The two boys hastened out to meet their chums with question marks in their eyes.  Will and Tommy offered no explanation until the tents had been reached, then Tommy burst into a low chuckle.

“Can you beat it?” he asked.

“What are you talking about?” demanded George.

“What did you see out there?” asked Sandy.

“We didn’t see a thing!” declared Tommy.

“You’re wrong there!” Will cut in.  “We saw the flash of a gun!”

“Some one shoot at you?” questioned George.

“Perhaps not,” Will replied, “but I heard a bullet whizzing past my ear!  That’s not a very warm welcome to this blooming country, I take it.”

“What’s it all about?” asked Sandy impatiently.

“That’s the answer!” Tommy declared.  “That’s all we know about it ourselves.  We hear a paddle splash in the water; we go out to see what’s doing, and we get a chunk of lead plugged at us.  That’s the answer so far as I know.  Now, how about this fish?”

“Right as a book!” cried Sandy.  “I’ve been taking care of this fish while you’ve been out there facing some boy with an air gun.”

“Yes,” laughed Tommy, “if you want to find boys with air guns, come out here about three hundred miles north of nowhere!”

The incident did not seem to affect the appetites of the boys, for they attacked the fish industriously.  When the meal was finished and the dishes cleared away; Will turned to his chums with a sober look on his face.  When he spoke it was with suppressed excitement.  “Do you boys know exactly why we are in the Hudson Bay country?” he asked, “How much did Mr. Horton tell you?”

“Nothing at all!” Tommy replied.

“He just told us to come with you!” George cut in.

“When I tried to cross-examine him,” laughed Sandy, “he said he was afraid we wouldn’t go if he told us what sort of a game we were mixing in.”

“Well,” Will went on in a moment, “he told me to tell you after we got into camp on Moose river.”

“Go on and tell us, then,” chuckled Tommy.

“I don’t believe it’s any great mystery!” Sandy interrupted.

“We came here,” Will said, speaking seriously, “to find the Little Brass God.  Odd sort of a quest, that, eh?”

“What’s the Little Brass God?” demanded Sandy.

“Did you think it was a load of hay?” asked Tommy.  “The Little Brass God is the Little Brass God.  Didn’t you know that?”

“What does any one want of a Little Brass God?” asked George.

“The Little Brass God,” Will explained, “is believed to be valuable, chiefly for what is contained in his belly.”

“So this is a stuffed god?” cried Tommy.

“Has he eaten something he can’t digest?” cut in Sandy.

“That just explains it!” Will exclaimed.  “He has eaten something he can’t assimilate, and we’ve been sent up here to relieve him of it!”

“How did the Little Brass God ever get into the Hudson Bay country?” asked Tommy.  “I should think he’d know better.”