The old foolish feuds between them were completely forgotten, and when Dick and his friends crossed Quay Flat the wharf-rats would now swarm out, not with sticks for a 'slug,' but with salutes and eager inquiries as to progress in this or that game dear to the hearts of Boy Scouts.
But it is not with this Easter-Monday scouting-run of the combined patrols that we are about to deal. We shall go straight away to the hour of three o'clock on that afternoon, when a very memorable and exciting experience for the two patrol-leaders began to unfold itself.
Mr. Elliott had set his band of scouts the hardest task of the day. He himself had put on the irons, and was laying the track. He had warned them that it would be a tough test—something to really try them—and so it proved. If they failed to run him down, they were all to meet at a little railway-station about two miles away, from which they would go back to Bardon by rail. They were already a good eight miles from home, for they had marched right across to an unknown part of the heath to carry out their manoeuvres.
At one point, where Mr. Elliott's track seemed to have vanished into the very earth, Dick took a long cast away to the right by himself. As he moved slowly forward he heard a rustle of bushes, and looked up and saw Chippy trotting to join him.
'He's done us one this time!' said Chippy, grinning; 'I'm blest if I can 'it the trail anywheer!'
'It's jolly hard to find any sign,' answered Dick; 'but he told us it was to be a stiff thing, and if we can't get hold of it we shall have to head for the station, that's all. But we'll have a good go at it. What about a cast round by that rabbit warren over there? The ground's half covered with soft soil the rabbits have thrown out of their holes. If he's gone that way the irons will leave a dead certain track.'
'Righto!' murmured the Raven leader, and they trotted across to the rabbit warren and began to search the heaps of sandy soil.
They were working along the foot of a bank with faces bent to the earth, when suddenly they were startled by a voice hailing them a few yards away.
'Hallo, there!' called someone.
The boys glanced up, and at once straightened themselves and came to the salute. A tall man in khaki and putties stood on the top of the bank looking at them, a revolver in the holster strapped at his side.