The long line of caravans set out, soon after Hugh had started. It looked like a giant caterpillar of many colours crawling slowly down the white, dusty road. Black Bill was on his big horse, as usual, and it was all David could do to keep him in sight, as he rode backwards and forwards along the line, for David was keeping himself very carefully under cover.
It would never do for the gipsies to know that the Cubs were following them up, for they must have realized that, however much they had managed to hoodwink the bailiff, the police, and the Squire, the Cubs still had very strong suspicions, and were hot on the trail.
The cavalcade had proceeded nearly three miles when David, crawling along at the bottom of a deep ditch, under a hedge, heard the plaintive cry of a peewit, on the field side of his ditch. He answered with the cry of an owl on the wing. The peewit call sounded again three times in quick succession—a recognized signal. Scrambling up the bank David soon discovered his fellow-detective.
“Hullo,” whispered Hugh. “I’ve found their camping site, and a fine hiding-place for us in an old disused water cistern a few fields away. I’ve stowed everything there, and camouflaged the opening with some dead branches and an old torn rick-cloth.”
“Good,” whispered David.
And so the two Cubs pressed on, keeping abreast of the circus, but invisible to the gipsies.
CHAPTER XIX
BY THE LIGHT OF A LANTERN
All the rest of the day David and Hugh kept a close watch on Black Bill’s every movement.
Towards evening they noticed a boy leading out his big black horse, saddled and bridled.
“He’s going out!” said Hugh. “We must follow him. You stay here and keep watch on the camp, and I’ll follow him on Danny’s bike.”