Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds Part 14

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!"

CHAPTER XI

THE HALF-BREED

But the way out was not to lie through undiscovered pa.s.sages! 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 Bra.s.s G.o.d dies with him! I wish there were some way of knowing."

While these thoughts were pa.s.sing 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 Bra.s.s G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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!"