CHAPTER XLIII
THE BROKEN BICYCLE
That morning the brother scouts enjoyed an experience which gave them keener pleasure than perhaps anything else which happened during their journey. It began about eleven o'clock, when they were following a country road upon which hamlets, and even houses, were very far apart.
They were approaching the foot of a very steep hill, when the Raven's eyes, always on the watch, as a scout's eyes should be, caught a gleam of something glittering in a great bed of weeds beside the road. He stopped, parted the weeds with his staff, and disclosed a broken bicycle, diamond-framed, lying on its side. It was the bright nickelled handle-bar which had caught his eye.
'Somebody's had a smash, and left the broken machine here,' said Dick; and Chippy nodded.
Now, Dick's statement of the case would have satisfied most people, and they would have gone on their way. There was the broken bicycle, and the rider had left it. Perhaps he meant to fetch his disabled machine later. In any case an untrained person would have seen nothing that he could possibly do, and would have dismissed the matter from his mind. But that would not do for the Wolf and the Raven. It was their duty as scouts to got to the bottom of the affair, if possible, on the chance that help was needed somehow or somewhere, and they began a careful examination of the machine and its surroundings.
The cause of the accident suggested itself at once—a broken brake and a runaway down the hill, with a smash at the foot. There were two brakes on the machine. One was jammed; one had a broken wire. Whether the jammed brake had been so or not before the accident they could not tell. As far as they could judge, the broken wire had left the rider helpless on the steep slope. They looked up the hill. The track came down fairly straight, until it was within a few yards of the bed of weeds. Then it swerved sharply aside. A yard from the angle of the swerve lay a large stone. Deduction: The front wheel had struck the stone, driven it a yard to the left, and itself had swerved violently to the right, and dashed on to a heap of stones hidden under the growth of weeds. The shock had been tremendous. How discovered? The frame was badly twisted and broken, and the machine was an excellent one; the transfer bore the name of a first-rate maker.
Now, what had happened to the rider? He had been pitched flying from his machine, and Dick found where he had fallen. Three yards from the spot where the broken bicycle lay, the weeds were flattened, as if a heavy body had dropped there. Then Dick gave a long, low whistle.
'By Jove, Chippy! look here!' he cried, and pointed with his staff. The Raven hastened up, and whistled too, when he saw a patch of blood lying around a sharp-edged stone. The blood was quite fresh, and that proved the accident was recent.