"
"What do you make of it?" asked Sandy.
"If you leave it to me," whispered George, still faint from loss of
blood and the effects of the drug, "I dope it out that this man who
calls himself Antoine is in possession of the Little Brass God, and
he has in some way discovered that we are here after it."
"That's a fact!" exclaimed Will, "you saw the Little Brass God,
too, didn't you?"
"I certainly did!" was the reply.
"Well, was the man who sat before the fire, the same man who gave
you the drug?" Will went on. "Did you see him plainly?"
"I've been wondering about that," George replied. "Sometimes I
think Antoine is the man who sat before the fire with the ugly
Little Brass God leering down at him. Sometimes, I think it was
Pierre who sat there. I can't quite make up my mind."
"If it was Pierre," Will said gravely, "the Little Brass God will
probably never be found! The man who gave you the drugged drink
shot the half-breed to death this morning."
"Then I hope it wasn't Pierre who sat by the fire," Sandy declared.
"We've come a long way after that Little Brass God, and got into
many a mix-up over it, so we've just got to take it back to Chicago
with us!"
"Now look here," Will reasoned, "this Antoine had some motive in
putting us boys to sleep! We don't know what that motive was, but
I think I'm giving a pretty good guess when I say that he wanted to
prevent our interfering with the Little Brass God until he had
arranged to make anything we might do in that line absolutely
worthless.
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