"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 Bra.s.s G.o.d?" asked Tommy as they walked along.

"Sure not," was the reply, "we both saw it, didn't we?"

"Well, whoever told you anything about the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d?"

demanded Sandy. "How did you know there was a Bra.s.s G.o.d?"

"Old Finklebaum told me. He said he'd give me a hundred dollars if I found it, so I started in to earn that mazuma."

In as few words as possible the boy repeated the story he had told George on the previous evening.

"I guess you boys came up here looking for the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d, 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 Bra.s.s G.o.d and fish for the man who bought it of the p.a.w.nbroker, 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 Bra.s.s G.o.d of the p.a.w.nbroker?" 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 Bra.s.s G.o.d! 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 bra.s.s? 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 Bra.s.s G.o.d 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 Bra.s.s G.o.d 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.

CHAPTER VIII

A TRAPPER'S TREACHERY

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 pa.s.sed, 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.