as they thaw out."
"I don't believe it's the cold so much as it is exhaustion," Sandy ventured. "He seems to have been running a whole lot, for he's still panting, I reckon he just dropped down when he couldn't run any further."
"I guess that's about right," Tommy admitted. "He doesn't seem to be very cold. It may be that wound on his head," the lad added, pointing to a long gash in the scalp which, judging from the state of the lad's clothing, had bled very freely.
"What do you think of coming away up here in the Hudson Bay country and picking a member of the Beaver Patrol right out of the woods?" demanded Sandy. "We seem to find Boy Scouts wherever we go."
The boys worked over the exhausted lad some moments, and then he opened his eyes.
"Now for the love of Mike!" exclaimed Tommy, "don't look around and say 'Where am I?' The correct thing to say in these modern days is 'Vot iss?' Do you get me, Thede?"
"Why, it's Tommy!" said the boy.
"Betcher life!" returned Tommy. "Did you run all the way up here from Clark street? Or did you come up in an aeroplane?"
Thede sat up and looked about for the tents and the boats.
"Why, this isn't the camp!" he said.
"We haven't got any more camp than a rabbit!" declared Sandy."We're lost! We've got to wait till morning to find our way back."
"It's a good thing you're lost!" exclaimed Thede. "I don't think I could have held out until I reached the camp. You see," he went on with a slight shudder at the recollection of his experiences, "I left George a long distance off."
"Left George?" repeated Tommy.
"I couldn't bring him with me," answered Thede, with a slow smile,
"Where did you leave him?" demanded Tommy.
"Why didn't he come with you?" asked Sandy.
"Because," replied Thede, "just as he was reaching up to the wall of the cavern to take hold of the Little Brass God, he got a tunk on the coco that put him out for the count."
"What do you know about the Little Brass God?" asked Tommy.
"I've seen it!" answered Thede. "It sat up on a shelf on the face of the wall, with its legs crossed, and its arms folded, and its wicked face telling me where I could go whether I wanted to or not."
"I guess something's gone to your head!" declared Sandy.
"But I'll tell you we found the Little Brass God!" declared Thede. "George came to the cabin, and we started out to find the camp, and got lost in the storm, and brought up in a cave inhabited by two bears."
Sandy regarded Tommy significantly.
"And we found a basement floor to the cavern, and went down the elevator and found a man asleep in front of a fire with the Little Brass God winking at him. Funny fellow, that Little Brass God!"
"You for the foolish house!" cried Tommy.
"Honest, boys!" Thede declared. "George came to the cabin and I started home with him after Pierre left us alone together. The storm chased us into a cave, just as I told you, and we kept on going until we came to the place where the Little Brass God sat up on the wall making faces at a man asleep at the fire.'"
"Go on!" exclaimed Tommy, at last understanding that the boy was in his right mind. "Tell us about it!"
"And George said he would get the Little Brass God without waking the man up. So he gave me his gun, and I was to shoot in case the man made any trouble. Then, just as George was reaching for the little Brass God, the man woke up and shot at him, Then the man shot at me, and I shot at him, and then he got my gun away from me and I ran out to find you."
"And you left George there in the cavern?" asked Sandy.
"I just had to!" was the reply. "I couldn't do anything with that giant of a half-breed, and I didn't have a gun and so I ducked.
"Can you take us back to that cavern now?" asked Tommy.
"Sure I can," was the reply.
"Oughtn't we to let Will know where we are?" asked Sandy.
Tommy looked at Thede questioningly.
"Can you tell us how to find the cavern?" he asked in a moment.
"What for?" demanded the boy. "I'm going to take you where it is."
"You're about all in," declared Sandy, "and you ought to go to camp and rest up and tell Will where we've gone."
"You couldn't find this cave in a thousand years," declared Thede.
While the boys talked the wind died down, and the snow ceased falling.
Presently a mist of daylight crept into the forest and then the boys crept out on their journey toward into ridge of hills.
"Wasn't that a dream about your seeing the Little Brass God?" askedTommy as they walked along.
"Sure not," was the reply, "we both saw it, didn't we?"
"Well, whoever told you anything about the Little Brass God?" demanded Sandy. "How did you know there was a Brass God?"
"Old Finklebaum told me. He said he'd give me a hundred dollars ifI found it, so I started in to earn that mazuma."
In as few words as possible the boy repeated the story he had toldGeorge on the previous evening.
"I guess you boys came up here looking for the Little Brass God, too, didn't you?" the boy asked, shrewdly, after a moment's hesitation.
"We came up to hunt and fish!" laughed Tommy.
"To hunt for the Little Brass God and fish for the man who bought it of the pawnbroker, I guess," laughed Thede. "You boys never came clear up here just to chase through the snow after game when there's plenty of shooting three hundred miles to the south."
"You say you think that Pierre is the man who bought the Little Brass God of the pawnbroker?" asked Sandy, as the boys stopped for a moment to rest. "Is that the reason you followed him here?"
"That's the reason!" was the reply.
"He seemed perfectly willing to have you come?"
"He welcomed me like a long lost brother!"
"Then it's a hundred to one shot Pierre never got his hands on the Little Brass God! Don't you see how suspicious he would have been if he had had the little brute in his possession?"
"I didn't think of that!" replied Thede. "Look here," the boy continued, "I'd like to know what all this fuss is about, anyway. Why should any one in his right mind give old Finklebaum a thousand dollars or five thousand dollars, for that piece of brass? That's what gets me!"
Tommy and Sandy looked at each other significantly but made no immediate reply. In a moment Thede went on.
"'Spose this should be a Little Brass God stolen from some temple away out in the wilds of India. Suppose a delegation of East Indians should be sent here to get it. Wouldn't they murder a score of men if they had to in order to get possession of it?"
"They probably would," was the reply.
After an hour's hard walking, the boys came to the foot of the ridge of hills and looked upward. Thede pointed to the cavern where the two bears had been discovered.
"There's where we went in," he explained, "but the cavern where the fire and the Little Brass God were is right under that one."
"How're we going to get to it?"
"If you want to take your chance on meeting the bears, you can drop down through the opening from the floor above."
"But isn't there an opening to this lower cavern?"
"Sure there is! That's the one I ran out of! Say," he continued, "that's the one we saw the man by the fire run out of, too. You can see the tracks of his moccasins in the snow. He must have left after the storm ceased. My tracks were filled."
"In we go, then!" cried Tommy, advancing lip the slight slope to the Up of the cavern.
"Watch out for bears!" cried Thede.
When Will, watching at the camp, found that Tommy and Sandy had disappeared, he had no idea that they would remain more than an hour or so.
The long night passed, however, and the boys did not return. When daylight came, Will built up a roaring fire and began preparing breakfast.
It was his idea at that time that the boys had come together in the forest about the time the snow began falling, and had sought in some deserted shack temporary protection from the storm.
"They'll be back here in a short time, hungry as bears!" he thought.
Presently he heard some one advancing through the snow-covered thicket, and turned in that direction with an expectant smile.
Instead of his chums he saw a half-breed in leather jacket and leggins and a fur cap approaching. When the fellow reached the camp he made a quick and rather impertinent inspection of the tents before approaching the spot where the boy stood awaiting him.
"Good morning!" Will said, not without a challenge in his voice.
"Where are the boys?" asked the visitor.
"Who are you?" demanded Will.
"Pierre!" was the short reply.
"Why do you ask about the boys?"
Pierre explained in broken English that one of the boys who evidently belonged to the camp had coaxed his companion away.
"Who is your companion?" asked Will, "and why do you come here looking for him? Who was it that visited your cabin?"
Pierre laboriously explained what had taken place on the previous evening, and Will listened with an anxious face.
"And you left them there together, and when you returned they had disappeared? Is that what you mean to say?"
Pierre nodded.
"He coax my boy away," he said sullenly.
"Is this boy you speak of your son?" asked Will.
"Chicago boy!" was the reply.
"Why don't you go on and tell me all about the boy and about yourself?" inquired Will. "What's the use of standing there grunting and trying to make me understand nods and scowls?"
Pierre explained that he had been in Chicago to see the sights, had fallen in with Thede, and agreed to bring him into the forest with him. His explanation was not very clear as he talked more mongrel French than English, so Will was not very well informed at the end of the recital. Pierre looked suspicious as well as disappointed.
"Well," Will explained to the half-breed after a moment's deliberation, "I suppose you'll turn in now and help me find the boys!"
Pierre nodded and pointed toward the campfire.
"Build him big!" he said. "Boys come cold."
Accepting the hint, Will piled great logs on the fire while the half-breed looked sullenly on. The boy then dressed himself in his warmest clothing and the two set out together.
"Have you any idea which way to go?" asked the boy.
Pierre pointed away to the south.
"Wind blow that way," he said. "They follow the wind."
Numerous times, as the two tramped through the snow together, Will caught the half-breed looking in his direction with eyes of hate.
After proceeding some distance, he fell in behind Pierre, and so the two traveled through the wilderness, each suspicious and watchful of the other. After walking an hour or more they came to a place where Tommy and Sandy had built their fire on the previous night.
There the half-breed read the story written upon the snow like a book. Pointing here and there, he explained to Will that two boys had been caught in the storm and had built a fire. He showed, too, that a third boy had come plunging through the snow, nearly circled the camp, and came back toward the fire from the north. Then he showed the tracks of three heading off to the south.
"Do you think one of those boys was your companion?" asked Will.
The half-breed answered that he was sure of it.
"Then that leaves one of the boys still unaccounted for," Will mused. "It looks to me," he went on, "as if your friend and George started away together and got lost. Then your boy came back and found Tommy and Sandy and started away with them toward the place where he had left George. Is that the way you look at it?"
The half-breed grunted some sullen reply, and the two walked on together following the trail which led toward the range of hills.
Instead of directly following the trail left by the boys, however, Pierre turned frequently to left and right, explaining that if enemies were about it was a trail which would be watched.
They came to the cavern at last, and stood by the dying embers of the fire. There was no one in sight. Will examined the sloping surface of snow in front and found no tracks leading outward.
"They must be in here somewhere!" he exclaimed.
Pierre nodded his fur cap vigorously, and the two began a careful examination of the underground place.
They found many little caves opening from the larger one, but no trace of the boys. After a time a shout from Pierre drew Will to his side. The fellow was peering into a crevice, in the rocky wall which seemed to lead for some distance under the hill.
"Do you think they are hidden in there?" asked the boy.
Pierre explained in his barely understandable dialect that he thought the boys might have escaped into the inner cavern and started to make their way out in another direction.
"Then I'll go in after them," Will decided.
Before entering he called shrilly into the cavern, but only the echoes came back to him. By considerable squeezing, he managed to make his way through the opening. He then found himself in a passage-like place, sloping upward. As he threw his light about the interior, he heard a chuckle in the outer chamber where he had left Pierre.
He turned in time to see the half-breed rolling great stones against the mouth of the narrow opening by means of which he had entered.
"Hah!" sneered Pierre. "You bring me trouble!"
"What are you doing that for?" demanded Will.
The half-breed peered into the opening with eyes that resembled those of a snake, so full of malice and hatred were they.
"You steal my boy!" he said.
"So this is a trap, is it?" Will demanded.
The half-breed answered by a chuckle of laughter."
"If you don't take those stones away," Will threatened, "I'll fill you full of lead when I do get out!"
The half-breed patted his gun stock significantly, but made no reply.
The boy heard him rolling rocks along the cavern floor and against the opening, and turned away hoping to find some other means of egress.
It was clear to him that the half-breed thoroughly understood the situation in the hills. He had no doubt that he had planned to bring him there for the purpose which had developed. He understood, too, that if there were other openings to the cavern, Pierre knew where they were, and would block them as soon as he had effectually blocked the one by which entrance had been effected.
It was cold and damp in that underground place, but the perspiration actually broke out on the boy's brow as he considered the fate which might await him in that dreary place of detention.
He had, of course, no means of knowing the whereabouts of any of his chums. In fact, it seemed to him possible that they, too, had been inveigled into a trap similar to the one which had been set for himself.
The motive for this brutal action on the part of the half-breed was, of course, entirely unknown to the boy. It will be remembered that he knew nothing whatever of Thede's suspicions that Pierre actually had the Little Brass God in his possession.
It was black as ink in the passage, but the boy's flashlight had recently been supplied with a new battery, and he knew that it would not fail for many hours, so he walked along with confidence.
In perhaps a quarter of an hour the boy came to a blank wall. There appeared to be no way in which the journey could be extended under the hills. The nearest lateral passage was some distance back.
Realizing that no time should be lost, the lad hastened thither and advanced to the south end of the cross passage. Here, too, he came upon a blank wall. While he stood listening a heavy, rumbling voice came to his ears. There were either crevices in that rocky bulkhead or the wall was very thin.
Presently the heavy voice ceased speaking, and then a lighter tone was heard. At first Will could not distinguish the words used, but directly his heart almost bounded into his throat as he listened to Tommy's voice saying:
"I'll break your crust, you old stiff, if you come near me!"
So the boys were still in a position to defend themselves! Will beat frantically on the wall and threw his light hither and yon in search of some opening through which his voice might be heard.
Directly there came an answering sound from the other side.
The Little Brass God was gone!
George, still lying upon the floor of the cavern, stretched his legs and arms, to see if he was all there, as he mentally commented.
After a time he arose to his feet, clinging desperately to the wall because of his weakness, and called to Thede, who, as the reader knows, had left hours before, in search of the injured lad's chums. There came only echoes in reply to his shouts.
There was a pile of wood near at hand and, gathering numerous dry fagots, the boy staggered dizzily toward the heap of ashes in the center of the cave. It seemed to him that the first thing to do was to get warm.
He was hungry, too, but warmth was the important thing just then. A few red coals still remained, and a blaze soon grew under the boy's careful hands. In a short time there was a roaring fire.
After thawing the chill out of his bones, the boy began looking around for his friend of the night before. He looked at his watch and noted that it was eight o'clock. His revolver was gone but his search-light was still in his pocket.
He remembered in a moment that he had handed his revolver to Thede before starting to cross the light zone in the center of the cavern. Whatever had taken place during his hours of unconsciousness, it was evident that he had not been robbed.
It seemed to the boy, as he stood looking through the opening which gave a view of the forest to the north, that he had lain on the hard floor of the cavern for countless aeons. He did not remember what had caused the wound on his head. He only knew that he had been seized with a sudden dizziness and had fallen, after hearing pistol shots.
Standing before the fire with the cheerful light of the blaze on one side and the dazzling light of the sun on the snow on the other side, the uncanny incidents of the night before seemed like a dream to the boy.
He even found himself wondering whether he had actually caught sight of the Little Brass God, leering down upon the watcher from the wall.
Then he recollected that Thede had first called his attention to the ugly image whose evil eyes seemed to take on malevolent expressions in the light of the dancing flames.
"It must be all true, then," he concluded. "The man by the fire, the Little Brass God on the shelf, the pistol shots, and then a blank."
He wondered where Thede had gone, and why he had deserted him.
"That's the strangest part of it all," the lad mused. "I had an idea that the boy would stand by me if I got into trouble, and here he runs away, leaving me lying unconscious in the freezing atmosphere of this desolate old cavern. I didn't think it of him!"
It occurred to George as he studied over the puzzle that Thede might not have been as innocent and loyal as he had pretended to be. He might have been merely an instrument in the hands of a cunning man.
"At any rate," the boy pondered, "we have found the Little BrassGod!"
He had not, of course, secured possession of it, but he had learned definitely that it was in that part of the country. He wondered as to the identity of the man who sat watching the fire. The light had been dim, and it might have been Pierre for all he knew. Or it might have been an accomplice of the tricky trapper.
"Now, I wonder how I'm going to get back to camp," the boy mused as he piled on more wood and spread his hands to the cheerful warmth of the fire. "Judging from the time it took us to get here, it must be ten or twelve miles back to the camp."
"The boys will think I've deserted them, I guess," he added. "If they knew how hungry I am just at this minute, they'd send out a relief expedition!"
While the boy warmed himself before the fire a series of growls came from the entrance to the cavern, and two black bears looked in upon him.
"Now I wonder if you're the same disreputable citizens that tried to make a free lunch counter of me last night?" George mused. "I presume you're hungry, all right, but I'd rather not be the person to do the feeding this morning. You look too fierce for me, both of you."
The smell of blood evidently excited the bears to unusual feats of courage, for they entered the mouth of the cavern and stood growling and showing their teeth within a short distance of where George stood.
Only for the great blaze which now leaped almost to the roof of the cavern, the boy would have been attacked at once. He glanced at the rapidly decreasing pile of wood, and wondered what would take place as soon as the fire had died down. He had no weapon with which to defend himself.
For at least a quarter of an hour the bears and the lad gazed at each other through the red light of the fire. The bears were gradually moving forward, and every time the lad laid a stick of wood on the blaze they seemed to understand more fully that his defense was weakening.
George thought he had never seen wood burn away so fast. The blaze seemed to melt it as boiling water melts ice.
Already the blaze was dropping lower, and the pile of wood was almost gone. The bears sniffed at the blood stains where the boy had lain on the floor, and turned fierce eyes on the figure by the fire.
George estimated that his wood might last ten minutes longer. Then there would be a rush, a crunching of bones and all would be over.
A rifle shot sounded from the outside, and one of the bears dropped to the rocky floor, struggled spasmodically for a moment, and then straightened out and lay still. The next instant another shot, equally accurate, came and the second bear was dead in a moment.
The boy waited eagerly for the appearance of the man who had done the shooting. He had no idea who the man might be, and was not quite certain that the fellow had not taken from him one danger only to place him in another. Still, he looked eagerly forward to his appearance.
When the man appeared, a smoking double-barreled rifle in his hand, George saw a tall, ungainly figure with long legs, a long, slim body, very high cheek bones, and rather stern and uncompromising blue eyes.
The newcomer was dressed in the leather jacket usually worn by trappers in that district, leather leggins, moccasins, and fur cap. A belt of red leather, probably colored and tanned by some Indian process, was drawn tightly about his waist. There were gold rings in his ears which swung an inch down on his brown cheeks.
"Hello, sonny!" the man said, advancing into the cavern, standing the butt of his rifle on the rock, and leaning on the barrel.
"Say," the boy almost shouted, springing forward and extending his hand, "that's about the best shooting I've seen in a year!"
"The place to hit a bear," the new-comer replied, "is in the neck, right about where the spinal cord starts to crawl under the skull."
"It's a good thing you came along just as you did," George stated. "I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am, and so you'll have to take that for granted. You saved my life!"
"I'm Antoine," the other said, in a moment, after a casual survey of the boy. "I'm a hunter and trapper. I saw the bears looking in, and knew from the smoke coining out that there was a human being in here, too. Knowing that bears and humans don't mix remarkably well, I came in, too. That's all there is to it!"
"I guess they would have mixed with me all right in about a minute," George said with a smile. "I had about abandoned hope!"
"How'd you get here?" asked Antoine.
George related the story of the adventures of the previous night, omitting, however, any mention of the Little Brass God. While he talked, there came to his mind an indistinct impression that the face of the man he had seen sitting by the fire was the face of the man who now stood before him.
He put the thought away instantly, for he did not believe that the person who had left him on the floor of the cavern to die of cold and exposure, or to be devoured by wild beasts, could be the same who had so opportunely rescued him from death.
"You must be hungry, I take it," Antoine said, after the boy bad concluded his recital. "Boys usually are hungry."
"You bet I'm hungry!" George replied.
Antoine glanced smilingly about at the two bears lying on the floor.
"Can you cook bear steak?" he asked.
"Can I?" repeated George.
Antoine pointed to the Boy Scout medals on the lad's coat sleeve.
"You have the Stalker and Pioneer medals," he said. "You ought to know something about forestry."
"How do you know what they are?" smiled George.
"Oh," was the hesitating reply, "I know quite a lot about Boy Scout work and training. Fine lot of fellows, those Boy Scouts!"
"Right you are!" declared George.
Antoine now drew forth a hunting knife which seemed to be as keen as a razor and began removing the skins from the dead animals. He worked swiftly and skillfully, and in a short time the making of two fine black bear rugs were laying in the sun outside.
"Now," the man said, "you get busy with that steak over the coals, and I'll tote in more wood. You don't seem quite up to carrying heavy loads yet. That must be a bad wound."
"I think I must have lost considerable blood," George answered.
After the steak was nicely broiled, Antoine brought water from a nearby stream, and the boy's head was carefully and rather skillfully attended to.
"And now," said Antoine, "we'll go to my own home, which isn't far away."
Without a word the boy followed the hunter through the deep snow which lay on the slope until they came to an opening in the rock. Entering, the boy found a very comfortable cavern, almost completely lined with fur. There was a chimney-like crevice in the ceiling which permitted the escape of smoke and foul air. Both inside and outside the entrance were great stones by which the place might be sealed up from either side.
"Quite a cozy nest!" George ventured, and Antoine nodded.
"We'll celebrate your arrival with a cup of good strong tea," he said.
The tea was brewed and drank. Then the trapper's face began to assume grotesque forms. The boy's head swam dizzily. He caught a cynical smile in Antoine's eyes and dropped back into a drugged and dreamless sleep!
"Who's there?" asked Tommy's voice, as Will beat frantically against the rocky bulkhead against which he stood.
"How do I get in there?" asked Will.
"Go around to the entrance and shoot up this half-breed!" advisedSandy. "He's got us cornered!"
"He's got me cornered, too!" shouted Will.
"Then I guess he's got the high hand," Tommy answered back.
"Say," Thede's voice exclaimed, "the rock at the end of that passage isn't more than a foot thick and it's full of cracks, at that. If you had a couple of big whinnicks, you could smash it down."
"I can find the whinnicks all right!" answered Will.
"Say!" cried Sandy, "you want to hurry with those whinnicks, for Pierre is almost standing on his head, threatening to shoot if you try to break through."
Will collected a number of heavy stones which had fallen from the walls and threw them with all his strength against the partition.
The cracks widened, and slivers of brittle rock fell away. His efforts were greeted with cheers from the other side, and he redoubled them, with the result that in a short time, a passage between the two sections of the underground chambers had been made.
When Will stepped through the opening he saw Pierre's fur cap sticking up above a barrier which reached almost to the ceiling. The long barrel of his rifle protruded threateningly into the room.
"I guess," Will proposed, "that we'd better get out of range of that gun. It doesn't look good to me."
The boys crowded back into the chamber which Will had recently left and looked at each other with inquiring eyes.
Pierre's harsh laugh came from the outer room. "You thieves!" he cried. "You die like bear in a trap."
"What does the old idiot mean by that?" asked Will.
"Search me!" replied Tommy.
"How did he ever get you in here?"
"That's a pretty question to ask of us!" declared Tommy. "How did he ever get you in here?"
"He came to camp and volunteered to help find you run-away boys," replied Will. "He brought me to the hills and tumbled boulders into the entrance to the cavern."
"Well, he came to our assistance almost as soon as we reached the hills in search of George," Tommy grinned. "He was so mighty careful to get us into safe quarters that he led us into this rotten hole and fixed it so we couldn't get out!"
"What's he doing it all for?" Will asked, turning to Tommy.
"Perhaps Thede Carson can tell you better than I can," repliedTommy. "You remember Thede Carson, don't you, Will?"
"I seem to see a faint, resemblance in this lad to a boy I used to know as Thede Carson," Will laughed. "He looks now, though, as if he had plenty to eat, and a good place to sleep!"
"I have been eating regularly," grinned Thede, "but there's no knowing whether I'll ever connect with another bear steak."
"He came up here with Pierre," Sandy explained. "Perhaps he can tell you what the half-breed is up to."
"I don't know any more about it than you do!" replied Thede. "He didn't seem to like the idea of my associating with George," the boy added with a wink at Will, "and so he bunched us together and locked us up."
While Pierre gave vent to hoarse shouts of rage, and many entirely unnecessary and insulting taunts, the boys explained the events of the past night. The thing which startled Will most was the story Thede told about having caught sight of the Little Brass God.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Certain sure!"
"It wasn't the firelight or anything like that?"
"No, it was the Little Brass God!"
"Was it Pierre who sat before the fire?"
Thede shook his head doubtfully.
"I don't think so," he replied.
"Did you see the man's face?"
"Only in the shadows. His chin was on his breast at first, and then, when he looked up, he turned his head the other way."
"Well," Will said, "we have at least located the ugly little beast."
"Did it look complete and whole?" asked Tommy. "That's one question you didn't answer when you told me about having seen it."
"Just as good as new," replied Thede. "If it had been opened at all, the trick was turned by a man who understood the combination."
"And now about George?" Will asked.
"Some one carried him away," Thede declared.
"That's the way I figure it out," Tommy cut in.
"He didn't walk away," Tommy added, "because there were no tracks his size. There were plenty of other tracks, but none which could have been made by George's shoes."
"Aw, how do you know anything about that?" demanded Sandy. "We saw a large moccasin track there, and how do we know that some man didn't walk behind George and step on all his tracks?"
"Or how do we know that some big chump didn't carry him away in his arms?" Tommy admitted. "I never thought about the means that might have been used to conceal the kid's exit. You're the only real live Sherlock Holmes in this crowd," the boy added with a laugh.
"Then it's a cinch that some one carried him away," Will decided.
"Of course it is!" Sandy answered.
"Look here!" Tommy said after a moment's reflection. "Don't you boys remember how mussy that cavern looked. We were all so anxious to chase out and find George that we didn't pay much attention to the room, but I begin to remember now that it looked as if some one had shot wild game there and cooked meat over the fire."
"I remember something about that now!" Thede said.
"And there was more blood on the floor than ever came from the little wound George received, according to the way you describe it," Tommy went on.
"And I'll bet if we'd hunted around the cavern, we'd have found bear steak and refuse hidden in some of those odd little nooks."
"I guess that's right," Thede declared.
"Now, about those moccasin tracks?" asked Will.
"Let's go out and follow 'em up!" grinned Sandy.
"Sure!" replied Tommy. "Just bite your way through these rocks and go out and follow 'em up."
"It's only a question of time when we'll get out," Will insisted."That crazy half-breed can't keep us in here forever!"
"If he keeps us in much longer," Tommy declared, rubbing the waistband of his trousers affectionately, "he'll have me starved plumb to death!"
"Me, too!" Sandy cut in. "I'm shy a breakfast myself!"
"And I'm so hungry that I could eat snowballs!" Thede said, with a grin. "I don't think I ever was so hungry!"
"Why don't you go outside and take a shot at that half-breed?"Tommy asked, looking reproachfully at Will.
"Did he get your guns away from you?" asked the boy.
"You bet he did!" replied Tommy.
"How did he do it?"
"He asked us to lay them aside while we crawled through a crack in the rock, and then grabbed them. Oh, he's a foxy old fellow, that!"
"Well, we can't get out if we stand here talking all day," Sandy ventured. "The longer we stay, the hungrier we'll get!"
"What I'd like to know," Will suggested, "is this: Why did he do it? What spite has he against us?"
"If you leave it to me," Thede replied, "the Little Brass God has something to do with it! I don't know whether Pierre has possession of the ugly little beast, or whether he is trying to get possession of it, but I believe he has a notion that we're trying to get bold of it."
"Well, that's a good guess," grinned Tommy.
During all this conversation the voice of the half-breed had been frequently heard, alternately cursing and coaxing the lads to enter the outer chamber where he could talk with them.
"What do you want?" Will asked finally.
"Come here!" was the answer.
Tommy stepped half-way through the opening and flashed his searchlight into the apartment beyond.
"That is better!" shouted Pierre,
"So that's what you want?" demanded Tommy. "You want light to shoot us by!"
"Send the other boy out!" demanded the half-breed. "Send out the one I brought here!"
"He wants you, Will," Tommy said.
As the boy was about to step into the opening, Thede caught him by the arm and drew him back.
"Just you wait a minute," he said.
The lad placed a sliver of rock in Will's hat and held it beyond the opening, at the same time letting the rays of the searchlight fall full upon it.
"I know that half-breed better than you do," Thede said, as he pushed the hat out further and further.
When the hat was about as far out as the boy could send it without risking his own hands, a rifle shot rang through the cavern and the bullet cut its way through the exposed hat.
"Don't you see?" Thede asked. "He knows you have a gun, and he figured that you'd fall into this chamber, and that we wouldn't dare reach over for it. He's a foxy old reprobate!"
"What next?" demanded Will.
"You just wait a minute!" Thede advised. "I think I know a way out! If we just could get in behind that half-breed and chuck him into the prison he prepared for us, it would be a mighty fine joke on him!"
But the way out was not to lie through undiscovered passages! It was set by fate that it was to be over the dead body of the half-breed!
While the boys discussed the possibility of finding an unguarded exit from the series of caverns, another shot sounded, and then they heard the rattle and crash of rocks falling upon an equally hard surface.
"There's something doing, now, sure!" Tommy exclaimed.
"Do you know of any other trappers in this section?" asked Will, turning to Thede. "It seems to me that that shot came from outside, and I don't believe Pierre would be throwing down his own barricade."
"I haven't seen anyone else here," replied the boy, "except the one we saw in front of the fire last night."
"And that might have been Pierre, for all we know!" Tommy declared.
"You don't know whether it was Pierre or some one else," Sandy observed, "so we don't know whether there's another hunter roaming around here or not! I hope there is, so far as I'm concerned!"
The question was settled in a moment. Rocks continued to fall from the barrier, and in a moment a voice called out:
"Who's there?"
"Four of us!" was the reply.
"Why don't you come out?"
The boys detected a faint chuckle in the voice.
"We're willing!" Sandy answered.
"Well, come on, then!"
Sandy stuck his head out of the entrance and turned his searchlight on the new-comer. After a moment's inspection of the fellow, he stepped into the outer cavern.
"You look pretty good to me," he said.
Ho was about to say more when he caught sight of the body of the half-breed lying just inside the cave.
He turned white and for a moment felt dizzy and faint.
He was unfamiliar with death in any form, and this snuffing out of a life seemed to him particularly horrible.
In a moment the other boys came out and stood looking down upon the body. They were all deeply affected by what had taken place, particularly Thede, who had never received anything but the kindest treatment from the half-breed until the arrival of the Boy Scouts.
"It was my life or his," Antoine explained.
"Did he shoot at you?" asked Will, "we heard only one shot, save the one fired by Pierre at my hat."
"He didn't get an opportunity to fire!" Antoine answered. "He had his gun leveled at my head when my bullet ended his life!"
"Now I wonder," thought Will, "whether it was Pierre who sat by the fire last night, and whether the secret of the Little Brass God dies with him! I wish there were some way of knowing."
While these thoughts were passing through the brain of the boy, Thede stood regarding the new-comer in a puzzled way. Slowly the impression was forming in his mind that it was not Pierre who had sat before the fire in the chamber where the Little Brass God had been displayed.
"I suppose the next thing on the program," Antoine observed, with a smile, "will be breakfast."
"That suits me!" shouted Tommy and Sandy in a breath.
"Well," Antoine answered, "I have plenty of bear meat, and a few canned provisions, and plenty of good, strong tea, so we'll adjourn to the dining room and partake."
"Have you seen anything of our chum?" asked Will.
Antoine smiled, but made no reply.
"Look here," Sandy said, pointing down to the moccasin tracks, as they emerged from the cavern and found themselves on the snowy slope, "this man has passed along here before this morning."
"That's a fact!" Will exclaimed. "So he must be the man who carried off George. If he is, why doesn't he say so?"
"Perhaps he wants to give us a surprise," observed Tommy.
It was only a short distance from the system of caverns where the boys had been imprisoned to the home of Antoine, which has previously been described.
When the boys entered, they looked eagerly around in the hope of finding George, but the boy was nowhere to be seen.
"I thought sure you had found our chum in the cavern," Thede suggested.
"Why, I thought you boys were all here!" replied Antoine, still with that odd smile on his face.
"But there is a boy who was wounded in the bear cavern last night," Thede explained, "and I left him there while I went after his friends, and when I came back, he was gone. We thought sure you took him away."
Antoine made no reply. Instead, he busied himself with breakfast.
In his efforts in this direction Tommy and Sandy were not slow in joining, and in a short time beautifully broiled bear steaks were smoking on tin plates which Antoine had taken from a cupboard fastened to the wall. A pot of tea was steeping over a fire built at one end of the cavern. The boys eyed this with interest.
"We really ought to be going out in search of George," Will finally said. "He may be suffering in the cold."
"That's right!" declared Tommy. "I'm going out just as soon as I finish eating! The lad was carried off by some one, all right, and be can't be far away!"
"I wonder why we didn't get our revolvers away from that dead man?" asked Sandy. "We surely ought to have them!"
"I looked for them," Will said quietly, "but they were not there!"
"Then he must have hidden them away somewhere," Tommy declared."We laid them down just before crawling through that hole."
"You will doubtless find them in time," Antoine suggested.
"I should think the half-breed would have kept them pretty close,"Sandy observed. "You don't find automatics like those every day!"
"It strikes me," Antoine said, directly, "that you boys would better settle down for a little rest previous to going out after your chum."
"Aw, we don't need any rest!" declared Tommy.
"Not while George is out in the cold!" Sandy cut in.
"Just as you please," smiled Antoine. "And now," he went on, "if you've all had plenty to eat, I'll bring on the tea. Tea always tastes better to me when there is no food in my mouth to interfere with the flavor of it. I have a very fine brand here."
"We've been waiting for that tea!" laughed Tommy.
"You can't lose Tommy when it comes to anything good to eat or drink!" laughed Sandy. "He's always on watch."
Antoine seemed a long time pouring the tea into the tin cups, which he had placed on the rough board which served as a table. As he bent over the teapot, a familiar sound caught Will's ears and he turned his head aside to listen.
"Slap, slap, slap!"
The boy nudged Tommy who sat next to him with his elbow and called his attention to the sound. Tommy almost sprang to his feet as he listened, but Will forced him back with his hand.
"Slap, slap, slap!" came the signal again.
Sandy and Thede were now sitting with knives and forks suspended in the air, listening wide-eyed to the sound.
"That's the Beaver call!" declared Will in a whisper.
"That means George!" Tommy whispered back.
"Sure!" was the reply. "There's no one else to give the Beaver call here. I wonder why the boy doesn't show up."
In the meantime, Antoine had been busy over the teapot and had not noticed what was going on at the table.
"I'm fixing this tea up particularly strong," he said, facing the boys with a smile on his lips, "so you mustn't wonder if it tastes just a little bit bitter. There's nothing on earth will do a man who's been exposed to the weather more good than a strong cup of tea!"
The man poured the decoction into the tin cups and brought out a couple of cans of condensed milk and plenty of sugar.
"You see," he laughed, "that I have all the luxuries of an effete civilization! Put in all the sugar you like, if you find the tea too strong. I have plenty of it!"
The boys used the sugar and milk liberally, and Will was about to lift his cup to his lips when the Beaver call came again:
"Slap, slap, slap!"
Although the sounds were faint ones, they caught the attention of Antoine, who, scowling, turned his face in the direction from which they had proceeded. In a minute, he arose.
"What was that noise?" he asked.
"Did you hear a noise?" questioned Will.
"I thought I did!" replied the man. "Perhaps I'd better take a look about the place. There may be intruders here!"
As Antoine moved about, his footsteps in a measure muffling the sounds which followed, the boys heard a low whisper.
"Don't drink! It's drugged!"
Wondering why the boy did not show himself, and able to understand his strange conduct only on the theory that he had been gagged and bound, Will overturned his cup of tea by an awkward movement and sprang to his feet as the burning fluid came in contact with his clothing.
Simultaneously the boys all sprang from the table, taking care to upset the board upon which they had been eating. An angry exclamation came from Antoine's lips as the carefully prepared tea was spilled to the floor. In a moment, however, his face broke into a smile.
"Too bad!" he said, "but accidents will happen. I'll make you some more! I'll have it ready in a moment."
"We really would like some tea, notwithstanding our awkwardness," laughed Will, listening as he spoke for some further sound from his chum.
"Drugged, drugged, drugged."
The boys heard the whisper floating through the room. Then they heard a gasp as of some one coming out of a sound sleep, and saw Antoine springing toward a weapon lying on the floor.
Will got to the weapon first.
With an exclamation of rage and anger, Antoine drew his hunting knife from its sheath and lifted it threateningly.
"Keep back!" he said. "Keep back, every one of you!"
"Throw down the knife, then!" Tommy demanded.
Instead of throwing down the knife, Antoine seemed preparing for a spring. It was evident that he had not yet abandoned the hope of gaining his revolver. The weapon which Will had seized left his hand with a swift whirl, and the next moment the knife crashed from Antoine's hand to the floor. The fellow's wrist had been broken.
He fell back with a groan, but remained inactive only a second.
"I'll come back!" he shouted, and disappeared through the entrance.
Tommy followed him out after having secured Will's automatic, but he was nowhere in sight on the slope. The tracks in the deep snow showed that he had turned in the direction of the cavern which the boys had known to their cost that morning.
"He's gone after our revolvers!" shouted Tommy.
"I'm afraid that's right," Sandy answered, sticking his head cautiously out of the opening. "He's the man who hid them, probably!"
"He'll be back directly," Will prophesied, "so one of you would better remain on guard at the door. If he catches us all inside, we'll be in the same fix we were when he found us!"
"I'd rather fight bears than a snake like that!" declared Sandy.
A faint voice was now heard calling from some unseen recess.
"Tommy, Sandy, Will!" George's voice called.
Leaving Tommy at the door, the three boys passed around the chamber pounding on the walls with little rocks and listening eagerly for further words. At last they came to where a bear skin hung against a crevice. They drew it abide and saw George looking up at them.
"Vot iss?" asked Sandy with a grin.
"So you heard me in time!"
The boy's speech was low and indistinct.
"If we hadn't, we wouldn't be here," answered Sandy.
"That Beaver call sounded good to us, too!" Will observed.
"What about the tea being drugged?" asked Sandy.
"It put me to sleep in a minute!" declared George. "My head whirled for a second, and then I was out for the count."
"I guess he thought he had you laid away for a good long time," suggested Sandy.
"I reckon I woke up too soon for him," George answered with a faint smile. "I heard you boys talking, though you seemed a long way off, and at first I thought it was all a dream."
"We got a feed in that dream, anyway!" laughed Sandy.
"I tried to cry out but couldn't," George continued. "My lips seemed frozen into numbness. I couldn't move hand or foot for a time, but finally I managed to clap the palms of my hands together in the Beaver call, and that seemed to set the blood circulating through my veins."
"What do you make of it?" asked Sandy.
"If you leave it to me," whispered George, still faint from loss of blood and the effects of the drug, "I dope it out that this man who calls himself Antoine is in possession of the Little Brass God, and he has in some way discovered that we are here after it."
"That's a fact!" exclaimed Will, "you saw the Little Brass God, too, didn't you?"
"I certainly did!" was the reply.
"Well, was the man who sat before the fire, the same man who gave you the drug?" Will went on. "Did you see him plainly?"
"I've been wondering about that," George replied. "Sometimes Ithink Antoine is the man who sat before the fire with the uglyLittle Brass God leering down at him. Sometimes, I think it wasPierre who sat there. I can't quite make up my mind."
"If it was Pierre," Will said gravely, "the Little Brass God will probably never be found! The man who gave you the drugged drink shot the half-breed to death this morning."
"Then I hope it wasn't Pierre who sat by the fire," Sandy declared. "We've come a long way after that Little Brass God, and got into many a mix-up over it, so we've just got to take it back to Chicago with us!"
"Now look here," Will reasoned, "this Antoine had some motive in putting us boys to sleep! We don't know what that motive was, but I think I'm giving a pretty good guess when I say that he wanted to prevent our interfering with the Little Brass God until he had arranged to make anything we might do in that line absolutely worthless."
"That listens good to me, too," declared Sandy. "The man wouldn't try to drug us unless he had some strong motive for doing so!"
"We're all together once more, anyhow!" Will observed, "and I think we'd better stay together. I never did like this idea of one boy sneaking away in the night and leaving the others to guess where he went to. It isn't safe to go wandering off alone in that way!"
"Yes, I'd talk about that if I were you!" laughed Sandy. "You go wandering off by yourself more than any of the bunch!"
"I think it's a good thing for you boys that I went wandering off alone this morning," Will argued.
"You didn't go wandering off alone!" Thede cut in. "You had Pierre with you? Poor Pierre!" he continued. "I'm sorry for him! I suppose we'll have to make some kind of a grave and give him decent burial!"
"Sure, we'll do that!" agreed Will. "But what is puzzling me just now is this," the boy went on, "how are we going to get out of this hole with that Antoine watching our every move? He'll shoot us down just as quick as he shot Pierre if he gets a chance."
The boys took short trips out of the cavern in quest of their enemy, but were unable to discover any traces of him other than the tracks in the snow. These led toward the chain of caverns which the boys had such good reason to remember.
"I think we'd better make for the camp," Will suggested in a moment.
"Why not move over to the cabin?" asked Thede. "It will be much more comfortable there."
"That's a good idea, too," Will agreed, "except that we'd have to move all our camp equipage and provisions."
"Well, why not?" asked the boy. "We can rig up a drag and draw the stuff over in two or three loads."
"We can if Antoine isn't shooting at us every minute!" Sandy cut in.
"I don't believe Antoine will trouble us," Thede answered. "If he has the Little Brass God, he'll probably make off with it. He's got to go somewhere to get his injured wrist tended to, and my opinion is that he'll simply disappear from this neck of the woods until he makes up his mind that we have gone back to Chicago."
"I hope he won't go very far," Will mused.
"If he does, we'll lose the Little Brass God!" Sandy argued.
"I don't agree with Thede," Will said directly. "If the man has a secure hiding place in the hills, he'll manage to treat the injured wrist himself and remain hidden until he thinks we have left the country."
"It's all a guess, anyway," Sandy exclaimed, "and, whatever takes place, I vote for moving our truck over to the cabin and settling down there! We don't want to go back to Chicago as soon as we find the Little Brass God, do we?"
"We certainly do not!" shouted Tommy, sticking his head into the narrow doorway. "I haven't had a chance to catch all the fish I want yet!"
"Well, we may as well move over to the cabin if that's the general opinion," agreed Will. "I must admit that those tents look pretty thin to me. I didn't expect snow to fall so early."
"Besides," Sandy urged, "if we live in the cabin, we'll be perfectly safe from attack. It would take dynamite to make a hole through those great logs, and the door itself is about a foot thick!"
"All right," Will replied. "If we find anything left when we get back to our camping place, we'll move it over to the cabin!"
"The first thing to move will be George," laughed Sandy.
"Oh, I can walk all right!" the invalid declared.
"Through this thick snow? I should say not! We've got to make up some kind of a sled and give you the first sleigh-ride of the season!"
"And while we're about it, we can make a sled that we can move the tents and provisions on," suggested Will.
The boys had little to make a sled with, but they finally managed to bind saplings together with such cord as they had in their possession, and so manufacture a "drag" upon which the wounded boy could be carried back to camp. The lads were strongly tempted to help themselves to Antoine's provisions before they left, but they finally decided not to do so, especially as they believed that they had plenty of their own.
"He'll need them all before he gets rid of that sore wrist," Sandy laughed. "He won't be in shape to do much hunting!"
"Now," Thede observed, after wrapping George up in one of the bear robes taken from the wall of the cavern, "I've been thinking that the cabin is a great deal nearer the camp. Of course I haven't been to the camp, but I've heard the location described and I'm positive that it is four or five miles further away from us than the cabin."
"So you want to take George directly to the cabin, do you?" asked Tommy, who still considered himself on guard and kept a constant lookout for Antoine. "I don't see why we shouldn't do so," he added.
"It isn't far out of the way," urged Thede.
"Then here we go to it!" laughed Tommy. "I'll chase on ahead and have a roaring fire built there before you get half way to it!"
"Oh, you will?" grinned Thede. "I'd like to know how you're going to find it! George and I are the only ones in this party who can find the mysterious cabin in the bog!"
"Well, then," Tommy admitted, "perhaps you'd better run on ahead and find it, while we come along with the kid!"
It was a long and painful journey to the cabin, but it was finished at last. When the boys came to the edge of the swamp, however, they saw a great column of smoke rising from the chimney on the roof.
"Now do you suppose Antoine beat us to it?" asked Thede.