The boys followed the tracks toward the morass some distance and then returned to the cabin.
"Whoever the fellow is," Will argued, "he found it necessary to get a half-breed or Indian guide."
"How do you know that?" asked Tommy. "That may have been Antoine in the moccasins."
"I give it up!" replied Will. "I don't know anything about it."
"I shouldn't wonder at all if some faithful Hindu had sailed across the Pacific ocean, and traveled half across the continent, to rescue a faked Brass God from the polluted hands of an Unbeliever."
"You don't really think there's any of this Hindu temple business in this Little Brass God case, do you?" asked Tommy.
"Well, the face I saw at the window looked like that of an East Indian!" declared Will. "His skin was brassy, and his eyes had the devil's leer in them just as the eyes of the Little Brass God are said to have."
"Well," Tommy declared with a yawn, "I'm going back to bed!"
"That's what I'm going to do," Will agreed. "If we sit up here until we solve this new problem, we'll probably never get any more sleep as long as we live."
Seeing that the door and windows were securely fastened, the boys, who had been sleeping together, went back to their bunk, and there was only the crackling of the fire and the roaring of the wind to break the silence.