The Wolf Patrol Part 15

'I've 'ad my foot cut on a burnt root afore now.'

'Oh, Chippy,' said d.i.c.k, 'what a touch to bring his boot! That was splendid.'

''Tworn't a bad notion,' agreed Chippy. 'We'll leg it a bit again, an'

then 'ave a look at it.'

The boys ran for a mile or more, and then fell into a walk. The blackened strip of country was now out of sight, and they looked round for a place to halt for a few minutes to get their breath and examine the boot.

'We want a place,' said d.i.c.k, 'where there's good cover for ourselves, and a clear s.p.a.ce all round so that no one can surprise us. I learned that from "Aids to Scouting."'

'I see,' said Chippy. 'Wot about that patch o' thick stuff right ahead?'

'That'll do,' said d.i.c.k; 'there's plenty of room all round it;' and the boys ran to the covert and crept into it.

'Now for the boot,' murmured d.i.c.k eagerly, as Chippy laid it down between them. 'Here you are, Chippy. Here's my pocket-knife, and there's a screw-driver in it.'

'Righto,' said the Raven. 'I was just a-thinkin' 'ow to open it.'

Chippy went to work with the screw-driver in d.i.c.k's knife, and in two minutes the heel-plate was off. The screws held the iron tip and a single thickness of leather in place as a cover on the rest of the heel. In the thickness of the heel was a small cavity out of which fell three closely folded sc.r.a.ps of paper. The boys opened the papers and looked at them. They could make nothing of the marks and signs with which the tiny sheets were covered.

'There don't seem no sense at all here,' remarked Chippy.

'Those are secret signs,' replied d.i.c.k, 'so that no one can understand the information except the people for whom it is meant. I expect they'd know fast enough, if once they got hold of it.'

'Well, they won't 'ave it this time,' said Chippy. 'Wot are we goin'

to do wi' this?'

'I wonder where that sergeant is,' said d.i.c.k. 'I'll be bound that was his business on the heath, Chippy--not trying to keep convicts in, but trying to keep spies out.'

'I never took it in when he was tellin' us to tek' care o' the convic's,' said Chippy. 'Not but wot I thought at fust as one of 'em had got away.'

'So did I,' agreed d.i.c.k. 'I felt certain it was an escaped convict.'

'An' it wor' Albert,' murmured Chippy in wonder. 'Albert, wot 'ad been bad, an' come down from Lunnon for his health,' and Chippy chuckled dryly.

Before the papers were restored and the heel fastened up, d.i.c.k measured the hidden cavity with his thumb-nail. It was one inch and a quarter in length, one inch in breadth, and half an inch deep. 'Plenty of room for a lot of dangerous information there,' remarked d.i.c.k.

'What makes 'em so sharp on this game?' asked Chippy.

'Oh,' cried d.i.c.k, 'I've heard about that. A spy gets a great sum of money if he can carry back full information about the forts and soldiers of another country. You see, it is a great help if you are going to war with that country. You know just what you've got to meet, and you can be ready to meet it.'

'I see,' said Chippy. 'Well, I've done the boot up again. Now we'll have a look round for that sergeant. We've come straight back to the part where we seed 'im afore.'

'So we have,' said d.i.c.k; 'there's Woody Knap right in front of us again.'

'h.e.l.lo! wot's that?' cried Chippy, whose eyes were always on the move.

He was pointing through the covert towards the direction from which they had come. Something was moving in the distant gorse, and then they saw the spy. He was hobbling along at a good speed, his eyes bent on the ground.

'Here he comes again!' cried d.i.c.k, 'and, by Jingo, he's following our trail. I say, Chippy, he can do a bit of scouting, too.'

'That's a fact,' said Chippy, and began to steal out of the covert on the farther side. Before leaving it the two boys paused for a last look at the spy. His wounded foot was bound up in his cap with a handkerchief round it, and he was covering the ground at considerable speed. He was a first-rate tracker, and he was coming along their trail as easily as if he had been trotting on a plain road. For a few seconds the boys were held fascinated by the sight of this savage sleuth-hound at their heels. They were held as the rabbit is held, when he pauses in his flight, yet knows that all the time the weasel is following swiftly in quest of his life.

Suddenly the boys started, looked at each other, threw off the feeling, and ran away at their best speed, for the halt had given them their wind again.

'Good job we 'ad a place where we could see 'im a-comin',' remarked Chippy. 'I ain't a-goin' to forget that tip.'

'He sees us now,' cried d.i.c.k. 'He's coming faster.'

The boys were no longer hidden by the covert in which they had halted.

They had come into the spy's field of view, and now he pursued by sight, and leapt out at the best speed he could make.

Chippy looked round. 'Droppin' 'is foot down a bit tender,' commented the Raven; 'we can choke 'im off any time we want on a rough patch.'

d.i.c.k now pulled out his patrol whistle, and began to blow it.

'I'll join yer,' said Chippy, and pulled out his. The two whistles sent their shrill blasts far over the heath, as the boys ran on and on, and the spy still pursued. The latter had faltered for a moment when the whistles rang out but he had recovered his speed and hastened forward. He thought that it was a trick, that the boys wished him to fear that they had support near at hand. If only he could seize the boy who carried his boot! That was his great hope.

CHAPTER XVI

THE SPY IS SEIZED

It was a happy thought of d.i.c.k to use his patrol whistle upon reaching the strip of country where they had seen the sergeant. The latter heard the very first shrill note. He was haunting that stretch of the heath for a purpose, eyes and ears wide open. He ran towards the sound, and came plump on the boys as they raced round a bend in the way, for the two scouts were now following the heath-track where they had last seen the prints of the soldier's ammunition boots.

'Hooray!' yelled Chippy, who was a little in front. ''Ere he is.

Hooray!' and d.i.c.k joined in the cheer.

'You two again!' cried the astonished sergeant. 'What on earth are you nippers up to?'

'We've discovered a spy, sergeant,' panted d.i.c.k. 'He's running after us. He'll be up in a minute.'

At the word 'spy' the sergeant's face underwent an extraordinary change. It filled with wonder, and then a grim alertness sprang to life all over him. He dropped his hand to his holster, and whipped out a big regulation 455 revolver, blue and sombre. The boys formed behind as under cover of a tower of strength, and the spy dashed round the bend.

'Hands up!' bellowed the sergeant, and the spy knew better than to disobey with that grim dark muzzle laid full on his body.

'Heavenly powers!' murmured the sergeant, 'I was right. As sure as my name's John Lake I was right. Didn't I see you on the heath just about here last Thursday?' he demanded of the spy. The latter made no reply.

He stood, drawn up to his full height, his hands above his head, and in one of them was a long-bladed hunting-knife of the sort which folds into small compa.s.s. Now it was fully opened, and looked a very dreadful weapon. The man was white as death, and gasping fiercely from his run and this frightful surprise.

'Drop that knife,' commanded the sergeant, 'or I'll put a bullet through your wrist.'

The spy's wild eyes were fixed on the English soldier's grim face. He knew when a man meant what he said, and he dropped the knife.

'Step two yards back,' went on the sergeant. The spy did so.

'One o' you boys pick up that knife,' murmured the sergeant; and d.i.c.k ran and fetched it.

'Now, I'm in the dark yet,' went on the sergeant quietly; 'all this looks very suspicious, but how do you boys come to reckon you've nabbed a spy?'