“You bet I’m hungry!” George replied.

Antoine glanced smilingly about at the two bears lying on the floor.

“Can you cook bear steak?” he asked.

“Can I?” repeated George.

Antoine pointed to the Boy Scout medals on the lad’s coat sleeve.

“You have the Stalker and Pioneer medals,” he said.  “You ought to know something about forestry.”

“How do you know what they are?” smiled George.

“Oh,” was the hesitating reply, “I know quite a lot about Boy Scout work and training.  Fine lot of fellows, those Boy Scouts!”

“Right you are!” declared George.

Antoine now drew forth a hunting knife which seemed to be as keen as a razor and began removing the skins from the dead animals.  He worked swiftly and skillfully, and in a short time the making of two fine black bear rugs were laying in the sun outside.

“Now,” the man said, “you get busy with that steak over the coals, and I’ll tote in more wood.  You don’t seem quite up to carrying heavy loads yet.  That must be a bad wound.”

“I think I must have lost considerable blood,” George answered.

After the steak was nicely broiled, Antoine brought water from a nearby stream, and the boy’s head was carefully and rather skillfully attended to.

“And now,” said Antoine, “we’ll go to my own home, which isn’t far away.”

Without a word the boy followed the hunter through the deep snow which lay on the slope until they came to an opening in the rock.  Entering, the boy found a very comfortable cavern, almost completely lined with fur.  There was a chimney-like crevice in the ceiling which permitted the escape of smoke and foul air.  Both inside and outside the entrance were great stones by which the place might be sealed up from either side.

“Quite a cozy nest!” George ventured, and Antoine nodded.

“We’ll celebrate your arrival with a cup of good strong tea,” he said.

The tea was brewed and drank.  Then the trapper’s face began to assume grotesque forms.  The boy’s head swam dizzily.  He caught a cynical smile in Antoine’s eyes and dropped back into a drugged and dreamless sleep!

CHAPTER X

BOYS IN A TIGHT PLACE

“Who’s there?” asked Tommy’s voice, as Will beat frantically against the rocky bulkhead against which he stood.

“How do I get in there?” asked Will.

“Go around to the entrance and shoot up this half-breed!” advised Sandy.  “He’s got us cornered!”

“He’s got me cornered, too!” shouted Will.

“Then I guess he’s got the high hand,” Tommy answered back.

“Say,” Thede’s voice exclaimed, “the rock at the end of that passage isn’t more than a foot thick and it’s full of cracks, at that.  If you had a couple of big whinnicks, you could smash it down.”

“I can find the whinnicks all right!” answered Will.