'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?'