The Wolf Patrol Part 16

d.i.c.k began with the boot and the papers hidden in it.

'That's enough, my lad,' said the sergeant. 'We'll lose no time.

There's plenty o' reason, I can see, to take him in on suspicion, and after hearing that I'd shoot him at once if he tried to escape. Now you,' he went on to the spy, 'turn right round and march ahead as I tell you. And remember I'm a yard behind you with a c.o.c.ked revolver.

March!'

The spy turned, and went as he was bidden.

'Come on, boys; you must come with me,' said the sergeant and the little party went across the heath, the prisoner turning as the sergeant bade him, and taking as direct a line as possible to the Horseshoe Fort.

An hour later d.i.c.k and Chippy found themselves in the presence of the officer in charge of the works at the fort. The prisoner had been handed over into safe keeping, and the sergeant and the two boys had been ordered to report to the colonel himself.

They were shown into a large bare room where a tall man was seated at a great table covered with papers. He stood up, as they went in and saluted, and posted himself in front of the fire.

'Well, Sergeant Lake,' he said. 'What's all this about?'

'I believe, sir, I've got a spy; at least, these boys had him. I only helped to bring him in.' So spoke the modest sergeant.

'Ah, yes, a spy;' and the colonel nodded, as if he had been expecting a spy for weeks, and perhaps he had. 'But this is rather an odd thing to get hold of a spy in this fas.h.i.+on. Let me hear all about it.'

'I can tell you little or nothing, sir,' replied Sergeant Lake. 'I didn't wait to hear all their story. The boys told me enough, though, for me to bring him in.'

'Well,' said the colonel, 'suppose I have the story from one of you boys?'

d.i.c.k and Chippy looked at each other, and the latter mumbled: 'You tell 'em. Yer can manage it a lot better 'n me. I shan't, anyhow. Goo on.'

Thus adjured by his brother scout, d.i.c.k told the whole story from the moment he saw the startled rabbit until they had run upon the sergeant in their headlong flight. Then Chippy handed over the boot, which underwent the most careful examination at the hands of the colonel.

The latter spread out on the table the tiny sheets of paper from the cavity, and studied them long and earnestly. To his trained eyes those marks meant things which the boys had, as was only natural, failed to grasp. He had sat down at the table to examine the papers, and d.i.c.k, Chippy, and the sergeant were standing on the opposite side.

At last the colonel leaned back in his chair, and looked at the boys and tapped the papers with his forefinger.

'Oh yes,' he said, 'you've nabbed a spy, and no mistake about it, my brave lads. I feel, personally, that you've done me an immense service, for I should have been simply wild to think that my plans were as good as pigeon-holed in some foreign intelligence office. But, after all, that's only my personal feeling. You've done your country an immense service, and that's a much bigger thing still.

Unfortunately, it can never be publicly recognised: this affair must remain a profound secret; and men, you know, have received medals and open honour for smaller things than you have done to-day.'

'We don't trouble at all about that, sir,' said d.i.c.k quietly. 'We're not out for what we can get for ourselves: we're boy scouts.'

'I beg your pardon,' said the colonel. 'I beg your pardon. Of course, you're boy scouts, and that puts you on a different footing at once.

You look at the thing from a real soldier's point of view--all for his side, and nothing for himself. That's it, isn't it?'

'Theer's Scout Law 2,' growled Chippy; 'it's all theer.'

Ah! Law 2,' said the colonel, who was not, like Chippy, a walking encyclopaedia on 'Scouting for Boys.' 'I should like very much to hear how that law runs.'

Chippy recited it, and the colonel listened attentively as the scout said, 'A Scout is loyal to the King, and to his officers, and to his country, and to his employers. He must stick to them through thick and thin against anyone who is their enemy, or who even talks badly of them.'

'A splendid law,' he said, 'and you boys have obeyed it n.o.bly to-day.

And now I'm going to ask you to be very quiet about the seizure of this man. You may, if you wish, tell your parents, but bind them over to strict secrecy. You see, this man belongs to a nation with whom at the moment our own is on the most friendly terms, and it will never do for his capture to get abroad. Now, how are you going to get back to Bardon?'

d.i.c.k mentioned the station at which they were all to meet. The colonel looked at his watch, and shook his head. 'You can't do that now,' he said; 'but we'll manage it all right. My chauffeur shall run you over to Bardon direct, and drop you at the station. There you'll meet your friends when they arrive. My Napier will do that comfortably. But we must find you something to eat first. Come with me to my quarters.'

Half an hour later the colonel put the two scouts in his big splendid six-cylinder Napier, and the great car was ready to start. As he shook hands with them at parting, he wished to tip them a sovereign apiece, but the boys would not hear of it. Chippy, to whom the money was a little fortune, was most emphatic.

'Not a bit of it, sir,' he growled--'not a bit of it. If we tek' money for the job, 'ow 'ave we 'elped our country?'

'I quite understand,' said the colonel, smiling, 'quite. You're a pair of trumps, and I honour the feeling. If B.-P.'s movement turns out many more like you it will prove the finest thing we've had in the country for many a day.'

He gave his man a nod, and away shot the huge powerful car along the road which led to Bardon.

True to the colonel's promise, the car drew up outside Bardon Station a few minutes before the train which would bring their friends was due.

d.i.c.k and Chippy sprang from the tonneau, where they had ridden in immense comfort, thanked the chauffeur, bade him good-night, and sought the arrival platform.

''Ow about Mr. Elliott?' said Chippy; 'we ought to tell 'im.'

'Ah, of course!' said d.i.c.k. 'He's our instructor, and the colonel said we might tell our parents. At that rate we might tell Uncle Jim.'

'I shan't tell my folks,' said Chippy; 'they wouldn't bother about knowin'. I'll tell Mr. Elliott instead.'

'All right, Chippy,' said d.i.c.k. 'Hullo, here's the train!'

Mr. Elliott was very much relieved when the first faces he saw on the platform were those of the missing patrol-leaders. Wolves and Ravens, too, swarmed out and sprang on their lost comrades, and plied them with eager questions. But to each inquirer d.i.c.k and Chippy merely said they had been on duty, and come home another way, and the patrols were left mystified and wondering.

'I've got to report to yer, Mr. Elliott,' said Chippy, and took him aside. Now, the patrols thought that this disappearance and reappearance of the leaders was something in connection with the day's movements, and their questions were checked, for discipline forbids prying into the arrangements made by officers.

The instructor was full of delight when he heard how the missing leaders had spent their time. He congratulated both warmly, and said: 'One to the Boys' Scout movement this time. If you hadn't been out on that scouting-run, the plans of the new Horseshoe Fort would have gone abroad as easily as possible. That's playing the game as it ought to be played.'

CHAPTER XVII

HOPPITY JACK'S STALL

When Chippy left the station and gained Skinner's Hole, he put away his patrol flag carefully behind the tall clock, which was the only ornament of the poor squalid place he called home, and then turned to and helped his mother with a number of odd jobs.

'There ain't much supper for yer,' she said--'on'y some bread an' a heel o' cheese.'

'That's aw' right,' said Chippy. 'Gie it to the little uns. I don't want none.'

He left the house and strolled towards a corner of Quay Flat, where on Sat.u.r.day nights and holidays a sort of small fair was always held. One or two shooting-galleries, a cocoa-nut 'shy,' and a score or more of stalls laden with fruit, sweetmeats, and the like, were brilliantly lighted up by naphtha flares. Towards this patch of brightness all loungers and idlers were drawn like moths to a candle, and Chippy, too, moved that way. It was now about half-past nine, and the little fair was at its busiest.

As he went he was joined by an acquaintance, who held out a penny packet of cigarettes.

'Have a f.a.g, Chippy?' he said.

'Not me, thenks,' replied Chippy. 'I've chucked 'em.'

'Chucked 'em!' replied his friend in amazement. 'What for?'