The Wolf Patrol: A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts

Chippy nodded. 'I reckon this path runs somewheer,' he said. 'I'll foller it up.'

He raced forward and disappeared round a further bend, leaving Dick to do his best for their unconscious comrade. Within three hundred yards Chippy saw a white house before him in lee of a fir coppice.

'His place, I know!' burst from Chippy's lips. The poor lad had fallen almost within call of home. How narrowly had a tragedy been averted!

The Raven ran on, passed through another white wicket, and entered a farmyard. A tall man was just dismounting from a cob.

'What, Fred, back already?' he cried, then stopped, for he saw it was not Fred, but a stranger in scout's uniform. Chippy darted up to him.

'Fred's your boy as like as not,' he said. 'A scout same as me. Went off on his bike a bit back, eh?'

'Yes,' said the farmer wonderingly; 'how do you come to know about him? I've never set eyes on you before.'

'He's met with a bit o' an accident,' said Chippy, 'an' a comrade o' mine found him an' sent me to get help. Seems I've come to the right place, fust send on.'

'Where is he?' cried the farmer.

'Just along the medder-path,' replied Chippy, pointing; 'fell off his bike, an' had a nasty tumble. Better bring summat to carry him.'

'Is he badly hurt?' cried the farmer in alarm.

'Well,' said Chippy, 'theer's a nasty cut on his arm, but we've stopped the bleedin'.'

The farmer called to two men at work in a barn, and a door was hastily lifted from its hinges. Then all three hurried along in the wake of the Raven, who led the way back.

CHAPTER XLV

AT THE HARDYS' FARM

But scarcely had the party left the farmyard than they saw in the distance the figure of a heavily laden scout. It was Dick marching along with his injured comrade on his shoulders. A few moments after Chippy departed in search of help, the wounded boy came to himself under the influence of the cold water with which Dick bathed the hurt and the boy's face.

'Hallo!' he murmured feebly. 'What's wrong? Have I got home?'

'Not just yet, old chap,' said Dick cheerily, 'but you'll soon be there. A friend has gone ahead for help.'

'It's only a little way now,' muttered the injured boy.

'How far?' cried Dick, but he received no answer. The other was fast falling into a stupor again.

Dick felt very uneasy. He did not know a great deal about wounds, but he knew that his brother scout had lost a large amount of blood, and that it was very urgent that he should be swiftly conveyed to a place where he could receive proper attention.

'I'll carry him in,' thought Dick. He looked at the bandage, and carefully tightened it a little again. Then he turned the boy, now insensible once more, on his face, and knelt down. Raising the body, Dick worked his way beneath it until his right shoulder was under the other's stomach. Slipping his right arm between the legs of his burden, Dick gripped the wrist of the sound arm, and slowly raised himself. This was the hardest part of the task, but the Wolf's strong, limber knees made sure work of it, and in a moment he stood nearly upright with the injured scout across his shoulders. Then Dick stepped out at a gentle, even pace, following the path Chippy had taken. He was in sight of the farmhouse when the Raven and his followers came streaming through the gate, and the farmer, running at full speed, was the first up to the marching scout.

'Give him to me, give my boy to me,' cried the pale-faced man.

'Better not,' said Dick quietly; 'we mustn't move him about too much, or the bandage may work loose. Is that your house?'

'Yes,' cried the other.

'I'll run him right in,' said Dick. 'Shift the wicket.'

One of the men hurried forward and swung the wicket-gate from its hinges, and, piloted by the farmer, Dick crossed the farmyard, marched through a door into a passage, and thence into an ample kitchen, where, with the aid of the farmer, he set down his burden on a broad settle. As he did so, the boy's mother came hurrying in from the dairy. She gave a little gasping cry when she saw the ghastly face of her son, but at once took command in a quiet, sensible fashion.

'Have you sent for the doctor?' she said to her husband.

'Yes; Joe's gone,' he answered. Joe was one of the men. He had raced off at once to the village.

The wounded boy was again lifted very carefully, and carried away to a bedroom. In a few moments the farmer came back, eager to hear how the scouts had found his son. He was astonished to find that their only clue, as he understood clues, was the seeing of the broken bicycle. It took him some time to grasp the methods by which the scouts had pieced together the evidence and followed up the wounded rider, and his thankfulness and gratitude were beyond expression.

'To think he was barely a field away from home, and couldn't move another step!' cried Mr. Hardy – for that was the farmer's name. 'And then you tracked him down in that clever fashion. Well, if you two are not a credit to Baden-Powell's Scouts, my name isn't George Hardy.'

'Your son is a scout too, I think,' said Dick. 'I saw he was wearing our uniform and badge.'

'Of course he is,' cried Mr. Hardy. 'He's fairly crazy about it – thinks of nothing else, he's so keen on it. There's a patrol over in the village yonder, and he's joined it. He's what they call a second-class scout at present, and he wants to become first-class. So off he set on his bike for a fifteen-mile ride, as it seems that's one of the things he's got to do.'

'Test 7,' grunted Chippy.

'Ah, very likely,' agreed Mr. Hardy. 'I don't know the numbers. Hallo! that's good. Here's the doctor.'

He sprang up, and took the medical man to the bedroom, while Joe came into the kitchen, wiping his face.

'Met the doctor on the road, so that's lucky,' said Joe, and then began to ask the scouts about the accident; for Fred was a great favourite, and all were anxious to know how ill had befallen him.

Dick and Chippy would now have resumed their interrupted march had they not been desirous of hearing the doctor's report on their brother scout's condition.

Twenty minutes passed before Mr. Hardy returned to the kitchen, and his face shone with joy.

'He'll pull through,' cried the farmer. 'Doctor says there's a chance for him yet. But if he'd lain there half an hour longer there'd have been no mortal hope of saving him, and I can never tell you how thankful his mother and me do feel towards you.'

'Oh, very likely someone would have found him in time if we hadn't tracked him,' said Dick.

'Never in this world,' said Mr. Hardy solemnly – 'never in this world! That path is but little used. The village lies t'other way. He might have lain there for hours and hours.'

'Well, we're very glad we were so lucky as to be of service,' said Dick; 'and now we must push on our way. We're making a scouting journey, and have to finish it by to-morrow night.'

'Nay, nay,' cried the farmer; 'you'll have dinner, at least, before you go. 'Twill be ready soon, and I'd take it very onkindly if you left us without bite or sup.'

At this moment Mrs. Hardy came in, and thanked the clever scouts warmly for the great service they had rendered. She seconded her husband's invitation, and as one o'clock struck in thin chimes from a tall eight-day clock, they sat down to a plentiful dinner. Over the meal the talk turned on the journey the scouts were making, and the farmer and his wife were deeply interested in their adventures.

'But look here, now,' said Mr. Hardy; 'this fine piece of work you've done for us – and we shall never forget it – has fetched you out of your way, and cost you a lot of time.'

'We'll make it up before dark,' said Dick.

'Ay, by overtiring yourselves,' said the farmer. 'Now, suppose I run you along a piece of your way in my trap. I've got a Welsh cob that'll slip us along as if he'd but a feather behind him. I'll set you ten or twelve miles on your road, and be thankful if you'd give me the chance.'

The scouts looked at each other. It was a temptation. It was an undeniable temptation. It would make the march into Bardon a very simple affair on the morrow.

Then Chippy spoke up, his keen eye reading Dick's puckered brow and considering face.

'Yer want to march all the way,' he said quietly.

'I didn't at first, Chippy,' replied Dick. 'The offer of the lift seemed splendid, and it is immensely good of you,' he went on, turning to Mr. Hardy. 'But I'll tell you just where I stand. I'm under a sort of agreement with my father that it's to be a genuine march all the way. If I had a lift from you, it would hardly be fair as I see it. But that doesn't apply at all to my chum; he's quite at liberty to come with you.'

'I'll take one or both, and be proud to do it,' cried the farmer.

'Much obliged,' said Chippy in his hoarsest notes; 'but me and my comrade march together.' Nor could either of the scouts be shaken from his determination.

CHAPTER XLVI

DICK'S ACCIDENT

Dick and Chippy took the road again an hour after dinner amid a volley of cheers raised by the labourers on the farm. The men had gathered in the stockyard to see them start, and gave them three times three and a tiger; for the Hardys were very popular with their dependents, and, beyond that, the men felt respect for coolness, pluck, and skill for the sake of the qualities themselves.

The two scouts felt a glow of delight in this achievement such as no words can describe. They marched on their way with a swinging stride, as if they stood on air. First they had the keen professional delight of having built up by their own observation a theory which proved true in every particular save one – that the blood found on the scene of the accident had flowed from a cut in the arm, and not in the head. But that was a mere detail; in every item that mattered their deductions had proved sound.

'I should just like to have asked him when the brake went,' said Dick. 'Pretty well at the top of the hill, I know.'

'Must ha' done,' said Chippy, 'by the spin he'd got on the machine.'

They had not seen or spoken to their comrade before leaving the farm. Fred Hardy was in too weak a state even to know what his brother scouts had done for him, let alone seeing them or thanking them; his life still hung on a thread, but that thread would for a surety have been snapped had not the patrol-leaders discovered him and checked the bleeding.

'An' to think, arter follerin' him up, he turned out one of us,' murmured Chippy.

'Wasn't it splendid!' cried Dick.

Yes, that was the very crowning touch of the adventure. They would have done it all with the most cheerful willingness for anyone, old or young, sick or poor; but to rescue a brother scout – ah! that gave a flavour to the affair which filled them with purest delight.

Now the scouts swung forward with steady stride; they had lost a good deal of time, and the miles stretched before them – a formidable array to be ticked off before the spires of Bardon would be seen. This sweep back from Newminster was longer than the road they had followed to the city, and the extra distance was beginning to tell. They made a good strong march for three hours, and then halted for a short rest; and upon this halt a rather awkward accident took place, in which Dick was the sufferer.

The scouts had been tempted to pause at a point where a shallow brook ran for some hundreds of yards beside the road, forming one boundary. They had just made a long stretch of hot, dusty road, and their feet were aching. The water tempted them to halt, and strip off shoes and stockings, to bathe their heated and weary feet.

They sat down on the roots of a tree beside the stream, and dangled their feet in the cool running water, and found it very pleasant and refreshing.

'There's a fish acrost th' other side, just gone into a hole in the bank,' said Chippy; 'wonder if I could get 'im out?'

'Are you any good at catching fish with your hands, Chippy?' asked his companion. 'I never had any luck that way. I've tried in that brook on the heath, but they mostly seem to slip through my fingers.'

'There's a knack about it,' replied the Raven. 'Now, I dessay, Dick, ye tried to shut your hand round 'em.'

'Yes, I did,' said the Wolf.

'Ah, now, that's wheer ye went wrong,' returned his friend. 'Ye want to mark 'em down under a stone or in a hole, then press 'em hard agin the side, an' hold 'em theer a while. Then ye can jerk 'em out when they've lost their wind a bit.'

Chippy proceeded to show how it was done. He slipped his shirt-sleeve back to the shoulder, and introduced his hand cautiously into the hole. He made a sudden movement, and snapped 'Got 'im!' and held on. A minute later he drew out a small trout, his finger and thumb thrust into the gills, and showed it to Dick.

'Quarter-pounder for ye,' he said, and dexterously broke its neck.

'Let's see if we can get enough for supper, Chippy,' cried Dick; 'they'd go down first-rate with the sandwiches;' for Mrs. Hardy had insisted on storing their haversacks with a plentiful supply of ham and beef sandwiches. They spent half an hour or more paddling about in the cool, clear water, but only three small ones came to hand.

Then Chippy thrust his arm up a hole among the roots of an alder, and gave a chuckle of delight. 'A big un at last,' he cried; 'I've got 'im.' But suddenly his note changed.

'Ow!' he yelled, in comic anguish, and whipped his hand out of the hole. Blood was streaming from his forefinger.

'I say,' cried Dick, 'what a savage trout!'

''Tworn't a trout at all,' wailed the Raven; ''twor a big rat, an' he bit me.'

The scouts roared with laughter as Chippy flipped the blood into the water.

'He'd got you that time,' chuckled Dick.

'Sure enough,' nodded the Raven. 'I thought it wor' a pounder at the least. He's nigh on bit my finger through.'

Dick had his patrol staff in hand: he thrust it up the hole and tried to poke the rat out. But the hole twisted among the roots, and was a safe fortress for its wily defender.

'Well, I've done all the gropin' I want, this time,' remarked Chippy, washing his finger in the stream.

'Yes, we must be off again,' said Dick, and began slowly to wade towards the bank where their shoes and stockings lay.

Suddenly he started and picked up one foot.

'Ah!' cried Dick, 'that was sharp, and no mistake.'

'Wot's the matter?' called out Chippy, approaching him.

'Trod on something sharp,' said Dick.

'I should think yer did,' cried the Raven; 'look at yer foot. We must see to this.'

Dick looked, and saw the clear water stained with blood as it swept past his foot. He bent down and looked at the bed of the stream.

'Confound it all,' he said, 'it's the end of a broken bottle I've trodden on. No wonder it warmed me up a bit. Somebody's chucked it into the brook as they passed.'

The boys scrambled to the bank, and there Dick's wound was examined. It was on the outer side of the right heel, not long, but deep, for the broken bottle had thrust a sharp splintered point upwards, and the cut bled very freely. They washed it well in the cold water until the blood ceased to flow, then rubbed plenty of the mutton-fat in, for that was the only kind of ointment they had.

'Quite sure theer's no salt in this?' asked Chippy. ''Cos salt 'ud be dangerous.'

'Quite sure,' replied Dick. 'I boiled it down myself. It's pure fat.'

Chippy looked anxious. 'It's frightful awk'ard a cut in yer foot,' he said. 'How are ye goin' to march, Dick?'

'Oh, I'll march all right,' said Dick. 'I wish, though, it had been my finger, like yours, Chippy.'

The Raven nodded. 'True for you,' he said, 'ye don't ha' to tramp on yer hands.'

They bound up the cut in a strip torn from a handkerchief, got into their stockings and shoes, and went forward. Dick declared that his cut gave him little or no pain, but Chippy still looked uneasy. He knew that the time for trouble was ahead, when the cut would stiffen.

CHAPTER XLVII

THE LAST CAMP

'We'll never see Wildcombe Chase to-night, Chippy,' said Dick, as they stepped along.

'Not likely,' was the reply; 'we've a-lost too much time for that. An' now theer's that cut. What I say is this: let's mek' an early camp an' give yer foot a good rest. P'raps it'll feel better in the mornin'.'

'It isn't very bad now,' said Dick, 'only a little sore.'

'H'm,' grunted Chippy, 'so ye say. I know wot a deep cut like that means. We'll rest it as soon as we can.'

They paused on a triangle of grass at some cross roads and got out their map. Wildcombe Chase was altogether too far now, and they looked for a nearer camping-ground. They saw that they were within a mile of a village, and beyond that a by-way led across a large common. On this common they resolved to make their last bivouac.

They passed through the village without purchasing anything. They had plenty of food for supper in their haversacks, and though their tea and sugar and so on were finished, they did not intend to buy more. Even to purchase in small quantities would leave them with some on their hands, and they were not willing to spend the money. It was no mean, miserly spirit which moved them. Their scout's pride was concerned in carrying out the journey at as low a cost as possible, working their own way, as it were, through the country. For the money, as money, neither cared a rap. It must also be confessed that Dick was rather keen on handing back to his father a big part of the ten shillings. Dick remembered the twinkle in his father's eye, when Mr. Elliott handed over the half-sovereign for way money. The smile meant that he felt perfectly certain that the two boys would soon run through the ten shillings and have to turn back. Dick had perfectly understood, and the more he could return of that half-sovereign the prouder be would feel.

They pressed on across the common with a distant fir coppice for their landmark and goal. Such a place meant a comfortable bed for the night, and as soon as they gained its shelter Chippy cried halt, and forbade Dick to stir another step.

'It's been gettin' wuss and wuss lately,' said Chippy. 'Ye don't say a word, an' ye try to step out just as usual, but it's gettin' wuss an' wuss.'

'Oh, I don't mind admitting it's a trifle sore,' said Dick, 'but it will be all right in the morning.'

'Hope so,' said Chippy. 'Now you just drop straight down on that bank, an' I'll do th' odd jobs.'

Dick protested, but the Raven was not to be moved. He forced his chum to stretch himself on a warm, grassy bank while he made the preparations for camping that night. A short distance away a rushy patch betokened the presence of water. Dick pointed it out. 'I'll go over there and wash my foot,' he said.

'Right,' said Chippy, 'an' dab some more o' that fat on the cut.'

Dick found a little pool in the marshy place, and the cool water was very pleasant to his wounded foot, which had now become sore and aching. When he returned, Chippy was emerging from the coppice with armfuls of bedding; he had found a framework in the rails of a broken fence which had once bounded the firwood.

'Here, Chippy, I can lend a hand at that,' said Dick. 'There's no particular moving about in that job.'

'Aw' right,' said the Raven; 'then I'll set plenty o' stuff to yer hand an' see about the fire.'

Chippy soon had a fire going, and a heap of dry sticks gathered to feed it. A short distance away a big patch of gorse had been swaled in the spring. It had been a very partial affair, and the strong stems stood blackened and gaunt, but unburned. Thither went Chippy with the little axe, and worked like a nigger, hacking down stem after stem, and dragging them across until he had a pile of them also.

'They'll mek' a good steady fire for the night,' he remarked. Then he seized the billy.

'What d'ye say to a drop o' milk?' he said. 'We could manage that, I shouldn't wonder. When I wor' up in the wood I seen a man milkin' some cows t'other side o' the coppice, an' now as I wor' luggin' these sticks back I seen him a-comin' down the bank. Theer he goes.'

Chippy pointed, and Dick saw a man crossing the common with two shining milk-pails hanging from a yoke. At this warm season of the year the cows were out day and night, and the man had clearly come to milk them on the spot, and thus make a single journey instead of the double one involved in fetching them home and driving them back to the feeding-ground.

Dick turned out twopence, and Chippy pursued the retreating milkman. He returned, carrying the billy carefully.

'He wor' a good sort,' cried Chippy. 'He gied me brimmin' good measure for the money.'

The scouts now made a cheerful supper. Chippy broiled the trout in the ashes; Mrs. Hardy's sandwiches were very good, and the milk was heated in the billy and drunk hot from their tin cups.

Supper was nearly over when a small, reddish-coated creature came slipping through the grass towards them.

'There's a weasel,' said Dick, and the scouts watched it.

The little creature came quite near the fire, loping along, its nose down as if following a track. Then it paused, raised its head on the long snake-like neck, and looked boldly at the two boys, its small bright eyes glittering with a fierce light.

'Pretty cheeky,' said Dick, and threw a scrap of wood at it. The weasel gave a cry, more of anger than alarm, and glided away.

Within twenty minutes they saw a second weasel running along under the brake, nosing in every hole, and pausing now and again to raise its head and look round sharply on every hand.

'Weasels seem pretty busy about this 'ere coppice,' observed Chippy.

'No mistake about it,' agreed Dick. 'Do you know, Chippy, I've heard that they are always active and running about before bad weather.'

'Hope they've got another reason this time,' growled the Raven. 'Sky looks all right.'

'It does,' replied Dick.

The two scouts looked to every point of the compass, and raked their memories for weather signs, and compared what they remembered, but they could see nothing wrong. The sun was going down in a perfectly clear sky, and flooding the common with glorious light. There was no wind, no threat of storm from any quarter: the evening was cool, calm, and splendid.

'We'll turn in as soon as the sun's gone,' said Dick, 'and be up early in the morning, and make a long day of it.'

Chippy nodded, and the boys watched the great orb sinking steadily towards a long bank of purple woodland, which closed in the horizon.

'Wot's the home stretch run out at?' asked the Haven.

'The march in from here?' said Dick. 'Where's the map? We'll soon foot it up.'

The map was spread out, and careful measurements taken. 'Rather more than twenty-one miles,' said Dick.

Chippy whistled softly. 'We'd do it aw' right if nuthin' had happened to yer foot,' he murmured.

'We'll do it all right as it is,' cried the Wolf. 'Do you think I'm going to let that spoil our grand march? Not likely. I'll step it out to-morrow, and heel-and-toe it into Bardon every inch, Chippy, my boy.'

'It's a tidy stump on a cut foot,' said the Raven soberly.

'Hallo! what's that?' said Dick, and they looked round.

A furious squealing broke out among the trees behind them, and then a rabbit tumbled out of a bush, made a short scuttling run, and rolled over in a heap.

Close at its heels came the bloodthirsty little weasel in full pursuit, sprang on its prey once more, and fixed its teeth in the back of the rabbit's head, when the squealing broke forth anew.

Up leapt the Raven and took a hand in the affair at once. He caught up a stick of firewood, but the weasel ran away and left the rabbit kicking on the ground. Chippy picked up the bunny and came back to the fire.

'A good fat un, he cried, 'about three-parts grown. Good old weasel!'

'Very kind of him to go foraging for us,' laughed Dick.

'Ain't it?' – and the Raven showed the rabbit. It was not yet dead, and Chippy at once put it out of its pain by a sharp tap on the back of its neck with the edge of his hand. This killed it instantly.

'That's a good breakfast for us,' said Dick. 'We've got one or two sandwiches left as well.'

'Righto,' said Chippy, and turned to and skinned the rabbit, and cleaned it, ready for broiling in the morning.