CHAPTER XII
A SURPRISE AT THE CABIN
Will got to the weapon first.
With an exclamation of rage and anger, Antoine drew his huntingknife 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 aspring. It was evident that he had not yet abandoned the hope ofgaining his revolver. The weapon which Will had seized left hishand with a swift whirl, and the next moment the knife crashed fromAntoine'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, buthe was nowhere in sight on the slope. The tracks in the deep snowshowed that he had turned in the direction of the cavern which theboys 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 headcautiously out of the opening. "He's the man who hid them,probably!"
"He'll be back directly," Will prophesied, "so one of you wouldbetter 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 chamberpounding on the walls with little rocks and listening eagerly forfurther words. At last they came to where a bear skin hung againsta 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 headwhirled 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 faintsmile. "I heard you boys talking, though you seemed a long wayoff, 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 lipsseemed frozen into numbness. I couldn't move hand or foot for atime, but finally I managed to clap the palms of my hands togetherin the Beaver call, and that seemed to set the blood circulatingthrough my veins."
"What do you make of it?" asked Sandy.
"If you leave it to me," whispered George, still faint from loss ofblood and the effects of the drug, "I dope it out that this man whocalls himself Antoine is in possession of the Little Brass God, andhe 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 gaveyou 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 willprobably never be found! The man who gave you the drugged drinkshot 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 intomany a mix-up over it, so we've just got to take it back to Chicagowith us!"
"Now look here," Will reasoned, "this Antoine had some motive inputting us boys to sleep! We don't know what that motive was, butI think I'm giving a pretty good guess when I say that he wanted toprevent our interfering with the Little Brass God until he hadarranged to make anything we might do in that line absolutelyworthless."
"That listens good to me, too," declared Sandy. "The man wouldn'ttry to drug us unless he had some strong motive for doing so!"
"We're all together once more, anyhow!" Will observed, "and I thinkwe'd better stay together. I never did like this idea of one boysneaking away in the night and leaving the others to guess where hewent 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 gowandering off by yourself more than any of the bunch!"
"I think it's a good thing for you boys that I went wandering offalone this morning," Will argued.
"You didn't go wandering off alone!" Thede cut in. "You had Pierrewith you? Poor Pierre!" he continued. "I'm sorry for him! Isuppose we'll have to make some kind of a grave and give him decentburial!"
"Sure, we'll do that!" agreed Will. "But what is puzzling me justnow is this," the boy went on, "how are we going to get out of thishole with that Antoine watching our every move? He'll shoot usdown just as quick as he shot Pierre if he gets a chance."
The boys took short trips out of the cavern in quest of theirenemy, but were unable to discover any traces of him other than thetracks in the snow. These led toward the chain of caverns whichthe 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 muchmore comfortable there."
"That's a good idea, too," Will agreed, "except that we'd have tomove all our camp equipage and provisions."
"Well, why not?" asked the boy. "We can rig up a drag and draw thestuff 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 hehas the Little Brass God, he'll probably make off with it. He'sgot to go somewhere to get his injured wrist tended to, and myopinion is that he'll simply disappear from this neck of the woodsuntil 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 asecure hiding place in the hills, he'll manage to treat the injuredwrist himself and remain hidden until he thinks we have left thecountry."
"It's all a guess, anyway," Sandy exclaimed, "and, whatever takesplace, I vote for moving our truck over to the cabin and settlingdown there! We don't want to go back to Chicago as soon as we findthe Little Brass God, do we?"
"We certainly do not!" shouted Tommy, sticking his head into thenarrow doorway. "I haven't had a chance to catch all the fish Iwant yet!"
"Well, we may as well move over to the cabin if that's the generalopinion," agreed Will. "I must admit that those tents look prettythin to me. I didn't expect snow to fall so early."
"Besides," Sandy urged, "if we live in the cabin, we'll beperfectly safe from attack. It would take dynamite to make a holethrough those great logs, and the door itself is about a footthick!"
"All right," Will replied. "If we find anything left when we getback 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 upsome kind of a sled and give you the first sleigh-ride of theseason!"
"And while we're about it, we can make a sled that we can move thetents and provisions on," sugges
ted Will.
The boys had little to make a sled with, but they finally managedto bind saplings together with such cord as they had in theirpossession, and so manufacture a "drag" upon which the wounded boycould be carried back to camp. The lads were strongly tempted tohelp themselves to Antoine's provisions before they left, but theyfinally decided not to do so, especially as they believed that theyhad plenty of their own.
"He'll need them all before he gets rid of that sore wrist," Sandylaughed. "He won't be in shape to do much hunting!"
"Now," Thede observed, after wrapping George up in one of the bearrobes taken from the wall of the cavern, "I've been thinking thatthe cabin is a great deal nearer the camp. Of course I haven'tbeen to the camp, but I've heard the location described and I'mpositive that it is four or five miles further away from us thanthe cabin."
"So you want to take George directly to the cabin, do you?" askedTommy, who still considered himself on guard and kept a constantlookout for Antoine. "I don't see why we shouldn't do so," headded.
"It isn't far out of the way," urged Thede.
"Then here we go to it!" laughed Tommy. "I'll chase on ahead andhave 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 goingto find it! George and I are the only ones in this party who canfind the mysterious cabin in the bog!"
"Well, then," Tommy admitted, "perhaps you'd better run on aheadand find it, while we come along with the kid!"
It was a long and painful journey to the cabin, but it was finishedat last. When the boys came to the edge of the swamp, however,they saw a great column of smoke rising from the chimney on theroof.
"Now do you suppose Antoine beat us to it?" asked Thede.