The Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds | Page 7

around the waist, a fur cap and rings in his ears. So Ikey was
sent out to find the fellow, and I asked Old Finklebaum what he'd give
me if I'd bring back the Little Brass God. He says he'll give me a
hundred dollars the minute I put it in his hands, and I ducked down
State street in search of this gink with the rings in his ears."
"And didn't find him?"
"If I had you wouldn't find me up here in this beastly country," replied
Thede. "That is," the boy went on, "if I had found him with the Little
Brass God in his possession."
"So you really did find him?" questioned George.
"Yes, I ran across him in a saloon down near Twelfth street, and stuck
to him like a bulldog to a cat's back for two days and nights."
"Why didn't you go and tell Finklebaum where he was, and let him do
the watching? That's what you should have done!"

"Not for mine!" answered the other. "Old Finklebaum would have
taken the case out of my hands, and fooled me out of my hundred
simoleons. I follows this gink around until he becomes sociable and
sort of adopts me. I gets into his furnished room down on Eldridge
court and searches it during his absence. There ain't no Little Brass God
there!"
'"Did you ever get your eyes on it?" asked George.
"Never!" was the reply. "But he acts funny all the time, and I think he's
got it hidden. When he gets ready to come back to the Hudson Bay
country he asks me how I'd like to come up north with him and learn to
be a trapper, so I says that if there's anything on earth I want to be it's a
trapper, and I come up here, making him think I'm after fur, when all
the time I'm after the Little Brass God."
"Are you sure the man you followed is the man who brought the toy?"
asked George, "You might have picked up the wrong man, you know."
"No I didn't!" replied Thede. "I've heard this man, Pierre, muttering and
talking in his sleep, and I know he has the Little Brass God hidden. I'll
go back to Chicago some day with it in my possession and Old
Finklebaum will pay me a couple of thousand or he'll never get hold of
it again! Won't it be a great story to tell the boys on State street about
the times I'm having up here."
The door opened and Pierre entered, anger flashing from his eyes.

CHAPTER IV
LOST IN THE STORM
"What you do here?" demanded Pierre, standing with his back against
the door and facing George with a snarl of hate and suspicion.
"I got lost!" was the quick reply.

"You go 'way!" shouted the trapper.
"Aw, what's the matter with letting him stay here all night?" asked
Thede. "These boys are hunting and fishing, and the kid got lost in the
swamp. He's all right!"
"He follow me!" insisted Pierre.
"Sure, I did!" George replied, trying to give the impression that the
matter was rather a good joke on himself. "I heard you smashing
through the bushes and I thought you were some kind of a wild animal,
and so I followed you up. I got so far away from camp that I couldn't
find my way back. Then I saw your light and came here."
"Where your gun?" demanded Pierre, pointing suspiciously to the boy's
empty hands. "You no shoot without gun!"
George drew an automatic from his pocket and held it up in the
firelight. Pierre eyed it enviously.
"We hunt with these things!" the boy said.
Pierre continued to regard the boy with suspicion, for a long time but
he finally seated himself before the fire and began to grumble because
Thede had not been more active in the preparations for supper.
"It's a wonder you wouldn't come home and get supper yourself once in
a while!" exclaimed the boy, "You needn't think I came up here in the
cold to wait on you, Old Hoss!" the lad added with a wink at George. "I
didn't leave my happy home for any such menial service."
Pierre grumbled out a few sentences in mongrel French and proceeded
to prepare a solitary meal. Thede winked at George and began cooking
enough supper for both of them.
George was thinking fast while the boy was sweating before the
scorching heat of the fire. He was wondering whether Thede had told
him the exact truth concerning his connection with Pierre. He was

wondering, too, whether the boy had told all he knew of the Little
Brass God.
Here were two parties in the Northern wilderness in quest of the same