'I should just like to have asked him when the brake went,' said Dick. 'Pretty well at the top of the hill, I know.'
'Must ha' done,' said Chippy, 'by the spin he'd got on the machine.'
They had not seen or spoken to their comrade before leaving the farm. Fred Hardy was in too weak a state even to know what his brother scouts had done for him, let alone seeing them or thanking them; his life still hung on a thread, but that thread would for a surety have been snapped had not the patrol-leaders discovered him and checked the bleeding.
'An' to think, arter follerin' him up, he turned out one of us,' murmured Chippy.
'Wasn't it splendid!' cried Dick.
Yes, that was the very crowning touch of the adventure. They would have done it all with the most cheerful willingness for anyone, old or young, sick or poor; but to rescue a brother scout—ah! that gave a flavour to the affair which filled them with purest delight.
Now the scouts swung forward with steady stride; they had lost a good deal of time, and the miles stretched before them—a formidable array to be ticked off before the spires of Bardon would be seen. This sweep back from Newminster was longer than the road they had followed to the city, and the extra distance was beginning to tell. They made a good strong march for three hours, and then halted for a short rest; and upon this halt a rather awkward accident took place, in which Dick was the sufferer.
The scouts had been tempted to pause at a point where a shallow brook ran for some hundreds of yards beside the road, forming one boundary. They had just made a long stretch of hot, dusty road, and their feet were aching. The water tempted them to halt, and strip off shoes and stockings, to bathe their heated and weary feet.
They sat down on the roots of a tree beside the stream, and dangled their feet in the cool running water, and found it very pleasant and refreshing.
'There's a fish acrost th' other side, just gone into a hole in the bank,' said Chippy; 'wonder if I could get 'im out?'