The Wolf Patrol Part 27

The two scouts were steering clear of all high-roads and beaten tracks.

They were both agreed that there was no fun in tramping along under telegraph wires and in the dust of motor-cars. Anyone could find his way where there was a row of milestones and finger-posts to keep him straight. They were marching purely by the map, following byways and narrow, hidden country lanes, and unfrequented tracks which led by moor and heath and common. There was another immense advantage, too, in moving by such routes. Not merely was it excellent scouting practice, but it afforded them quiet places for camping. It is not easy to camp along a high-road: there are too many people about. No sooner does the smoke of the evening fire begin to rise than a squad of village loungers turn up to watch the preparations, or perhaps, worse still, someone in authority arrives, and forbids the campers to halt in that spot.

'Lemme see,' murmured Chippy again. 'Here's a river; that's about seven mile again, as fur as I can mek' out.'

d.i.c.k measured the distance. 'Just about seven miles,' he said.

'Wot d'yer say to campin' pretty handy to it to-night?' went on Chippy.

'So that you can try your hand on the fish, eh?' laughed d.i.c.k.

Chippy nodded.

'All right,' said d.i.c.k, 'we'll strike out for it. We shall have to do about two miles along a main, then we can branch off again, and get up to the river in very quiet country. See, there's hardly a house marked on the map.'

'All the better for mekin' a camp,' said Chippy; and d.i.c.k agreed.

When they had finished their meal they lay in the suns.h.i.+ne, chatting and watching the fire die away. Before they left they took care that every ember was extinguished, so that no harm could come to the place where they had made their halt.

It was about two o'clock when they resumed their journey, and they moved at an easy pace, with the aim of reaching their camping-ground towards five. That would give them ample time to make their preparations for the night.

Until four o'clock the march was quite uneventful, then Chippy had an adventure with a baker's cart. They were pa.s.sing through a village whose street was spanned at one end by a railway bridge. Near the bridge stood a cottage lying well back from the road, and as the scouts pa.s.sed, a baker drove up, and went to the cottage with his basket on his arm.

While he was at the door, a train whizzed up and thundered over the bridge, and the horse took fright and dashed away, galloping up behind the two boys. Both of the latter began to run with all their might in the same direction as the horse, which soon caught them up. He was about to pa.s.s them on Chippy's side when the Raven flung aside his staff, and seized the shaft with his right hand, and thus was enabled for a few yards to keep an equal speed with the horse. Then Chippy gripped the near rein with his left hand and tugged with all his might.

The terrified creature was not yet too wild with fear to fail to answer to the pull on the bit, and swung round to the left. In this way the scout managed to jam the frightened brute's head into the tall bank, and thus pulled it up. In dashed d.i.c.k and seized the other rein, and between them the scouts held the horse until the baker ran up and helped them to secure it.

The baker was profuse in his thanks--above all, when he had looked over the horse and cart, and found that neither was a penny the worse, thanks to the Raven's clever manoeuvring.

Chippy scratched his jaw thoughtfully, then spoke up:

'D'ye reckon it's worth a loaf to ye--a big un?'

'A loaf!' cried the baker, 'it's worth every loaf I've got in the cart, and more, too. The mare might have broke her leg and the cart been smashed, and I gave three-and-twenty pound for the mare less 'n a fortnight ago.'

'We'll let it go at a loaf,' murmured Chippy; and the baker picked out the best he could find and gave a thousand thanks with it. Chippy put the loaf in his haversack, and the scouts trudged on.

'It'll stretch our flour out a bit,' said Chippy, and d.i.c.k grinned.

'After all, Chippy,' he said, 'the loaf was well earned, and no mistake. I don't see that we're not playing fair by picking up things like that.'

'I don't see aught wrong in that,' replied the Raven; 'that's living on the country in as straight a way as can be, I reckon.'

Beyond the village they climbed a rise to a ridge, and at the crown of the ascent they looked ahead, and saw a wide valley before them, with a s.h.i.+ning stream winding its way through a green river-flat.

'There's the river, Chippy,' said d.i.c.k, 'and there goes the road up the side of the valley, turning away from the river.'

He pointed to the white ribbon of dusty road which climbed a distant rise and disappeared.

'We'll mek' straight for the river,' said the Raven.

'Right,' said d.i.c.k. 'Cross-country it is;' and the boys struck away into the fields. They spent some time in reaching the river, for they carefully avoided crossing fields where gra.s.s was growing for hay, or where corn was green; but at last they were on its banks at a point where it wound across a big patch of rough common land, dotted by flumps of gorse and broken by two or three spinneys.

The river was not wide, but it was slow, and seemed deep. The boys tried two or three places with their patrol staffs, and could not touch the bottom. Then they started to prospect for a camping-ground for the night.

'How about under that little hanger?' said d.i.c.k, pointing to a tiny wood which clung to a bank a short distance back from the river.

'Looks all right,' rejoined Chippy; and they went towards it. They were crossing a gra.s.sy strip between two clumps of furze when a small spiny creature with a sharp nose trundled across their path some distance ahead. Chippy leapt out and darted in pursuit, his staff raised. d.i.c.k followed, saw the staff fall, and came up to find the Raven turning over a dead hedgehog with the point of his stick.

'Supper for two,' chuckled Chippy, 'an' a jolly good un.'

'Supper?' cried d.i.c.k, 'Why, it's a hedgehog. Who can eat a thing like that?' and he made a face of disgust.

'Them as know's wot's good,' murmured Chippy, with a cheerful wink.

'Wait till ye've had a bit. Besides, ain't we scouts? An' scouts ha'

got to tackle anythin' an' everythin'. Look wot it says in the books.

Look wot B.P. et at one time an' another.'

'You're right, old chap,' said d.i.c.k; 'but just for a minute it seemed so jolly queer to knock over a spiny little brute like that, and then talk of eating it.'

'Gipsies eat 'em reg'lar,' replied Chippy, 'an' I know 'ow they handle 'em. They're good--I tell ye that.'

Carrying the hedgehog by a withe cut from a willow, the scouts went on to the ground below the hanger, and p.r.o.nounced the spot first-rate for a camp. There was a sandy patch at the foot of the bank, and here they resolved to build their fire and sleep.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE FIRST CAMP

The fire was taken in hand first thing, for Chippy would need a great pile of red-hot embers for his cookery. The hanger was littered with dry sticks, so that there was no lack of material, and soon they had a rousing fire crackling on the sandy soil.

At the foot of the hanger they met with a stroke of luck. They found a young beech-tree which had been blown down in some winter storm. It was now as dry as a bone and easy cutting, and d.i.c.k went to work with the little axe, and soon cut and split a heap of logs some eight or ten inches long and three or four inches through--first-rate stuff, for no tree in the wood burns more sweetly than beech. While the fire was under way, and while d.i.c.k hacked at the beech, Chippy had gone in search of clay. He was gone soms time, for he did not hit on a clayey spot at once. But he worked along the bank of the stream where the wash of the water had laid bare the nature of the soil until he struck upon a seam of red clay, and dug out a ma.s.s with his knife and the point of his staff.

He brought the clay to the fire, and next fetched a billy of water from the river, and worked the clay into a ma.s.s which would spread like stiff b.u.t.ter. Now he took the hedgehog, opened it, and removed its inside. Then he began to wrap it in a thick covering of the clay.

'Aren't you going to skin it?' cried d.i.c.k, who had been watching his brother scout's doings with deep interest.

'I am,' said Chippy, 'but not now--leastways, it'll skin itself when the time comes.'

Soon Chippy held in his hands a great ball of clay, inside which the hedgehog lay like a kernel in a nut. The fury of the fire had pa.s.sed by now, and the small beech logs were heaped in a glowing ma.s.s of fiery embers. With a spare log Chippy drew the embers aside, and laid his ball of clay on the heated ground, and raked the ashes into place again.

'Now,' said he, 'when we're ready for supper, that theer 'ull be ready for us.'

'It doesn't look as if our supper was going to cost us much,' laughed d.i.c.k. Chippy looked up with his dry, quiet smile.

'As it's runnin' so cheap,' he said, 'we might goo in for suthin'

extra. Wot d'yer say to a drop o' milk in the tea?'