r declared.

"I have an idea he'll come back before long," Sandy suggested.
"He's built a nice fire and brought in plenty of venison, and won't
go away and leave the cosy corner just yet."

When the boys came to the edge of the morass, they saw a figure
flitting into the underbrush on the other side.

"I guess we've frightened him away!" Tommy declared.

"Shall we follow him?" asked Sandy.

"Aw, what's the use?" Tommy questioned. "You said yourself, a
little while ago, that he'd come back to get a bite of that haunch
of venison."

"And I believe he will!" answered the boy.

George was made comfortable in one of the bunks, additional fuel
brought in for the night, and then Will, Tommy and Sandy set out to
bring the supplies and tents from the camp.

"Suppose Antoine, or some one else, should bring the Little Brass
God to this cabin," George began.

"I wish we knew whether it was Antoine who sat before the fire last
night," Thede puzzled. "If I could just get my hands on that
idiotic little plaything, I'd sneak back to old Finklebaum and get
his hundred dollars so quick it would make his head swim."

"His hundred dollars!" repeated George. "I thought I heard you
saying last night if you got hold of the Little Brass God, you'd
make him put up a thousand dollars for it!"

"So I would, too," declared Thede. "And he wouldn't pay the
thousand dollars, either, unless he saw a chance to make ten out of
it!"

During the entire absence of the boys George and Thede discussed
the mystery of the Little Brass God. They wondered how it had made
such good time into that country, and puzzled over the strange fact
that they had blundered upon it on the very night of their arrival.

But when at last the boys returned with the tents and a part of the
provisions, drawn along on the "drag," they had reached no
conclusion whatever.

It was all a mystery which time alone could solve!

Although it was now the middle of the afternoon, Will and Sandy
insisted on making another trip to the old camp.

"If we're going to stay in the cabin," Will urged, "we've got to do
the job some time and we may as well do it now."

"I guess you'll have a good load if you get it all!" Tommy
suggested.

The boys insisted that they were able to bring in the remaining
stock and set off through the snow. Tommy and Thede continued to
drag in wood until there was a great stack of it piled against the
cabin. Every time they opened the door,