'Ingonyama—gonyama
Invooboo
Yah bobo! Yah bobo!
Invooboo.
But though Chippy did not understand the words, he understood that those fellows down there looked splendidly smart, and were having a fine time. He admired their uniform immensely; it looked so trim and neat compared with his own ragged garb. He admired their neat, quick movements as they stamped in unison with the words of the song, and moved round in a circle. The 'Ingonyama' chorus ended, and then the fire practice began. Chips and sticks were carefully piled, and a scout was allowed two matches to make a rousing fire of the gorse-stems and dried sticks to be found in the coppices on the heath. Then he went to work with his flour and potatoes.
Finally the patrol organized a hunt to finish the afternoon. George Lee was sent off on tracking-irons, and given ten minutes' start. When the time was up, the others went after him, and the sandpit was deserted. No one had observed Chippy, for the latter was a scout without knowing it, and had kept himself carefully hidden. He didn't know they were boy scouts, and on their honour to treat him and everyone else fairly; he only knew them as 'chaps we've slugged with,' as he put it to himself.
'Wot's the game, I wonder?' muttered Chippy to himself, as the last scout vanished behind a hazel thicket. 'Jolly good fun they're havin'. I should just like to know wot it all comes to.'
He slid down the side of the sandpit to examine the place where the scouts had built their fires, and soon was on the road to find out what it all meant. His sharp eyes, running over every mark the boys had left, saw something white in a long tuft of dried grass. He pounced upon it and picked it up. It was a book with a picture on the cover.
'Wot's this?' thought Chippy. 'A kid watchin' a ship round a rock. Wot for? "Scouting for Boys." Wot's inside?' He opened it at page 42, and at once recognized the scouts' uniform. 'Why, these chaps 'ad all got togs on like this,' said Chippy to himself. 'I'll bet this book's all about the game.'
He began to read, and was fascinated at once. Chippy talked badly because he had been brought up among people who talked badly, but he could read as well as any Grammar School boy, and had plenty of intelligence behind his freckled face to grasp what he read. He was deep in the little volume, when he heard the patter of running feet behind him. He turned, and saw Dick Elliott coming up to him. They knew each other at once.
'Hallo!' said Dick. 'It looks as if you'd found my book. I felt sure I had dropped it here.'
'Yus, I found it,' replied Chippy. 'It wor' in that 'ere patch o' stuff, an' I picked it up. I've bin a-lookin' at it.'
'That's all right,' said Dick cheerfully. 'You won't hurt it.'