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

by John Finnemore

CHAPTER XV

FLIGHT

The scouts made straight for the bank over which they had been peeping, leapt it, and dashed on, Chippy picking up his patrol flag as he ran. He had left it with Dick to have his hands free. Dick was last over the bank, and he glanced back as he cleared it. 'Run, Chippy, run,' he called. 'He's coming! He's coming!'

The spy had pulled himself together, and was in hot pursuit. He was bounding up the slope, and Dick saw that he came terribly fast. 'He's a confounded long-legged beggar,' thought Dick. 'We shall have to fight for it yet. It's lucky we've got a good stick apiece.'

Beyond the bank was a long grassy ride sloping easily downwards, and here the boys ran their fastest, and behind them the spy raced at great speed, gaining, gaining steadily. They went half a mile, and then Dick gasped: 'He's close on us, Chippy. Let's turn on him!'

'Not a bit of it,' grunted Chippy. 'Peg it! peg it! See wot's in front?'

'Only some burnt furze,' said Dick.

'Only!' snorted Chippy. 'See wot's under my arm?'

Dick looked, and, precious as wind was, he let out a yell of delight. In the excitement of the flight he had not observed it; tucked under Chippy's arm was the spy's boot. The Raven had whipped it up, and carried it on at the moment of escape.

Dick at once saw what Chippy meant. Hitherto they had been running over clear open grass, and the spy, even with one boot off and one boot on, had made tremendous headway, but the burnt furze was close at hand, and here they would show him another dance altogether.

They were approaching a broad belt of land which had been swept by a heath-fire. The furze-bushes had been very thick on the ground, and had been burned away to the very foot of the stems. Now those close-standing stems pushed short spikes above the soil like the teeth of a huge harrow pointing upwards, each tooth blackened, hardened, and pointed by fire.

The spy was not ten yards behind the boys when the latter burst into the flame-swept belt of heath. Their boots kicked up clouds of black ashes as they bounded forward, and their pursuer followed at once. Twice he put his unprotected foot down in safety, missing by sheer luck the thickly planted spikes, but the third time he set the very middle of his sole on a short stout fang standing bolt upright, and pointed by fire as if with a knife.

He let out a yell of agony as the spike, by the force of his weight and speed, was driven home into his foot.

'Got 'im,' said Chippy, and the two scouts turned to see their enemy, doubled up on the ground, utterly crippled for the time by that shrewd thrust from below.

'I knowed that 'ud settle 'im, if we could on'y get on to it,' chuckled Chippy, while the boys eased their speed, but still ran steadily on. 'I've 'ad my foot cut on a burnt root afore now.'

'Oh, Chippy,' said Dick, '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 Dick, 'where there's good cover for ourselves, and a clear space 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 Dick; 'there's plenty of room all round it;' and the boys ran to the covert and crept into it.

'Now for the boot,' murmured Dick 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 Dick'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 scraps 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 Dick, '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 Dick. '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 Dick. '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, Dick 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 Dick.

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

'Oh,' cried Dick, '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 Dick; 'there's Woody Knap right in front of us again.'

'Hello! 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 Dick, '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 Dick. '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.'

Dick 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.