CHAPTER VII
AN EMPTY CAVERN
Perhaps a dozen yards from the fire, Tommy stumbled at a figureover which the falling snow was fast drifting. He called out toSandy, who was only a short distance away, and the two lifted theunconscious 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 theBeaver Patrol into trouble?" demanded Sandy. "What would he bedoing 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 ofhis clothes off and get to work with snow, or his fingers and toeswill drop off as soon as they thaw out."
"I don't believe it's the cold so much as it is exhaustion," Sandyventured. "He seems to have been running a whole lot, for he'sstill panting, I reckon he just dropped down when he couldn't runany further."
"I guess that's about right," Tommy admitted. "He doesn't seem tobe 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 stateof the lad's clothing, had bled very freely.
"What do you think of coming away up here in the Hudson Bay countryand 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 heopened his eyes.
"Now for the love of Mike!" exclaimed Tommy, "don't look around andsay '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 herefrom 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 Icould have held out until I reached the camp. You see," he went onwith a slight shudder at the recollection of his experiences, "Ileft 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 wallof the cavern to take hold of the Little Brass God, he got a tunkon 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 faceof the wall, with its legs crossed, and its arms folded, and itswicked 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, andgot lost in the storm, and brought up in a cave inhabited by twobears."
Sandy regarded Tommy significantly.
"And we found a basement floor to the cavern, and went down theelevator and found a man asleep in front of a fire with the LittleBrass 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 Istarted home with him after Pierre left us alone together. Thestorm chased us into a cave, just as I told you, and we kept ongoing until we came to the place where the Little Brass God sat upon the wall making faces at a man asleep at the fire.'"
"Go on!" exclaimed Tommy, at last understanding that the boy was inhis right mind. "Tell us about it!"
"And George said he would get the Little Brass God without wakingthe man up. So he gave me his gun, and I was to shoot in case theman made any trouble. Then, just as George was reaching for thelittle Brass God, the man woke up and shot at him, Then the manshot at me, and I shot at him, and then he got my gun away from meand 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 thatgiant 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 campand 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 ceasedfalling.
Presently a mist of daylight crept into the forest and then theboys 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'shesitation.
"We came up to hunt and fish!" laughed Tommy.
"To hunt for the Little Brass God and fish for the man who boughtit of the pawnbroker, I guess," laughed Thede. "You boys nevercame clear up here just to chase through the snow after game whenthere's plenty of shooting three hundred miles to the south."
"You say you think that Pierre is the man who bought the LittleBrass God of the pawnbroker?" asked Sandy, as the boys stopped fora 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 theLittle Brass God! Don't you see how suspicious he would have beenif he had had the little brute in his possession?"
"I didn't think of that!" replied Thede. "Look here," the boycontinued, "I'd like to know what all this fuss is about, anyway.Why should any one in his right mind give old Finklebaum a thousanddollars or five thousand dollars, for that piece of brass? That'swhat gets me!"
Tommy and Sandy looked at each other significantly but made noimmediate reply. In a moment Thede went on.
"'Spose this should be a Little Brass God stolen from some templeaway out in the wilds of India. Suppose a delegation of EastIndians should be sent here to get it. Wouldn't they murder ascore 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 theridge of hills and looked upward. Thede pointed to the cavernwhere the two bears had been discovered.
"There's where we went in," he explained, "but the cavern where thefire 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 c
an dropdown 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. Youcan see the tracks of his moccasins in the snow. He must have leftafter the storm ceased. My tracks were filled."
"In we go, then!" cried Tommy, advancing lip the slight slope tothe Up of the cavern.
"Watch out for bears!" cried Thede.
Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds; Or, The Signal from the Hills Page 7