When time was up, away went the Wolf Patrol on the tracks which Chippy Slynn had made, and for some distance they followed them at an easy trot, for Chippy had posted straight ahead over grassy or sandy land, on which the irons left clear traces. But within a mile and a half of the sandpit the track was lost.
Arthur Graydon drove in his patrol-flag beside the last marks which could be found, and ordered his scouts to separate and swing round in a wide circle until the line was picked up again.
The tracks had ended beside the wide high-road which crossed the heath, and half the patrol took one side of the road and half the other. Within three minutes Dick Elliott raised the wild howl which was their patrol-call, and everyone rushed towards him. He had found the trail. It was on the further side of the high-road, and ran straight ahead beside it, and on raced the Wolves along the tracks.
Chippy had observed how clear a trail he left, and when he came to the high-road, he thought it was about time to throw his pursuers out a little, for they could travel much faster than he could go in the tracking-irons. So at the edge of the high-road down went his head and up went his feet, and he walked across the smooth hard road on his hands, leaving no trace, or such a trace as the Wolf Patrol were not yet clever enough to pick up. With the tracking-irons safely hoisted in the air, he went quite thirty yards before he turned himself right side up again, and scuttled off. He went another mile, and practised the same manoeuvre once more, and then he crept very warily forward, for the land was rising to a ridge. Unless he crossed this ridge with the utmost caution the boys behind him on the heath would see his figure against the sky-line. He marked a place where the ridge was crowned with gorse-bushes, and through these he wriggled his way, receiving a hundred scratches, but troubling nothing about that.
On the other side the ridge went down even more steeply than by the slope which Chippy had just ascended, and up this farther side a huge waggon, drawn by four powerful horses, was slowly making its way.
As soon as Chippy saw the waggon an idea popped into his mind, and he hurried forward to meet the great vehicle. He kept among the bushes so that the driver did not see him. The latter, indeed, from his high perch, was too busy cracking his whip over his team to urge them to the ascent to see that small, gliding figure slipping through the gorse. So Chippy dodged behind the waggon, swung himself up by the tail-board, and climbed in as nimbly as a cat. The forepart of the waggon was full of sacks of meal, and a heap of empty sacks lay against the tail-board. In a trice he had hidden himself under the empty sacks, and lay there without making sign or sound.
The waggon rolled on over the ridge, and soon Chippy heard the long-drawn note of a Wolf's howl. He knew the patrol was now near at hand, but he lay quite still, and peered out at the side of the tail-board, for the latter was hanging a little back.
At the next moment he was being carried clean through the lines of the Wolf Patrol. They had separated, and had been searching busily at the second place where he had thrown them off. Not one glanced at the familiar sight of a big waggon rolling back to the town, for as it passed, Billy Seton raised the patrol call to tell his companions that he had found the trail. All rushed towards him to resume the hunt, and away they went.
As soon as they were out of sight up jumped Chippy, swung himself over the tail-board, and dropped into the road. He dived at once into the bushes which bordered the way, and the waggoner never knew that he had given anyone a lift. Now Chippy set himself to track the trackers. He followed them up as fast as he could go, taking advantage of every patch of cover, and holding his ball in his hand ready to fire.
He saw the first Wolf at the foot of the ridge; this was Billy Seton. The track had again been lost on a hard, stony patch where Chippy had stepped very lightly and carefully. The Wolves had separated, and Billy became an easy prey. He was bending down, carefully examining every twig, every inch of soft soil, when something hit him on the right ear and dropped to the ground. For a moment Billy stared in wonder at the queer rag-ball; then the truth broke upon him—he had been knocked out. He was no longer a pursuer; he was dead.