"Very well done, Peter," said Mr. Armitage.
The Patrol-leader flushed with pleasure.
"It wasn't that I want to speak to you about, sir," he said. "It's the towing-warp. It's the one that was stolen from us."
"By Jove!" exclaimed Mr. Armitage. "Are you quite sure of that?"
"Quite, sir. If you'll go into your cabin and look through the after-scuttle—that won't arouse suspicion—you'll find that there's West Country whipping on the rope. I noticed that the ordinary whipping was almost chafed through, so I put on a fresh lot at Oxford."
"We'll have that back then," decided the Scoutmaster. "I'll speak to Mr. Murgatroyd about it. If he likes to prosecute he can; but, personally, it would mean a great waste of time for us."
The owner was almost of the same opinion.
"I'd run the blighters in as a warning to others," he said, "only there's the fuss of police proceedings. I think if we get the rope back and give the thieves a jolly good scare that will answer our purpose."
Evidently the purloiners of the warp were either ignorant of the fact that the vessel that had them in tow was the same craft from which they had "annexed" the rope very much earlier in the day, or else they thought that there was no suspicion on the rightful owners' part. One man was steering, while the other—puffing away at a cigar—was staring vacantly at the water.
Entering the next lock presented more difficulty, owing to the motor-launch towing astern, but Peter managed the operation quite successfully.