'Who knows wot 'e might do?' And Chippy shook his head. 'We're bound to lend a hand, then—Law 3, ye know.'
'Right you are, Chippy,' said Dick. 'Law 3. Come on!' And the two boy scouts, game as a pair of terriers, crept swiftly up to the clump of bushes from which the mysterious stranger had emerged.
From the bushes the track was easy to follow for some distance. There were no footmarks, but the ferns were brushed aside and some were broken, and these signs showed which way the man had gone. When the ferns were left behind, there was still a fair trail, for the heavy boots of the stranger had broken the grass, or scraped a little earth loose here and there along the slope of the ridge which led up to Woody Knap.
Suddenly the boys lost the trail. It disappeared on a strip of turf, and they slipped back at once to the last spot of which they could be sure—a soft patch of earth where hobnail marks were fresh and clear.
'Now we've got to separate and try to pick up the line,' said Dick softly. 'I'll work right, and you left; and we'll meet at that big thorn-bush right in front, if we've found nothing. If one of us hits on the track, he must call to the other.'
'Wait a bit,' said Chippy. 'Wot call? Our own calls 'ud sound odd, an' might give 'im the tip as somebody was arter 'im.'
'You're right,' said Dick; 'the wolf howl, at any rate, is no good here.'
'Let's 'ave a call for ourselves this time,' suggested Chippy. 'One as you might 'ear at any minute, an' never notice. How about the pewey?'
'First-rate!' said Dick. 'The pewey. There are plenty of them on the heath!'
Bardon boys always called the 'peewit' the 'pewey,' and every one of them could imitate its well-known call. Nothing more simple and natural could have been adopted as a signal.