"You are sure he didn"t find what he was looking for?"
"Dead sure!"
"Then there are two Little Bra.s.s G.o.ds!" insisted Tommy.
"Yes, and I guess the one we want is the one we haven"t got!" Will said.
"I don"t see how this fellow could have the one containing the last will of Simon Tupper," Tommy argued. "Can you open the tummy of the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d, Will?" asked Sandy.
"Mr. Frederick Tupper showed me how to do the trick," Will answered.
"Then why don"t you see whether this is the right one or not?"
asked Sandy. "If you can open it, it"s the one; if you can"t, it isn"t the one!"
"Wise little boy!" exclaimed Will taking the ugly image into his hands again.
He pressed here and there on the surface of the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d, touching now a shoulder, now a foot, now the top of the head, for all the world like one operating the combination of a safe.
"You see," he said, as he continued his strange employment, "the sh.e.l.l of the image is not very thick and when I press on certain parts, certain things take place on the inside."
He put his ear to the side of the image and listened intently.
"There!" he said. "You can hear a click like the dropping of a tumbler when I press here at the back."
"If the combination works, then," shouted Tommy, "it must be that we have the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d holding the will."
"It works all right enough," Will replied.
With the final pressure on an elbow Will turned a foot to the right and the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d opened exactly in the center.
But no will was found in the cavity. Instead a ma.s.s of diamonds, emeralds, pearls, rubies, amethysts glittered out upon the floor.
The boys stood looking at the shining ma.s.s with wide open eyes.
"There must be a million dollars there!" Tommy said almost in a whisper.
"I wasn"t thinking of that!" Will said. "I was thinking that, after all our labor and pains, we have unearthed the wrong Bra.s.s G.o.d."
"But we"ve just got to find the right Bra.s.s G.o.d," Sandy insisted.
"Yes, and we"ll have a sweet old time doing it!" exclaimed George.
"The poor fellow who lies dead there searched every bit of s.p.a.ce inside the cabin, yet he didn"t find it!"
"But it may not be anywhere near the cabin!" exclaimed "Will.
"If we knew whether Antoine ever had it in his possession," Tommy said, "we"d know better where to look."
"Of course he had it in his possession!" said Sandy. "I"m sure he"s the man who took it from the p.a.w.nbroker"s shop on State street. Now let"s see," the boy went on, "what were the last words he spoke?"
"He started in to say Bra.s.s!" replied Will.
"Then you see, don"t you, that that proves that he knew all about it?"
"Yes, and he asked if they found what they were looking for," Tommy contributed, "and that shows that the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d he brought from Chicago is some where about this palatial abode."
CHAPTER XXII
THE TWIN BRa.s.s G.o.dS
Oje, who had been sitting by the fire, waiting for his supper, long delayed by the rush of events, now arose and took the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d into his dusky hands.
"Have you ever seen one like that before?" asked Will.
The Indian shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the body of Antoine.
"Dead man have one!" he said.
"Like this?" asked Will.
The Indian grunted an a.s.sent.
"Then I"ll tell you what took place, boys," Will said. "When Antoine shot Pierre, he came here and took possession of the cabin and provisioned it, He had had the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d in the cavern where George and Thede saw it, and he thought a safer place for it would be the cabin."
"So he moved in here and hid it!" Tommy went on. "And we boys chased along and drove him out into the wide, wide world. Now the question is whether he took the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d back to the cavern or whether he left it hidden about the cabin."
"It"s a hundred to one shot," Sandy observed, "that this dead East Indian knew that the image he sought was in or about this cabin.
The first night we came here he prowled about looking for it and tried to get one of us boys into a hypnotic trance. We don"t know how many times he has been back here since that night."
"But who sent the fellow up here after the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d, anyway?" asked George. "How did he come to get on the track of the ugly little devil."
"I guess that"s something we"ll have to find out in Chicago,"
replied Will. "All we know is that Antoine was scared to death of him, as shown by his sudden flight from the cavern when he looked in and saw the East Indian and his guide standing looking out at him."
"And they chased him clear up to our burning tree!" Thede cut in.
"That"s a fact," Sandy replied. "That dusky faced chap certainly had Antoine buffaloed!"
"Well," Will went on, "the East Indian kept returning to the cabin and Antoine kept returning to the cabin, so it"s a pretty safe bet that the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d we seek is here. Besides, the fact that Antoine asked if the East Indian found anything proves that it is in or about the cabin."
"Well, we"re going to find it if we tear the cabin to pieces,"
Tommy said. ""As Will says, it is a sure thing it is not far away."
There was not much sleep in the cabin that night, and it was a dreary supper the boys ate. Before daylight the Indian lay down upon the floor in a blanket, but the other boys remained awake until morning.
Then they began the search for the Little Bra.s.s G.o.d. They were satisfied now that Pierre had never had possession of it, that he had been despatched as one familiar with the woods and the ways of Antoine, in the Sigsbee interests to secure it from the man who had purchased it at the p.a.w.n shop. Everything pointed, as has been stated, to Antoine"s being the man who had taken it out of Chicago.