“Don’t give in to yourself!” replied Nipper, sternly, getting a firmer foothold, and clutching the edge of the window with his fingers. And then he suddenly stood quite still, as if frozen with horror—for he found himself looking full into the face of Black Bill, the one person in the world of whom he had a real dread. And it was Black Bill, with rumpled hair, bits of bracken in his beard, his shirt all torn open at the neck, and hanging in shreds, his arms tied down to his sides, and a look of sullen rage in his terrible eyes.
With a gasp Nipper staggered off Bobby’s back and broke five geraniums in his fall. In a few horrified words he explained what he had seen.
“Whatever can be up?” said Bobby.
“That’s what I keep thinking,” said Nipper. “It’s awful mysterious. But we’d better go and search for Danny.”
Creeping round to the old cucumber frame where they had hidden their secret store, they drew forth their provisions for the day, and the other things they had collected, as likely to be useful on the expedition for the relief of Danny.
Having packed everything into a small Gladstone bag, they set forth upon their quest, taking turns with the bag, which they carried over their shoulders slung on a stick.
Their methods were as follows: Tramping round the country, they visited every place that they themselves would have chosen as the best place to hide a kidnapped boy in, and walking round it, they shouted as loud as possible a certain call which Danny had taught them, and which it was an understood thing in the Pack must always be answered, whenever and wherever heard.
It was like a huge game of hide-and-seek.
The day before, Nipper and Bobby had visited, among other places, a windmill, seven farms, five churches, four sheds or cowhouses in fields, a boat house, a village football pavilion, the golf club, some waterworks, a lime kiln, and a disused sandpit. But only echoes had answered their oft-repeated call.
Footsore, and sore of throat, and very tired of the Gladstone bag, they had returned home at night, still entirely determined to persevere in the search until they should find Danny. “We won’t give in to ourselves,” they told each other, every time things were very disappointing, and Danny did not prove to be in the farm buildings, or imprisoned with the golf clubs, or in the coal-holes of the various churches.