“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, they looked in vain for the appearance of the man they had seen running away through the underbrush on the other side of the swamp, but he was not seen.

“I’d like to know what’s the matter with that fellow!” Tommy observed as darkness settled down and the two boys returned to the cabin.

In half an hour Sandy and Will came in with the provisions which they had brought from the camp, They reported that quite a large share of the tinned stuff had been cached in the snow about half way between the cabin and the site of the old camp.

“We couldn’t bring it all in,” Sandy announced.

“I hope the man we drove out of the cabin will find it if he needs it,” Will observed.