A brutal murder took place many years ago in the North of England; and the murderer was caught, convicted, and hanged chiefly through the scoutcraft of a shepherd boy.
Woodcraft.—The boy, Robert Hindmarsh, had been up on the moor tending his sheep, and was finding his way home over a wild, out-of-the-way part of the hills, when he passed a tramp sitting on the ground with his legs stretched out in front of him eating some food.
Observation.—The boy in passing noticed his appearance, and especially the peculiar nails in the soles of his boots.
Concealment.—He did not stop and stare, but just took these things in at a glance as he went by without attracting much attention from the man, who merely regarded him as an ordinary boy not worth his notice.
Observing the murderer's boots.
Deduction.—When he got near home, some five or six miles away, he came to a crowd round a cottage, where they had found the old woman (Margaret Crozier) who inhabited it lying murdered. All sorts of guesses were being hazarded as to who had done the deed, and suspicion seemed to centre on a small gang of three or four gipsies who were going about the country robbing and threatening death to anyone who made any report of their misdeeds.
The boy heard all these things, but presently he saw some peculiar footprints in the little garden of the cottage; the nailmarks agreed with those he had seen in the boots of the man on the moor, and he naturally deduced from these that the man might have something to do with the murder.
Chivalry.—The fact that it was a helpless old woman who had been murdered made the boy's chivalrous feelings rise against the murderer, whoever it might be.
Pluck and Self-discipline, Alacrity.—So, although he knew that the friends of the murderer might kill him for giving information, he cast his fears on one side and went at once and told the constable of the footmarks in the garden, and where he could find the man who had made them—if he went immediately.