'I know that one,' said the boy, 'What's t'other name?'
'I dunno,' returned Mrs. Ryder. 'He told me to call him Albert, and I niver asked his other name.'
Everything that happens, everyone that appears, must furnish food for practice for a Boy Scout, and Chippy ran his eye over Albert from head to foot, and noted every detail of his perfectly commonplace appearance. Then the boy followed him into the garden, and, true to the habit which was rapidly becoming an instinct, he dropped a glance on Albert's track. There was a patch of damp earth near the door, and the lodger's footprint was plainly stamped on it. At the first swift look Chippy gathered that there was something slightly different from usual about the heel-print. He did not look closely, for you must never let anyone know that either he himself or the trail he leaves, is being watched; but there was something. Chippy strolled forward, but no other mark was to be seen; the garden path was hard, clean gravel.
Albert had seated himself on a bench nailed against an elm in the garden fence, and was smoking calmly in the sunshine. As Chippy drew near, he turned his head and smiled in a friendly fashion.
'I s'pose you know all the creeks along the river pretty fair?' he asked.
'Most of 'em,' replied Chippy.
'I've heerd Jem Lacey talk of a place they called Smuggler's Creek, where the old smugglers used to run their boats in,' went on Albert; 'I should like to 'ave a look at that. When I was a kid I used to be fair crazy arter tales of old smugglers an' that sort o' thing.'
'I know it all right,' replied Chippy. 'There ain't no 'ouse nor anythin' for miles of it.'
'Not nowadays?' cried Albert.
'Yus!' returned Chippy. 'It's just as quiet as it used to be.'