“It must be all true, then,” he concluded.  “The man by the fire, the Little Brass God on the shelf, the pistol shots, and then a blank.”

He wondered where Thede had gone, and why he had deserted him.

“That’s the strangest part of it all,” the lad mused.  “I had an idea that the boy would stand by me if I got into trouble, and here he runs away, leaving me lying unconscious in the freezing atmosphere of this desolate old cavern.  I didn’t think it of him!”

It occurred to George as he studied over the puzzle that Thede might not have been as innocent and loyal as he had pretended to be.  He might have been merely an instrument in the hands of a cunning man.

“At any rate,” the boy pondered, “we have found the Little Brass God!”

He had not, of course, secured possession of it, but he had learned definitely that it was in that part of the country.  He wondered as to the identity of the man who sat watching the fire.  The light had been dim, and it might have been Pierre for all he knew.  Or it might have been an accomplice of the tricky trapper.

“Now, I wonder how I’m going to get back to camp,” the boy mused as he piled on more wood and spread his hands to the cheerful warmth of the fire.  “Judging from the time it took us to get here, it must be ten or twelve miles back to the camp.”

“The boys will think I’ve deserted them, I guess,” he added.  “If they knew how hungry I am just at this minute, they’d send out a relief expedition!”

While the boy warmed himself before the fire a series of growls came from the entrance to the cavern, and two black bears looked in upon him.

“Now I wonder if you’re the same disreputable citizens that tried to make a free lunch counter of me last night?” George mused.  “I presume you’re hungry, all right, but I’d rather not be the person to do the feeding this morning.  You look too fierce for me, both of you.”

The smell of blood evidently excited the bears to unusual feats of courage, for they entered the mouth of the cavern and stood growling and showing their teeth within a short distance of where George stood.

Only for the great blaze which now leaped almost to the roof of the cavern, the boy would have been attacked at once.  He glanced at the rapidly decreasing pile of wood, and wondered what would take place as soon as the fire had died down.  He had no weapon with which to defend himself.

For at least a quarter of an hour the bears and the lad gazed at each other through the red light of the fire.  The bears were gradually moving forward, and every time the lad laid a stick of wood on the blaze they seemed to understand more fully that his defense was weakening.

George thought he had never seen wood burn away so fast.  The blaze seemed to melt it as boiling water melts ice.

Already the blaze was dropping lower, and the pile of wood was almost gone.  The bears sniffed at the blood stains where the boy had lain on the floor, and turned fierce eyes on the figure by the fire.