Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds Part 16

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 pa.s.sed 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 Bra.s.s G.o.d, and he has in some way discovered that we are here after it."

"That's a fact!" exclaimed Will, "you saw the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d, 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 I think Antoine is the man who sat before the fire with the ugly Little Bra.s.s G.o.d leering down at him. Sometimes, I think it was Pierre who sat there. I can't quite make up my mind."

"If it was Pierre," Will said gravely, "the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d 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 Bra.s.s G.o.d, 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 Bra.s.s G.o.d 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 Bra.s.s G.o.d, 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 Bra.s.s G.o.d!" 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 Bra.s.s G.o.d, 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!"