After a time George and Sandy heard some one running through the undergrowth, and the next instant Will and Tommy burst into view. It was evident that they had been running, for they were panting and their clothing was disarranged and torn in places.

The two boys hastened out to meet their chums with question marks in their eyes. Will and Tommy offered no explanation until the tents had been reached, then Tommy burst into a low chuckle.

“Can you beat it?” he asked.

“What are you talking about?” demanded George.

“What did you see out there?” asked Sandy.

“We didn’t see a thing!” declared Tommy.

“You’re wrong there!” Will cut in. “We saw the flash of a gun!”

“Some one shoot at you?” questioned George.

“Perhaps not,” Will replied, “but I heard a bullet whizzing past my ear! That’s not a very warm welcome to this blooming country, I take it.”

“What’s it all about?” asked Sandy impatiently.

“That’s the answer!” Tommy declared. “That’s all we know about it ourselves. We hear a paddle splash in the water; we go out to see what’s doing, and we get a chunk of lead plugged at us. That’s the answer so far as I know. Now, how about this fish?”

“Right as a book!” cried Sandy. “I’ve been taking care of this fish while you’ve been out there facing some boy with an air gun.”

“Yes,” laughed Tommy, “if you want to find boys with air guns, come out here about three hundred miles north of nowhere!”

The incident did not seem to affect the appetites of the boys, for they attacked the fish industriously. When the meal was finished and the dishes cleared away; Will turned to his chums with a sober look on his face. When he spoke it was with suppressed excitement. “Do you boys know exactly why we are in the Hudson Bay country?” he asked, “How much did Mr. Horton tell you?”

“Nothing at all!” Tommy replied.

“He just told us to come with you!” George cut in.

“When I tried to cross-examine him,” laughed Sandy, “he said he was afraid we wouldn’t go if he told us what sort of a game we were mixing in.”

“Well,” Will went on in a moment, “he told me to tell you after we got into camp on Moose river.”

“Go on and tell us, then,” chuckled Tommy.

“I don’t believe it’s any great mystery!” Sandy interrupted.

“We came here,” Will said, speaking seriously, “to find the Little Brass God. Odd sort of a quest, that, eh?”

“What’s the Little Brass God?” demanded Sandy.

“Did you think it was a load of hay?” asked Tommy. “The Little Brass God is the Little Brass God. Didn’t you know that?”

“What does any one want of a Little Brass God?” asked George.

“The Little Brass God,” Will explained, “is believed to be valuable, chiefly for what is contained in his belly.”

“So this is a stuffed god?” cried Tommy.

“Has he eaten something he can’t digest?” cut in Sandy.

“That just explains it!” Will exclaimed. “He has eaten something he can’t assimilate, and we’ve been sent up here to relieve him of it!”

“How did the Little Brass God ever get into the Hudson Bay country?” asked Tommy. “I should think he’d know better.”

“I reckon the Little Brass God had nothing to say regarding his journey,” replied Will. “Two months ago the house of Mr. Frederick Tupper, on Drexel Boulevard, Chicago, was burglarized. Besides taking considerable money and silver plate, the thief also carried away the Little Brass God.”

“I don’t think any thief in his right mind would do that!” declared Sandy. “What could he do with a Little Brass God? He couldn’t pawn it, or sell it, or trade it, without its being traced back to him!”

“Well, he took it just the same!” Will replied.

“How much is he worth?” asked George.

“Not more than five dollars.”

“Then he isn’t one of those East India Little Brass Gods with his legs crossed, and his arms folded, and a grin on his face?”

“His legs are crossed, his arms are folded, and there is a grin on his face!” replied Will with a smile. “But he’s certainly not one of the population of a Hindu temple.”

“He’s just a common Little Brass God, probably made in Newark, New Jersey,” suggested George. “What do they want him for?”

“They want to search him!” replied Will.

“Aw, come on, tell us all about it!” urged Tommy.

“Well,” Will explained with a smile, “the tummy of the Little Brass God is supposed to contain the last will and testament of Simon Tupper, father of Frederick Tupper.”

“Gee!” exclaimed Tommy. “Can’t he get the property until he gets the will? Then we’ll have to find it, I guess!”

“No, he can’t get the property unless the will is found.”

“Who stole the Little Brass God, and also the will?” asked George.

“Did he know he was stealing the will when he stole the Little Brass God?” asked Sandy without giving Will an opportunity to reply to the previous question. “How’d he know the will was there?”

“We don’t know whether he knew about the will or not,” answered the boy. “In fact, we don’t know whether the document is still in the tummy of the Little Brass God. That’s what we’ve got to find out.”

“You didn’t tell me who stole the Little Brass God and the will,” insisted George.

“I said it was a burglar!”

“But was it a burglar a real, genuine burglar?”

“Yes, loosen up!” shouted Tommy. “Did he go there just to burgle, or did he go there to get that will?”

“That’s another thing we’ve got to find out!” Will answered. “It’s just this way,” the boy continued. “We’ve been sent up here to find this Little Brass God. When we find it, we’ll know whether the man who stole it was a common thief, or whether he was sent by interested parties to do the job. No living person can open the Little Brass God without first learning the way to do it. In fact, the only way the toy can be opened by one unfamiliar with the secret is to break it open with an axe! And that would hardly be done, as the little fellow is rather a cute plaything.”

“And so, if the will is there, a burglar stole it. And if the will is not there, some one interested in the disposition of the property walked away with it! Is that it?”

“That’s the way we figure it out!” Will answered. “And in the meantime,” he continued, “an older will is being offered for probate. If the Little Brass God fails to disclose the last will, the property will go to a young man who was intensely hated and despised by the man who built up the fortune. Simon Tupper will turn over in his grave if Howard Sigsbee, his nephew, has the handling of that money.”

“I can’t see how that’s going to get Simon anything!” grinned Tommy.

“Now,” George asked, “why do they think the Little Brass God was brought into the Hudson Bay country?”

“We have traced it to an antique shop on lower State street,” Will answered. “From there to the shabby parlor of a fourth rate boarding house on Dearborn avenue, from there into the possession of a French Canadian who hunts and fishes in the Moose river district.”

“That’s pretty straight!” George agreed.

“How do they know this French Canadian got this Little Brass God out of town?” asked Sandy. “You take a French Canadian of the trapper sort, and get him well tanked, and he’ll sell the ears off his head for another drink of brandy. Perhaps he hocked the Little Brass God.”

“If he did,” Will answered, “the search must begin all over again!”

“Who put this will in the tummy of this Little Brass God?” asked Tommy.

“The man who made it Simon Tupper,” answered Will.

“Did he tell anyone where it was?”

“On his deathbed, he told Frederick Tupper, his nephew, where to find it. It’s a pity the young man didn’t remove the document and file it in probate court. It would have saved a lot of bother.”

“But he didn’t,” George suggested, “and that gives us a fine trip to the Hudson Bay country.”

“When was the house of this Frederick Tupper burglarized?” asked Sandy.

“On the night following the death of the old gentleman.”

“Had the villain of the drama, this Howard Sigsbee, any knowledge concerning the hiding place of the will?”

“He was not believed to have.”

“Do they think he went there and got the will himself?”

“Huh!” objected Tommy. “If he’d gone after the will himself, he’d have taken it out of the Little Brass God and carried it away with him. And he’d have made a pile of ashes of it in about one minute, at that!”

“Perhaps he couldn’t open up the merry little chap,” Sandy suggested.

“We don’t know whether he understood the secret or not,” Will answered. “All we know is that the Little Brass God was still intact a week after it had been stolen.”

“Then he knew the combination, or he didn’t get the will!” argued George.

“Say, just how big is this Little Brass God?” asked Sandy.

“He’s about six inches in height, and three inches across his dirty shoulders, and he certainly is about the ugliest specimen of a heathen beast that ever came down the pike.”

“What would that French Canadian buy him for?” asked George.

“That’s another thing we’ve got to find out,” replied Will.

Tommy was about to ask another question when Will held up a hand for silence. The leaping flames were sending long streamers of light into the thicket on either side and over the glistening waters of Moose river. The circle of illumination extended for some distance on every side, except at the back of the tents, where the level ground lay in shadows.

As the boys listened, the soft sound of a moccasined foot came to their ears. It seemed only a yard away, and yet it was not in sight. George dashed to the back of the tents, followed by a sharp cry of alarm.