THE HALF-BREED
But the way out was not to lie through undiscovered passages! 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 Brass God
dies with him! I wish there were some way of knowing."
While these thoughts were passing 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 Brass God 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 passed 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!"
"I wonder why we didn't get our revolvers away from that dead man?"
asked Sandy. "We surely ought to have them!"
"I looked for them," Will said quietly, "but they were not there!"
"Then he must have hidden them away somewhere," Tommy declared.
"We laid them down just before crawling through that hole."
"You will doubtless find them in time," Antoine suggested.
"I should think the half-breed would have kept them pretty close,"
Sandy observed. "You don't find automatics like those every day!"
"It strikes me," Antoine said, directly, "that you boys would
better settle down for a little rest previous to going out after
your chum."
"Aw, we don't need any rest!" declared Tommy.
"Not while George is out in the cold!" Sandy cut in.
"Just as you please," smiled Antoine. "And now," he went on, "if
you've all had plenty to eat, I'll bring on the tea. Tea always
tastes better to me when there is no food in my mouth to interfere
with the flavor of it. I have a very fine brand here."
"We've been waiting for that tea!" laughed Tommy.
"You can't lose Tommy when it comes to anything good to eat or
drink!" laughed Sandy. "He's always on watch."
Antoine seemed a long time pouring the tea into the tin cups, which
he had placed on the rough board which served as a table. As he
bent over the teapot, a familiar sound caught Will's ears and he
turned his head aside to listen.
"Slap, slap, slap!"
The boy nudged Tommy who sat next to him with his elbow and called
his attention to the sound. Tommy almost sprang to his feet as he
listened, but Will forced him back with his hand.
"Slap, slap, slap!" came the signal again.
Sandy and Thede were now sitting with knives and forks suspended in
the air, listening wide-eyed to the sound.
"That's the Beaver call!" declared Will in a whisper.
"That means George!" Tommy whispered back.
"Sure!" was the reply. "There's no one else to give the Beaver
call here. I wonder why the boy doesn't show up."
In the meantime, Antoine had been busy over the teapot and had not
noticed what was going on at the table.
"I'm fixing this tea up particularly strong," he said, facing the
boys with a smile on his lips, "so you mustn't wonder if it tastes
just a little bit bitter. There's nothing on earth will do a man
who's been exposed to the weather more good than a strong cup of
tea!"
The man poured the decoction into the tin cups and brought out a
couple of cans of condensed milk and plenty of sugar.
"You see," he laughed, "that I have all the luxuries of an effete
civilization! Put in all the sugar you like, if you find the tea
too strong. I have plenty of it!"
The boys used the sugar and milk liberally, and Will was about to
lift his cup to his lips when the Beaver call came again:
"Slap, slap, slap!"
Although the sounds were faint ones, they caught the attention of
Antoine, who, scowling, turned his face in the direction from which
they had proceeded. In a minute, he arose.
"What was that noise?" he asked.
"Did you hear a noise?" questioned Will.
"I thought I did!" replied the man. "Perhaps I'd better take a
look about the place. There may be intruders here!"
As Antoine moved about, his footsteps in a measure muffling the
sounds which followed, the boys heard a low whisper.
"Don't drink! It's drugged!"
Wondering why the boy did not show himself, and able to understand
his strange conduct only on the theory that he had been gagged and
bound, Will overturned his cup of tea by an awkward movement and
sprang to his feet as the burning fluid came in contact with his
clothing.
Simultaneously the boys all sprang from the table, taking care to
upset the board upon which they had been eating. An angry
exclamation came from Antoine's lips as the carefully prepared tea
was spilled to the floor. In a moment, however, his face broke
into a smile.
"Too bad!" he said, "but accidents will happen. I'll make you some
more! I'll have it ready in a moment."
"We really would like some tea, notwithstanding our awkwardness,"
laughed Will, listening as he spoke for some further sound from his
chum.
"Drugged, drugged, drugged."
The boys heard the whisper floating through the room. Then they
heard a gasp as of some one coming out of a sound sleep, and saw
Antoine springing toward a weapon lying on the floor.