The Wolf Patrol: A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts

by John Finnemore

CHAPTER XLII

DRAGGING THE POOL—A LITTLE SURPRISE

First a net was stretched across the head of the pool. Young Bill jumped into the water and waded across waist deep with one end of the net, while a confederate paid it out from the bank. The foot of the net was loaded with leaden weights, and lay close to the bed of the stream: the top was buoyed with corks and floated on the surface. Thus, when the net was carried across and pegged into the opposite bank, a wall of fine mesh lay across the stream.

Now the big navvy waded back, and a second net—a drag-net—was carried to the foot of the pool. This time three of them plunged into the water, and drew the net across the stream. Of the three, two remained in the water, the third clambered out on the opposite bank. The net was arranged, and then the four poachers began to draw it slowly up-stream, one working on each bank and two in the water.

Now, trout always lie with their noses pointing upstream, and when alarmed dash away in that direction. But this time there was a wall of net to intercept their flight, and as the drag-net was brought up and up, the fish would be enclosed between the two nets and caught.

While these preparations were going on, Dick had watched eagerly for a chance that never came. Smiley remained too close to the gagged and pinioned captive for Dick to chance a rush, and the poacher was armed with a heavy stick.

'I wish the moon would go down,' thought Dick, and glanced over his shoulder towards the west. He started, and looked again. Two figures were creeping almost on hands and knees across a moonlit patch of turf, quite close to him.

'Keepers!' whispered Dick to himself. 'Here come the keepers!' for the velveteens and gaiters of the crawling men announced who they were. Dick was hidden in complete shade, and the patch of hazels where he lay hid the new-comers both from the watcher and the working poachers. Dick's heart gave a leap of joy.

'They'll attack at once,' he thought, 'and then I can get Chippy free.'

But to his surprise there was no attack. The two keepers glided into shelter of a holly patch and vanished. There was neither sign nor sound from them. Dick, of course, could not know that the keepers were biding their time, for they wished to take the poachers in confusion, and it was very likely the biters would be bit.

The truth was that an inkling of the raid had been gained from words let fall by a drunken poacher in the village inn, and the pool had been prepared. Across the middle of it a long weighted log had been sunk, and in this log a number of old scythe blades, their edges whetted as keen as razors, had been fixed in an upright position. The edges were turned down-stream, and the keepers were waiting until the drag-net should be brought upon this cunning engine of destruction.

Presently there was a hitch in the dragging.

'Wait a bit,' said one of the poachers; 'she's caught a bit somewheer or other. Pull a bit harder, Young Bill.'

The navvy pulled hard, but to no purpose.

'It's out towards the middle o' the pool,' he growled, 'an' I dursn't go a step fudder in. I'm nigh out o' my depth already.'

'We'll get on the bank,' said the other man who was in the water. 'We'll have a better purchase for a tug at her then.'

He climbed out on the farther side, and Young Bill climbed out on the nearer. Then the four men bent to it, and hauled on the net with all their might. No use: it was stuck as fast as ever.

'Ye want to pull harder, boys,' called out Smiley.

Young Bill exploded into a volley of imprecations addressed to the watchman.

'Hark at 'im,' growled the navvy—'pull harder; we're to pull harder while 'e slinks about on the bank. Come an' lend a hand yerself, an' be quick about it, or I'll sling ye into the river.'

Smiley ran at once, for he stood in great dread of his violent accomplice, and knew that the threat was a perfectly serious one. For a few moments there was a busy interchange of remarks and opinions as the baffled poachers discussed the possibilities of the case, and decided that a water-logged branch was at the bottom of the trouble.

While they were talking Dick was acting. No sooner did he see the watchman called off guard than he began to wriggle like an eel across the turf towards the beech, keeping the trunk of the tree between himself and the poachers. His keen knife made short work of Chippy's bonds, gag included, and the Raven was free. The latter slipped round the trunk, and the two scouts glided quickly back into cover of the hazels.

'Good old Wolf,' whispered Chippy, drawing a few deep breaths. 'I felt sure ye'd be somewheer handy. I owe ye a vote o' thanks. It's carried unanermously.'

'Oh, dry up, Chippy,' whispered his comrade. 'As if you wouldn't have done the same for me. What luck the rascals got into a fix! That gave me a chance. But, Chippy, there are keepers over there, watching them.'

'Keepers!' breathed Chippy in amazement. 'Why don't they collar 'em?'—and even as he spoke, the scouts learned why the keepers had delayed their attack.

'Now, altogether,' cried young Bill at the waterside, and the five poachers bent for a last tremendous tug which would free their net. The net was freed, but not exactly in the style they hoped for. There was a sudden, keen Cr-r-r-rish! of snapping, parting meshes, and the net, cut clean into two by the scythe blades, came to shore in two halves, one on either bank.

It gave, at the last, so suddenly that the hauling rogues were taken completely by surprise. At one moment they were pulling against a tremendous resistance; at the next there was none, and they went head over heels, all five of them, the three on the nearer side piled in a heap.

Upon this heap the two keepers darted, and at the same moment a keeper and a policeman appeared on the other bank. The yell of surprise which burst from the lips of the rogues as they went to earth was still ringing in the air when they felt the grip of justice fastened on their collars, and knew that the game had gone against them on every score.

The gigantic navvy broke away from his captors and ran. A keeper pursued him, caught him up, and closed with him. There was a short, fierce struggle, and both men went down headlong, locked together in a savage grapple. The keeper was undermost, and the weight of his huge opponent knocked the breath out of him for the moment. The poacher leapt up, and aimed a terrific kick at his fallen opponent. The man would have received a severe injury had not the scouts swept into action at the very nick of time.

'Here's the wust of 'em. Cop 'im, my lads,' roared Chippy, in a voice which he made as deep as a well. And Dick 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, crashing 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 Dick 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 Dick 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.

Dick 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 Dick, '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 Dick. '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 Dick'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 grass 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 Dick, 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 Dick. '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?'