The Wolf Patrol Part 40

'Here's the wust of 'em. Cop 'im, my lads,' roared Chippy, in a voice which he made as deep as a well. And d.i.c.k lashed out and fetched the big fellow a staggerer with his patrol staff, and shouted also.

Feeling the blow, and hearing the voices at his back, the poacher thought that a crowd of foes was upon him, and took to his heels and fled through a coppice, cras.h.i.+ng through bushes and saplings with furious lumbering speed.

The scouts slipped away to see how the second keeper was getting on, and found that he had got Smiley safe and sound, while the third man had vanished. Upon the other bank one was captive and the other had fled.

'How are you gettin' on there, Jem?' called the keeper who had secured Smiley.

'Oh, I've as good as got my man,' replied Jem, returning to the river-bank. 'It was Bill Horden, that big navvy. I'll nail him to-morrow all right. But there was the rummest thing happened over yonder, 'mongst the trees.' And he burst into the story of his rescue.

'I'd have had my head kicked in if they boys hadn't run up and started Bill off,' he concluded; 'but who they are, and where they sprung from, I can't make out.'

The scouts, tucked away in the cover, chuckled as they heard their mysterious appearance discussed, and wondered if Smiley would throw any light on the matter. But the old poacher remained sullen and silent, and now the keepers were hailed by the policeman across the river.

'Bring your man down to the bridge,' he cried, 'and we'll march the two we've got off to the lock-up.'

'All right,' said the keeper who had collared Smiley. 'I'll come now.

Jem, you get the nets an' follow us.'

'The play's over,' whispered d.i.c.k in his comrade's ear, 'and we'll get back to camp.'

The scouts glided away up the little brook, and soon regained their camp, where the fire was burning briskly, for the whole affair had not taken any great amount of time. They sat down and discussed the matter from the moment d.i.c.k had smelt the tobacco-smoke till the final rally on the bank of the trout-pool, then turned in once more, and were asleep in two moments.

d.i.c.k had rearranged his side of the bed before he lay down again, and now he slept in great comfort, and slept long, for when he woke the sun was high up and the day was warm.

He rubbed his eyes and looked round for Chippy. To his surprise, the Raven sat beside the fire skinning a couple of young rabbits.

'Hallo, Chippy!' cried d.i.c.k, 'been hunting already? Why, where did you pick those rabbits up?'

'Just along the bank 'ere,' replied the Raven. 'I was up best part of an hour ago, an' took a stroll, an' seed 'em a-runnin' about by the hundred. These two were dodgin' in an' out of a hole under a tree, so I went theer, an' in they popped. But I soon dug 'em out.'

'Dug them out!' cried d.i.c.k. 'Why, I've heard that digging rabbits out is a job that takes hours with a spade.'

'So 'tis if they've got into their burrows,' returned his comrade.

'But theer's the big deep holes they live in, an' theer's little short holes they mek' for fun. They're called "play-holes," an' 'twas a play-hole these two cut into. It worn't more'n eighteen inches deep, an' soft sand. I 'ad 'em out in no time.'

Chippy finished skinning the rabbits, and washed them, and then they were set aside while the comrades stripped, and splashed round, and swam a little at a spot where the brook opened out into a small pool.

When they were dressed again, they were very ready for breakfast.

Chippy fried the rabbits in the billy with another lump of d.i.c.k's mutton fat, and they proved deliciously tender. The boys left nothing but the bones, and with the rabbits they finished their loaf. After breakfast they lay on the gra.s.s in the sun for half an hour working out their day's journey on the map, and pitched on a place called Wildcombe Chase for their last camp. It was within fourteen miles of Bardon, and would give a quiet, steady tramp in for their last day.

At the thought that the morrow was the last day of their delightful expedition the scouts felt more than a trifle sad; but they cheered themselves up with promises of other like journeys in the future, and took the road for a seventeen-mile march.

'Do we pull our knots out for lending a hand to the keeper last night, Chippy?' asked d.i.c.k, laughing.

'You can pull your'n out two or three times over,' replied the Raven.

'Fust ye saved me; then ye let that big rogue ha' one for luck, an'

that saved the keeper. Me, I did naught, 'cept get collared when I wor' fast asleep.'

'Didn't you?' returned d.i.c.k. 'I know that shout of yours was the thing that frightened him, not the crack I hit him. He thought a six-foot policeman was at his heels. Well, never mind the knots. We'll throw that in. After all, boy scouts are bound to lend a hand in the cause of law and order.'

'O' course,' agreed Chippy. 'Wheer's discipline if so be as everybody can do as he's a mind?'

CHAPTER XLIII

THE BROKEN BICYCLE

That morning the brother scouts enjoyed an experience which gave them keener pleasure than perhaps anything else which happened during their journey. It began about eleven o'clock, when they were following a country road upon which hamlets, and even houses, were very far apart.

They were approaching the foot of a very steep hill, when the Raven's eyes, always on the watch, as a scout's eyes should be, caught a gleam of something glittering in a great bed of weeds beside the road. He stopped, parted the weeds with his staff, and disclosed a broken bicycle, diamond-framed, lying on its side. It was the bright nickelled handle-bar which had caught his eye.

'Somebody's had a smash, and left the broken machine here,' said d.i.c.k; and Chippy nodded.

Now, d.i.c.k's statement of the case would have satisfied most people, and they would have gone on their way. There was the broken bicycle, and the rider had left it. Perhaps he meant to fetch his disabled machine later. In any case an untrained person would have seen nothing that he could possibly do, and would have dismissed the matter from his mind.

But that would not do for the Wolf and the Raven. It was their duty as scouts to got to the bottom of the affair, if possible, on the chance that help was needed somehow or somewhere, and they began a careful examination of the machine and its surroundings.

The cause of the accident suggested itself at once--a broken brake and a runaway down the hill, with a smash at the foot. There were two brakes on the machine. One was jammed; one had a broken wire. Whether the jammed brake had been so or not before the accident they could not tell. As far as they could judge, the broken wire had left the rider helpless on the steep slope. They looked up the hill. The track came down fairly straight, until it was within a few yards of the bed of weeds. Then it swerved sharply aside. A yard from the angle of the swerve lay a large stone. Deduction: The front wheel had struck the stone, driven it a yard to the left, and itself had swerved violently to the right, and dashed on to a heap of stones hidden under the growth of weeds. The shock had been tremendous. How discovered? The frame was badly twisted and broken, and the machine was an excellent one; the transfer bore the name of a first-rate maker.

Now, what had happened to the rider? He had been pitched flying from his machine, and d.i.c.k found where he had fallen. Three yards from the spot where the broken bicycle lay, the weeds were flattened, as if a heavy body had dropped there. Then d.i.c.k gave a long, low whistle.

'By Jove, Chippy! look here!' he cried, and pointed with his staff.

The Raven hastened up, and whistled too, when he saw a patch of blood lying around a sharp-edged stone. The blood was quite fresh, and that proved the accident was recent.

'Poor chap dropped with his head on the stone, and cut himself pretty badly,' said d.i.c.k; and Chippy nodded.

'It ain't a big machine,' he remarked.

'It's just about the size of mine,' returned d.i.c.k. 'It may be a fellow about our age, Chippy, by the look of the bike.'

Now arose the vital question: Had the unlucky rider received help or not? How had he left the place--on his own feet, or with a.s.sistance?

The scouts settled that in a minute's close search. They had taken care not to potter about and confuse the spoor with their own markings.

They soon came to the conclusion that such marks as they could find were made by the rider when he had dragged himself to his feet.

'Has anyone pa.s.sed here since the accident?' said d.i.c.k.

'Soon find that out,' cried Chippy; and the two scouts turned their trained eyes on the dusty road, which gave up instantly the knowledge its surface held.

Two tracks only were recent. One was made by a pair of wheels and the feet of a horse; the other by a pair of large, hobnailed shoes. The wheel-tracks were narrow, and the horse had trotted till it was some distance up the hill, then fallen into a walk. The boys decided that a gig and a labourer had pa.s.sed along, both going the same way.

Ten yards up the hill the bicycle track crossed a track of the gig.

Thirty yards up the hill the ribbed Dunlops had wiped out the side of a hobnailed impression. Very good. The bike had come down the hill after these had pa.s.sed; it had been the last thing on the road. This greatly strengthened the idea which the scouts had already formed, that no help had been available. Now they began to search for the rider's line of movement from the place.

d.i.c.k found it: a footprint on a dusty patch in the gra.s.sy wayside track. He called to his companion. When Chippy had seen it, d.i.c.k set his own foot on the track; his shoe exactly covered it.

Now the scouts gathered their impressions together, and reconstructed in theory the whole affair. A boy of about their own age had ridden over the brow of the slope, with only one brake available on his machine. Near the top of the hill the brake had broken; they regarded this as proved by the tremendous way which the machine had got on it.

The rider was skilful, for his track was true, and he would have escaped had it not been for the large stone in the track, and this, it was very likely, his great speed had prevented him from seeing until too late; another point, by the way, to prove the early giving-out of the brake. He had swerved violently aside, and struck the heap of stones by the bank before he could regain control of his machine, and the smash followed. After the smash the rider had pulled himself together, and gone alone from the place; his trail ran up the hill, and it looked as if he were making for home; it was certain that he was pretty badly hurt.

'Now, Chippy,' said d.i.c.k, 'the point for us is this: Has he got safely home or not?'