CHAPTER X
THE PATROL'S SURPRISE – A THIEF

There were several quick feints, but neither loosed his ball. Then Dick ran right in, and Chippy threw straight at him. The Wolves raised a howl of joy when their patrol-leader made a clever swerve and dodged the flying ball. Then Dick let fly in turn, as Chippy sprang away to the right. But no sooner did the latter's quick eye detect that the ball had left Dick's hand than he dropped flat on his face, and the ball skimmed just clear of him.

Down the hill streamed the two patrols, for the battle was over. By the laws of the game no second shot may be taken at the same enemy.

'Who has won, Mr. Elliott?' cried the boys, as they raced up to the place where the rival leaders were laughing at each other's failure in bringing off the finishing touch.

'I shall call it a drawn battle,' said the umpire, 'with the advantage slightly on the side of the Ravens, as their man has more flags than the other;' and this decision gave much satisfaction, and all voted it a first-rate piece of sport.

'Now back to headquarters!' cried Mr. Elliott. 'We'll make a fire, and try our hand at baking chupatties, for some of you are not up to Test 12 yet.'

The Ravens were very keen on this, for none of them had yet tried their hands on cooking a quarter of a pound of flour and two potatoes without cooking utensils, and they were anxious to see how it was done.

'Cut over and fetch the basket, Dick,' said Mr. Elliott, as they gained the sandpit; 'there's a score of oranges in it as well. They'll come in handy after scouting over the heath.'

'Rather!' said Dick. 'A good juicy orange is just what I want, uncle;' and away he ran.

'Shall we gather some sticks ready for the fire, Mr. Elliott?' said Billy Seton.

'We'll have our oranges first, Billy,' replied the instructor. 'We can soon get plenty of sticks if all hands turn to.'

A shout of surprise rang across the pit, and all eyes were turned towards Dick. He was bending over the corner where the basket containing the flour, potatoes, and oranges had been carefully hidden under ferns and tufts of dried grass.

'It's gone!' yelled Dick. 'There's no basket here!'

Gone! All ran over to the place at once, and there was the hollow in the sand where the basket had been set down; but the hollow was quite empty, and the fern and grass had been tossed aside.

'Someone's bagged it!' cried Billy Seton. 'It's been stolen while we were away at the Beacon.'

'There's nothing else to account for it,' said Mr. Elliott. 'Now, my brave Boy Scouts,' he laughed, 'here's your chance to prove your mettle and skill. Track this thief – for a thief has been here without doubt.'

The boys were full of delight at the idea, and sprang with the utmost eagerness to search for the track of the rogue who had stolen the basket. The Wolves took one side of the pit, the Ravens the other, and began to look out closely for any mark of a foot entering or leaving the place. Almost at once a Wolf's howl was raised. Harry Maurice had found the mark of a heavy nailed boot, which had scored the sharply rising slope at the southern end of the pit. The mark was fresh, and led out of the hollow, and it seemed very likely that it was the trail of the thief.

The patrol-leaders took it up and raced along it, with their scouts at their heels.

For a quarter of a mile it was followed as easily as possible, for the ground was broken and sandy; then the trail ran on to short, close turf, and was lost. The patrol flags were driven in, and the band spread out on a broad front, and carefully advanced, searching for the spoor. No. 5 of the Ravens hit on it well away to the right, where the marauder had set his foot on a mole-heap in the turf, and left a clear track of his big, square hob-nails.

'Kar-kaw! Kar-kaw!' The call gathered everyone to the spot, and the leaders were agreed that it was the right track. And again they spread out on a new front, for the trail was once more lost on hard, crisp turf.

This time it was not eyesight, but smell, which put the pursuers on the track of their quarry. Chippy had gone some distance ahead on the probable line, and Dick was near at hand. Suddenly Chippy lifted his head and sniffed at the air, his nostrils working like a hound's on hot scent.

'What is it, Chippy?' said Dick, who had noticed his companion's movement.

'Bacca,' said Chippy briefly. 'Right ahead! Come on!'

'Yes; I can smell it now,' said Dick, as they ran forward. 'It's coming down the wind.'

The two patrol-leaders burst through a bramble-thicket, stopped dead, and raised with all the force of their lungs their patrol cries; for they had run their man to earth. There, straight below them, in a little hollow, sitting on the stump of an old thorn, and peacefully smoking, was a man with their basket set before him, its contents rolled out on the grass.

'Why, it's a big, dirty tramp!' said Dick.

'Yus,' agreed Chippy. 'It's a Weary Waddles, right enough. Now we'll get 'im on the 'op.'

Up dashed Wolves and Ravens, and there was no need for their leaders to say a word: the situation explained itself.

'Charge!' roared Dick; and the two patrols burst from the thicket and swept down upon the marauder in a wild, mad wave of shouting boys and whirling sticks. For a second the tramp sat moveless in paralyzed astonishment. Then he grasped what it meant, and he jumped to his feet and scuttled away as hard as he could pelt.

The swift-footed boys pursued, yelling in delight, and promising that he should feel the weight of a scout's staff, when a long shrill call on a whistle checked them. Mr. Elliott had come in sight of the chase, and he recalled the pursuers at once.

'Let him go,' said Mr. Elliott; 'you've given him a good fright; and the next time he comes across a hidden basket perhaps he won't be so prompt in carrying it off.'

'Has he done any harm, Mr. Elliott?' asked Harry Maurice.

'He's had a couple of oranges, Harry, that's all,' said Mr. Elliott, putting back into the basket the bag of flour and the potatoes which had been tumbled out. 'Now all of you take an orange apiece – there are plenty left – and we'll start back and have a go at our chupatties after all.'

'He knew the heath, that fellow,' cried Billy Seton. 'He'd made for a jolly quiet place to unpack the basket and see what was in it.'

'Yes,' said the instructor. 'You might have rambled over the heath all day in a haphazard fashion without hitting on him. It was quite a scout's bit of work to follow him up. You're coming on; I shall be proud of you yet!'

So, laughing and talking, and eating their oranges, the Wolves and Ravens and their instructor marched back to the sandpit, where the rest of the afternoon was spent in the merriest fashion, so that all were sorry when the dusk began to settle over the heath and drove them homewards.

CHAPTER XI
CHIPPY MEETS A STRANGER

On a Sunday afternoon, some three weeks after the contest round the Beacon, Chippy was crossing the heath towards the little village – or, rather, hamlet – of Locking, three miles from Bardon. He was taking a message from his mother to his grandmother, who lived in the hamlet. The latter consisted of not more than half a dozen scattered cottages, tucked away in a quiet corner of the heath – a lonely, secluded place.

Chippy's destination was the first cottage beside the grass-grown track which was the only road into Locking. He lifted the latch of the gate and entered the garden. Standing in the garden was a young man whom Chippy had never seen before. Chippy looked hard at the stranger, and the stranger took his pipe out of his mouth and stared hard at Chippy.

'Hallo, nipper!' he said at last.

Chippy acknowledged the politeness by a nod, and went up the paved path to the cottage door. His grandmother was busy about the wood-fire on the broad hearth, making the tea, and she told him he'd just come at the right time to have a cup with them.

'Who's that out in the garden, gra'mother?' asked Chippy.

'That's my lodger,' replied the old woman.

'I never knowed yer 'ave a lodger afore!' said Chippy.

'No; I never did,' she replied. 'But he come here an' he begged o' me to gie him a room, an' I did. 'Twas Jem Lacey's mother as brought him. He's come from Lunnon. His name's Albert.'

At this moment the latch of the door clicked and the lodger came in.

'Tea ready, Mrs. Ryder?' he asked.

'In a minute,' she replied. 'This here's my grandson. He've a-come over from Bardon.'

The stranger gave Chippy a cheerful nod, and they soon fell into conversation, and Albert proved very talkative.

'First-rate place to pick yer up, this is!' remarked the lodger.

'Been ill?' asked Chippy.

'Ain't I just?' replied the other. 'I'm boots at a big 'otel in the Strand, an' there's a lot o' them Americans come to our place. An' I can tell yer their stuff tykes a bit o' handlin'. Them American women, they travel wiv boxes about the size of a four-roomed cottage, more or less. An' I got a bit of a strain pullin' of 'em about. Then I ketched a bad cold, an' it sort o' settled in the bellows!' – and the stranger gave himself a thump on the chest – 'so I had to go on my club, an' I was laid up eight or nine weeks. Well, arter I'd been on the box that time, the doctor, 'e says to me, 'e says: "What you want now is a change an' fresh air." So Jem Lacey – he's porter at our place – put me up to this spot, an' it's done me wonders!'

'Yer look all right now,' said Chippy, and Chippy spoke truly.

The lodger appeared the picture of health. He was tall, broad, of fair complexion, had sandy hair and blue eyes, and, as he drank his tea, he looked as fit as a fiddle.

'Ah, it's a healthy place here on th' old h'eth!' said Mrs. Ryder.

'Look at me!' said Albert. 'I'm a livin' example!'

The conversation now turned on Bardon, and the stranger showed keen interest in the ships which had lately gone up and down the river.

'I know a bit about ships,' he remarked, 'I 'ad a brother as went for a sailor.'

After a time he returned to the garden to smoke his pipe, and Chippy looked after him through the window.

'He seems a smart un!' remarked the boy.

'Ay, that Lunnon do mek 'em lively!' replied Mrs. Ryder. 'He's the best o' comp'ny – a very nice young man, I'm sure! He's no trouble at all – blacks his own boots, an' looks arter hisself all ways! I worn't willin' at first to let him have my empty room, but I'm glad I did. The place has done him a power o' good, though he didn't look very ill time he come down!'

'What's his name?' asked Chippy.

'Albert,' replied the old woman.

'I know that one,' said the boy, 'What's t'other name?'

'I dunno,' returned Mrs. Ryder. 'He told me to call him Albert, and I niver asked his other name.'

Everything that happens, everyone that appears, must furnish food for practice for a Boy Scout, and Chippy ran his eye over Albert from head to foot, and noted every detail of his perfectly commonplace appearance. Then the boy followed him into the garden, and, true to the habit which was rapidly becoming an instinct, he dropped a glance on Albert's track. There was a patch of damp earth near the door, and the lodger's footprint was plainly stamped on it. At the first swift look Chippy gathered that there was something slightly different from usual about the heel-print. He did not look closely, for you must never let anyone know that either he himself or the trail he leaves, is being watched; but there was something. Chippy strolled forward, but no other mark was to be seen; the garden path was hard, clean gravel.

Albert had seated himself on a bench nailed against an elm in the garden fence, and was smoking calmly in the sunshine. As Chippy drew near, he turned his head and smiled in a friendly fashion.

'I s'pose you know all the creeks along the river pretty fair?' he asked.

'Most of 'em,' replied Chippy.

'I've heerd Jem Lacey talk of a place they called Smuggler's Creek, where the old smugglers used to run their boats in,' went on Albert; 'I should like to 'ave a look at that. When I was a kid I used to be fair crazy arter tales of old smugglers an' that sort o' thing.'

'I know it all right,' replied Chippy. 'There ain't no 'ouse nor anythin' for miles of it.'

'Not nowadays?' cried Albert.

'Yus!' returned Chippy. 'It's just as quiet as it used to be.'

'Could a boat from a ship in the river go up it?' asked Albert.

'Oh, easy!' replied Chippy; and, in response to the other's request, he gave clear directions for finding the spot.

'I'll 'ave a look at it,' said the lodger. 'I like a good long walk. The doctor told me as that was the best thing for me. So I got a good strong pair o' trotter-cases, an' I tramp out wet an' dry.'

He raised one of his heavy boots for a moment, and let it fall.

'Got it,' said the pleased scout to himself, but gave no sign of his discovery. The heavy iron tips on Albert's heels were screwed on instead of nailed on, and the groove in the head of each screw had left a small but distinct ridge in the earth at each point where the screws came in the heel.

It was only practice, but Chippy was as keen in practice as he was when chasing the thievish tramp for the lost basket. He had mastered the idea that it will not do to be keen by fits and starts: you must be on the spot all the time. So he took away from Locking that afternoon one fact which he had discovered about his grandmother's lodger – the boots from a London hotel – that the tips on his heels were screwed on, whereas the common method is nailing.