CHAPTER XII
DICK AND CHIPPY MEET A SERGEANT – THE QUEER TRAIL – A STRANGE DISCOVERY

The Monday week after Chippy's visit to Locking was Easter Monday and a general holiday. The Wolves and the Ravens made it a grand field-day, and they were on the heath by nine o'clock, each with a day's food in pocket or haversack, and a grand scouting-run ahead – a run which had been planned from point to point by Mr. Elliott, who accompanied them. The patrols had by now worked together several times, and had become brothers in arms.

The old foolish feuds between them were completely forgotten, and when Dick and his friends crossed Quay Flat the wharf-rats would now swarm out, not with sticks for a 'slug,' but with salutes and eager inquiries as to progress in this or that game dear to the hearts of Boy Scouts.

But it is not with this Easter-Monday scouting-run of the combined patrols that we are about to deal. We shall go straight away to the hour of three o'clock on that afternoon, when a very memorable and exciting experience for the two patrol-leaders began to unfold itself.

Mr. Elliott had set his band of scouts the hardest task of the day. He himself had put on the irons, and was laying the track. He had warned them that it would be a tough test – something to really try them – and so it proved. If they failed to run him down, they were all to meet at a little railway-station about two miles away, from which they would go back to Bardon by rail. They were already a good eight miles from home, for they had marched right across to an unknown part of the heath to carry out their manoeuvres.

At one point, where Mr. Elliott's track seemed to have vanished into the very earth, Dick took a long cast away to the right by himself. As he moved slowly forward he heard a rustle of bushes, and looked up and saw Chippy trotting to join him.

'He's done us one this time!' said Chippy, grinning; 'I'm blest if I can 'it the trail anywheer!'

'It's jolly hard to find any sign,' answered Dick; 'but he told us it was to be a stiff thing, and if we can't get hold of it we shall have to head for the station, that's all. But we'll have a good go at it. What about a cast round by that rabbit warren over there? The ground's half covered with soft soil the rabbits have thrown out of their holes. If he's gone that way the irons will leave a dead certain track.'

'Righto!' murmured the Raven leader, and they trotted across to the rabbit warren and began to search the heaps of sandy soil.

They were working along the foot of a bank with faces bent to the earth, when suddenly they were startled by a voice hailing them a few yards away.

'Hallo, there!' called someone.

The boys glanced up, and at once straightened themselves and came to the salute. A tall man in khaki and putties stood on the top of the bank looking at them, a revolver in the holster strapped at his side.

'And who may you be, and what do you want here?' he asked pleasantly, and returned the salute.

'We're Boy Scouts,' replied Dick, 'and our patrols are out for a big scouting-run over the heath.'

'Ah, yes! Boy Scouts – I've heard of you,' said the big man, still smiling at them. 'Well, I'm in the same line myself. But you can't come any further this way, mateys. You'll have to scout back, if you don't mind.'

'Why must we do that, sergeant?' asked Dick, who had noted the chevrons on the big man's sleeve, and understood them.

'Well,' said the good-natured soldier, 'it's like this: We've got a lot of big, bad convicts at work over there,' and he jerked his head behind him, 'and we keep 'em strictly to themselves, you see. They're bad company for anybody but the men as looks after 'em, so we keep this corner of the country clear of other people.'

'At that rate,' laughed Dick, 'the track we want isn't likely to be laid your way?'

'Not it,' said the sergeant, 'else I should ha' spotted it on my round. No, mateys, you can cut right back. Ta-ta!'

The boys gave him a farewell salute, and ran back towards the spot where they had left the rest of the patrol.

'That's a rum game, ain't it?' remarked Chippy – 'a soldier a-walkin' round in a quiet place like that theer. Who's he a-tryin' to cop?'

'Perhaps watching to see that no convicts escape,' suggested Dick. 'You know, Chippy, they often try to cut and run if they see a chance.'

'Yus,' said the Raven. 'I've seed that in the papers. But wot do they want convicts for on the h'eth?'

'I know,' cried Dick – 'I know. I heard my father talking about it at dinner the other day. It's the Horseshoe Fort at the mouth of the river. They're making it ever so much bigger and putting new guns there so as to be ready if ever some enemy should come to our country and try to sail up the river. The convicts are at work there, digging and building and doing all sorts of things.'

'I see,' nodded Chippy; 'that's 'ow they mek' 'em useful, I s'pose.'

'That's it,' said Dick, 'and that sergeant we saw was one of the men in charge of them.'

'He soon started us back,' murmured Chippy.

'Yes,' said Dick; 'I heard my father say that they are very strict about letting any stranger go near the place.'

'That was on'y gammon of his about them convicts,' remarked Chippy.

'Of course it was,' agreed Dick; 'he wouldn't let anyone go nearer the fort on any account.'

'How far are we off?' asked Chippy.

'I'll soon tell you!' replied Dick, and pulled his haversack round. From this he took out a small leathern case with a map tucked away in it. The map was a shilling section of the Ordnance Survey on the scale of one inch to a mile. Dick had bought it and carried it as patrol-leader. The space it covered – eighteen miles by twelve – was ample for their work.

Dick knelt down and spread the map on the ground; Chippy knelt beside him. Chippy had never seen such a map before, and his keen intelligence was soon deeply interested. His finger began to run along roads he knew, and to point out spots he had often visited.

'Why, wi' this,' he declared, 'ye could go anywhere if ye'd never seed the place afore. Look here, this is the road to Lockin', an', I'm blest! why, 'ere's my gra'mother's house, this little black dot, just off o' the road. An' 'ere's the Beacon, an' there's the san'pit!'

'Yes, it's a jolly good map,' said Dick, 'and very clear in the heath part, for there are few roads and few houses, and every one is put in. Now, where are we? Let's find the rail and the station. That will give us our bearings.'

The boys considered the map very carefully for a few moments; then Dick put his finger on a certain spot.

'That's just about where we are now,' he said, 'and I can prove it, I think.'

'I should just like to know 'ow ye do prove it,' said Chippy, to whom this map was a new and wonderful thing.

'Well,' said Dick, 'we know in a general way we're no very great distance from the Horseshoe, and here that is.' He placed his finger on the spot where the big redoubt was shown on the map. 'Then here's rising ground with trees on it, marked Woody Knap. Now, where's that?'

'Why, theer it is,' replied Chippy, pointing to a hill which rose above the heath at some distance. 'It must be that. There ain't no other hill wi' trees on it in all this part o' the h'eth.'

'And how far is it away from us?'

''Bout a mile.'

'Which way does it lie?'

Chippy considered the sun, and thought over the directions Mr. Elliott had given the scouts time and again.

'Right away north,' he answered.

'Very well, then,' said Dick. 'We're a mile to the south. And a mile on the heath is an inch on the map. Now, my thumb-nail is just half an inch – I've measured it; so twice my thumb-nail to the south of Woody Knap brings us to the spot where we are.'

'So it does,' cried Chippy, with enthusiasm. 'It's as plain as plain now ye put it that way. An' that's a proper dodge, to measure it off wi' yer thumb-nail.'

'Oh, uncle gave me that tip,' laughed Dick. 'It's very useful for measuring short distances on the map. When you want a rule, you generally find you've left it at home, but your thumb-nail is always on the spot.'

'Yus,' smiled Chippy; 'ye mostly bring it wi' yer. Now,' he went on, 'wot's the distance to the Fort?'

'To the Horseshoe?' said Dick, and began to measure. 'Barely a couple of miles,' he said. 'We're quite close. Isn't it lonely country all round it? There isn't another building for miles on this side of the river.'

The broad tidal river curved down the western side of the map, widening rapidly as it neared the sea. Its western bank was dotted with hamlets and villages and scattered farms, with roads and lanes winding in every direction; from the eastern bank the heath stretched away with scarce a road or house to be seen for a great distance.

'We must get on, Chippy,' said Dick, starting to fold up the map, 'or we shall get clean out of touch with the other fellows. We've been studying this thing quite a while.'

'Oh, we'll soon drop across 'em,' replied Chippy; 'they ain't found anythin', or they'd be a-hootin' like mad.'

He rose to his feet and strolled slowly forward, while Dick put the map-case back into the haversack. The latter was adjusted, and Dick was just rising in turn, when something moving caught his eye. Seventy yards away a rabbit flashed at full speed across an open strip of turf, and dived full into its burrow, and vanished with a flick of white scut.

'Down, Chippy!' hissed Dick; and the Raven fell flat on his face behind a gorse-bush, and Dick crouched lower and watched.

'Someone has disturbed that rabbit,' thought Dick, and he waited to discover who that someone was. Dick knew the ways of wild rabbits perfectly well. If a rabbit feels certain that no one is near, he ambles about in the most unconcerned fashion; but scent, sight, or sound of man, dog, or other enemy sends him to his hole at treble-quick speed.

Three minutes passed, and no one appeared. Four, five, and Dick began to think it was a stoat or weasel from which the rabbit had fled. Then he knew it was not; it was a man, for there was a movement in the clump of bushes from which the rabbit had darted, and Dick saw a tall figure moving very slowly. He waited for it to come into the open, but it did not. It bent down and disappeared.

'Why,' thought Dick, 'he's going to work just like a scout. Is he slipping off under cover of those low blackthorns?'

The boy watched the line of dwarf bushes, and was soon certain that the stranger was doing this. He caught a glimpse of the man's form through a thin patch, then lost it as the hidden figure crept on.

Dick dropped flat on the ground, and slid along to the spot where Chippy lay behind the gorse-bush, and told his companion what he had seen.

'Rum go, that!' murmured Chippy, who from his post had been unable to catch any glimpse of the stranger. 'Yer sure that it warn't Mr. Elliott!'

'Oh no; it wasn't my uncle!' whispered Dick. 'I didn't see the man clearly, but I should have known at once if it had been my uncle.'

'How about the sergeant?' said Chippy. 'P'raps he's come a-creepin' arter us, to be sure we've cleared off.'

'No; I'm sure it wasn't the sergeant,' replied Dick. 'The man had a cloth cap on, and the sergeant had a flat-topped soldier's cap.'

Suddenly Chippy's eyes became round and bright, and he turned a look full of meaning upon his companion.

'Wot about a convict?' he whispered.

'By Jingo!' murmured Dick. 'There may be something in that, Chippy! Has a convict escaped? Is he trying to steal across the heath to find somewhere to hide himself? Is that it?'

Chippy said nothing, but he gave a nod of deep meaning, and the two boys stared at each other.

'We must follow 'im up,' said Chippy at last. 'Track 'im down an' see wot it means.'

'Yes, we must,' agreed Dick. 'You see, Chippy, if he is an escaped convict, he may be a very dangerous character to be at large. I've heard of them attacking lonely places to get food and clothes to help them to escape.'

'I've heerd o' that, too,' said the leader of the Ravens; 'an' some o' the h'eth folk, they live in cottages all by theirselves.'

'Yes; and suppose such a man went to a place where there was no one at home but a woman, or a woman and children?' said Dick.

'Who knows wot 'e might do?' And Chippy shook his head. 'We're bound to lend a hand, then – Law 3, ye know.'

'Right you are, Chippy,' said Dick. 'Law 3. Come on!' And the two boy scouts, game as a pair of terriers, crept swiftly up to the clump of bushes from which the mysterious stranger had emerged.

From the bushes the track was easy to follow for some distance. There were no footmarks, but the ferns were brushed aside and some were broken, and these signs showed which way the man had gone. When the ferns were left behind, there was still a fair trail, for the heavy boots of the stranger had broken the grass, or scraped a little earth loose here and there along the slope of the ridge which led up to Woody Knap.

Suddenly the boys lost the trail. It disappeared on a strip of turf, and they slipped back at once to the last spot of which they could be sure – a soft patch of earth where hobnail marks were fresh and clear.

'Now we've got to separate and try to pick up the line,' said Dick softly. 'I'll work right, and you left; and we'll meet at that big thorn-bush right in front, if we've found nothing. If one of us hits on the track, he must call to the other.'

'Wait a bit,' said Chippy. 'Wot call? Our own calls 'ud sound odd, an' might give 'im the tip as somebody was arter 'im.'

'You're right,' said Dick; 'the wolf howl, at any rate, is no good here.'

'Let's 'ave a call for ourselves this time,' suggested Chippy. 'One as you might 'ear at any minute, an' never notice. How about the pewey?'

'First-rate!' said Dick. 'The pewey. There are plenty of them on the heath!'

Bardon boys always called the 'peewit' the 'pewey,' and every one of them could imitate its well-known call. Nothing more simple and natural could have been adopted as a signal.

Dick was working most carefully round his half of the circle, when the cry of the peewit rang out from the other side. Away shot Dick, quickly and quietly, and, as he ran, the call was repeated, and this guided him straight to the spot where Chippy was kneeling beside the mouth of a rabbit burrow. The rabbits had been at work making the burrow larger, and a trail of newly thrown out earth stretched three or four feet from the hole.

'Have you got the track?' breathed Dick eagerly.

'I've got summat,' replied Chippy; 'it looks pretty rum, too!'

Dick dropped beside his companion, and saw that a foot had been set fair and square in the trail of earth. But there was no sign of a nail to be seen; the track of the foot was smooth and flat, and outlined all the way from heel to toe.

'That's not a boot-mark,' said Dick.

'No, it ain't,' murmured Chippy. 'If you ask me, I should say it wor' stockin' feet.'

'But what should he pull his boots off for?' said Dick, knitting his brows. 'This is an awfully strange affair, Chippy.'

'Ain't it?' said the latter, his eyes glittering with all the excitement of the chase, and the pleasure of having found this queer mark. 'As far as I can mek' out, he wanted to step as soft as he could tread.'

'But why – why, in the middle of the heath, here?' went on Dick.

'I dunno yet,' said Chippy; 'let's get on a bit, an' see if we pick up summat else.'

Dick blew out a long breath. 'It's going to be jolly hard,' he murmured, 'to track a fellow in his stockings. We've got to keep our eyes open.'

Chippy nodded, and they went on slowly and warily. As it happened, Dick scored the next move in the game. Thirty yards from the rabbit burrow a heath track crossed the trail they were following. The weather had been very dry lately, until about twelve o'clock of the present day, when a heavy shower had fallen – a shower from which the scouts had sheltered in a hovel where the heath-folk store their turves.

This shower had wetted the dust of the track, and Dick at once saw clear, heavy footmarks, as if a man had quite lately walked along the path and gone on.

'Here's a perfectly fresh track,' said Dick; 'and this chap in his stockings has crossed it at this patch of grass where he has left no sign on the path.'

'Seems to me,' remarked Chippy, 'as 'im wot we're arter heerd this one a-comin',' and Chippy pointed to the firm new tracks; 'an' then he off wi' his boots to dodge along on the quiet.'

'I don't see anything else for it,' said Dick; 'and that would make it plainer than ever that he's up to no good.'

'Look theer!' snapped Chippy swiftly, and pointed.

Dick whirled round in time to see a man's head and shoulders appear over the bushes at a far bend of the way, and then vanish as the walker turned the corner. But both boys had recognised him. It was the sergeant with whom they had spoken.

Dick gave a long, low whistle. 'He was dodging the sergeant, Chippy!'

'It's a convict!' said Chippy. 'Can't be nuthin' else!'

For a moment the boys discussed the plan of running after the sergeant and laying the matter before him, but they gave it up, for several reasons. He was a good way ahead, and out of sight. He might turn right or left across the open heath, and in that case they would have to hunt his track while their quarry was going farther and farther away. They decided to stick to their man, and turned to his spoor.

'Here's his road,' said Dick, pointing along a grassy glade. 'He's gone on, and he must have gone this way. It's all bramble and gorse everywhere else, and a man isn't going through that in his stockings.'

Chippy nodded in agreement, and the two scouts ran at full apeed along the narrow ribbon of grass between the prickly, spiny bushes.

'He'll soon put his boots on again,' said Dick,' and then we'll get this line a lot easier.'

But the fugitive had not stayed to do so for a long way, as was plain from the flat, smooth marks which the boys found twice in soft places. Then the trail went again, and they pulled up and began to beat round in search of it. It was Dick this time who uttered the cry of the peewit, and Chippy ran up to find his brother scout holding a fragment of something in his fingers.

'Picked it up just here,' said Dick. 'What do you reckon it is. Chippy?'

'Bit of an old cork sock,' replied the Raven.

'Just so,' said Dick, 'and it's quite dry, so it was dropped here since the rain.'

'One to you,' said Chippy; 'that come out of 'is boot – jerked out as 'e was runnin'. We're on the line.'

He made a few steps forward, then gave a low cry. 'Here's the place where he put 'is boots on,' called Chippy eagerly. 'Here's all sorts o' marks.' And then Chippy gave another low cry, this time full of such astonishment and wonder that Dick looked at him quickly.

To Dick's surprise, Chippy seemed fixed to the spot, his finger pointing, his eyes staring, his mouth gaping open, as if he could not believe what he saw. 'I know the tracks,' gasped Chippy. 'I know 'im! I can tell yer who it is!'