d, and disappeared through the entrance.

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 passed 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 Brass God, and
he has in some way discovered that we are here after it."

"That's a fact!" exclaimed Will, "you saw the Lit