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

He let out a yell of agony as the spike, by the force of his weight and speed, was driven home into his foot.

'Got 'im,' said Chippy, and the two scouts turned to see their enemy, doubled up on the ground, utterly crippled for the time by that shrewd thrust from below.

'I knowed that 'ud settle 'im, if we could on'y get on to it,' chuckled Chippy, while the boys eased their speed, but still ran steadily on. 'I've 'ad my foot cut on a burnt root afore now.'

'Oh, Chippy,' said Dick, 'what a touch to bring his boot! That was splendid.'

''Tworn't a bad notion,' agreed Chippy. 'We'll leg it a bit again, an' then 'ave a look at it.'

The boys ran for a mile or more, and then fell into a walk. The blackened strip of country was now out of sight, and they looked round for a place to halt for a few minutes to get their breath and examine the boot.

'We want a place,' said Dick, 'where there's good cover for ourselves, and a clear space all round so that no one can surprise us. I learned that from "Aids to Scouting."'

'I see,' said Chippy. 'Wot about that patch o' thick stuff right ahead?'

'That'll do,' said Dick; 'there's plenty of room all round it;' and the boys ran to the covert and crept into it.

'Now for the boot,' murmured Dick eagerly, as Chippy laid it down between them. 'Here you are, Chippy. Here's my pocket-knife, and there's a screw-driver in it.'

'Righto,' said the Raven. 'I was just a-thinkin' 'ow to open it.'

Chippy went to work with the screw-driver in Dick's knife, and in two minutes the heel-plate was off. The screws held the iron tip and a single thickness of leather in place as a cover on the rest of the heel. In the thickness of the heel was a small cavity out of which fell three closely folded scraps of paper. The boys opened the papers and looked at them. They could make nothing of the marks and signs with which the tiny sheets were covered.

'There don't seem no sense at all here,' remarked Chippy.

'Those are secret signs,' replied Dick, 'so that no one can understand the information except the people for whom it is meant. I expect they'd know fast enough, if once they got hold of it.'

'Well, they won't 'ave it this time,' said Chippy. 'Wot are we goin' to do wi' this?'

'I wonder where that sergeant is,' said Dick. 'I'll be bound that was his business on the heath, Chippy – not trying to keep convicts in, but trying to keep spies out.'

'I never took it in when he was tellin' us to tek' care o' the convic's,' said Chippy. 'Not but wot I thought at fust as one of 'em had got away.'

'So did I,' agreed Dick. 'I felt certain it was an escaped convict.'

'An' it wor' Albert,' murmured Chippy in wonder. 'Albert, wot 'ad been bad, an' come down from Lunnon for his health,' and Chippy chuckled dryly.

Before the papers were restored and the heel fastened up, Dick measured the hidden cavity with his thumb-nail. It was one inch and a quarter in length, one inch in breadth, and half an inch deep. 'Plenty of room for a lot of dangerous information there,' remarked Dick.

'What makes 'em so sharp on this game?' asked Chippy.

'Oh,' cried Dick, 'I've heard about that. A spy gets a great sum of money if he can carry back full information about the forts and soldiers of another country. You see, it is a great help if you are going to war with that country. You know just what you've got to meet, and you can be ready to meet it.'

'I see,' said Chippy. 'Well, I've done the boot up again. Now we'll have a look round for that sergeant. We've come straight back to the part where we seed 'im afore.'

'So we have,' said Dick; 'there's Woody Knap right in front of us again.'

'Hello! wot's that?' cried Chippy, whose eyes were always on the move. He was pointing through the covert towards the direction from which they had come. Something was moving in the distant gorse, and then they saw the spy. He was hobbling along at a good speed, his eyes bent on the ground.

'Here he comes again!' cried Dick, 'and, by Jingo, he's following our trail. I say, Chippy, he can do a bit of scouting, too.'

'That's a fact,' said Chippy, and began to steal out of the covert on the farther side. Before leaving it the two boys paused for a last look at the spy. His wounded foot was bound up in his cap with a handkerchief round it, and he was covering the ground at considerable speed. He was a first-rate tracker, and he was coming along their trail as easily as if he had been trotting on a plain road. For a few seconds the boys were held fascinated by the sight of this savage sleuth-hound at their heels. They were held as the rabbit is held, when he pauses in his flight, yet knows that all the time the weasel is following swiftly in quest of his life.

Suddenly the boys started, looked at each other, threw off the feeling, and ran away at their best speed, for the halt had given them their wind again.

'Good job we 'ad a place where we could see 'im a-comin',' remarked Chippy. 'I ain't a-goin' to forget that tip.'

'He sees us now,' cried Dick. 'He's coming faster.'

The boys were no longer hidden by the covert in which they had halted. They had come into the spy's field of view, and now he pursued by sight, and leapt out at the best speed he could make.

Chippy looked round. 'Droppin' 'is foot down a bit tender,' commented the Raven; 'we can choke 'im off any time we want on a rough patch.'

Dick now pulled out his patrol whistle, and began to blow it.

'I'll join yer,' said Chippy, and pulled out his. The two whistles sent their shrill blasts far over the heath, as the boys ran on and on, and the spy still pursued. The latter had faltered for a moment when the whistles rang out but he had recovered his speed and hastened forward. He thought that it was a trick, that the boys wished him to fear that they had support near at hand. If only he could seize the boy who carried his boot! That was his great hope.

CHAPTER XVI

THE SPY IS SEIZED

It was a happy thought of Dick to use his patrol whistle upon reaching the strip of country where they had seen the sergeant. The latter heard the very first shrill note. He was haunting that stretch of the heath for a purpose, eyes and ears wide open. He ran towards the sound, and came plump on the boys as they raced round a bend in the way, for the two scouts were now following the heath-track where they had last seen the prints of the soldier's ammunition boots.

'Hooray!' yelled Chippy, who was a little in front. ''Ere he is. Hooray!' and Dick joined in the cheer.

'You two again!' cried the astonished sergeant. 'What on earth are you nippers up to?'

'We've discovered a spy, sergeant,' panted Dick. 'He's running after us. He'll be up in a minute.'

At the word 'spy' the sergeant's face underwent an extraordinary change. It filled with wonder, and then a grim alertness sprang to life all over him. He dropped his hand to his holster, and whipped out a big regulation 455 revolver, blue and sombre. The boys formed behind as under cover of a tower of strength, and the spy dashed round the bend.

'Hands up!' bellowed the sergeant, and the spy knew better than to disobey with that grim dark muzzle laid full on his body.

'Heavenly powers!' murmured the sergeant, 'I was right. As sure as my name's John Lake I was right. Didn't I see you on the heath just about here last Thursday?' he demanded of the spy. The latter made no reply. He stood, drawn up to his full height, his hands above his head, and in one of them was a long-bladed hunting-knife of the sort which folds into small compass. Now it was fully opened, and looked a very dreadful weapon. The man was white as death, and gasping fiercely from his run and this frightful surprise.

'Drop that knife,' commanded the sergeant, 'or I'll put a bullet through your wrist.'

The spy's wild eyes were fixed on the English soldier's grim face. He knew when a man meant what he said, and he dropped the knife.

'Step two yards back,' went on the sergeant. The spy did so.

'One o' you boys pick up that knife,' murmured the sergeant; and Dick ran and fetched it.

'Now, I'm in the dark yet,' went on the sergeant quietly; 'all this looks very suspicious, but how do you boys come to reckon you've nabbed a spy?'

Dick began with the boot and the papers hidden in it.

'That's enough, my lad,' said the sergeant. 'We'll lose no time. There's plenty o' reason, I can see, to take him in on suspicion, and after hearing that I'd shoot him at once if he tried to escape. Now you,' he went on to the spy, 'turn right round and march ahead as I tell you. And remember I'm a yard behind you with a cocked revolver. March!'

The spy turned, and went as he was bidden.

'Come on, boys; you must come with me,' said the sergeant and the little party went across the heath, the prisoner turning as the sergeant bade him, and taking as direct a line as possible to the Horseshoe Fort.

An hour later Dick and Chippy found themselves in the presence of the officer in charge of the works at the fort. The prisoner had been handed over into safe keeping, and the sergeant and the two boys had been ordered to report to the colonel himself.

They were shown into a large bare room where a tall man was seated at a great table covered with papers. He stood up, as they went in and saluted, and posted himself in front of the fire.

'Well, Sergeant Lake,' he said. 'What's all this about?'

'I believe, sir, I've got a spy; at least, these boys had him. I only helped to bring him in.' So spoke the modest sergeant.

'Ah, yes, a spy;' and the colonel nodded, as if he had been expecting a spy for weeks, and perhaps he had. 'But this is rather an odd thing to get hold of a spy in this fashion. Let me hear all about it.'

'I can tell you little or nothing, sir,' replied Sergeant Lake. 'I didn't wait to hear all their story. The boys told me enough, though, for me to bring him in.'

'Well,' said the colonel, 'suppose I have the story from one of you boys?'

Dick and Chippy looked at each other, and the latter mumbled: 'You tell 'em. Yer can manage it a lot better 'n me. I shan't, anyhow. Goo on.'

Thus adjured by his brother scout, Dick told the whole story from the moment he saw the startled rabbit until they had run upon the sergeant in their headlong flight. Then Chippy handed over the boot, which underwent the most careful examination at the hands of the colonel. The latter spread out on the table the tiny sheets of paper from the cavity, and studied them long and earnestly. To his trained eyes those marks meant things which the boys had, as was only natural, failed to grasp. He had sat down at the table to examine the papers, and Dick, Chippy, and the sergeant were standing on the opposite side.

At last the colonel leaned back in his chair, and looked at the boys and tapped the papers with his forefinger.

'Oh yes,' he said, 'you've nabbed a spy, and no mistake about it, my brave lads. I feel, personally, that you've done me an immense service, for I should have been simply wild to think that my plans were as good as pigeon-holed in some foreign intelligence office. But, after all, that's only my personal feeling. You've done your country an immense service, and that's a much bigger thing still. Unfortunately, it can never be publicly recognised: this affair must remain a profound secret; and men, you know, have received medals and open honour for smaller things than you have done to-day.'

'We don't trouble at all about that, sir,' said Dick quietly. 'We're not out for what we can get for ourselves: we're boy scouts.'

'I beg your pardon,' said the colonel. 'I beg your pardon. Of course, you're boy scouts, and that puts you on a different footing at once. You look at the thing from a real soldier's point of view – all for his side, and nothing for himself. That's it, isn't it?'

'Theer's Scout Law 2,' growled Chippy; 'it's all theer.'

Ah! Law 2,' said the colonel, who was not, like Chippy, a walking encyclopaedia on 'Scouting for Boys.' 'I should like very much to hear how that law runs.'

Chippy recited it, and the colonel listened attentively as the scout said, 'A Scout is loyal to the King, and to his officers, and to his country, and to his employers. He must stick to them through thick and thin against anyone who is their enemy, or who even talks badly of them.'

'A splendid law,' he said, 'and you boys have obeyed it nobly to-day. And now I'm going to ask you to be very quiet about the seizure of this man. You may, if you wish, tell your parents, but bind them over to strict secrecy. You see, this man belongs to a nation with whom at the moment our own is on the most friendly terms, and it will never do for his capture to get abroad. Now, how are you going to get back to Bardon?'

Dick mentioned the station at which they were all to meet. The colonel looked at his watch, and shook his head. 'You can't do that now,' he said; 'but we'll manage it all right. My chauffeur shall run you over to Bardon direct, and drop you at the station. There you'll meet your friends when they arrive. My Napier will do that comfortably. But we must find you something to eat first. Come with me to my quarters.'

Half an hour later the colonel put the two scouts in his big splendid six-cylinder Napier, and the great car was ready to start. As he shook hands with them at parting, he wished to tip them a sovereign apiece, but the boys would not hear of it. Chippy, to whom the money was a little fortune, was most emphatic.

'Not a bit of it, sir,' he growled – 'not a bit of it. If we tek' money for the job, 'ow 'ave we 'elped our country?'

'I quite understand,' said the colonel, smiling, 'quite. You're a pair of trumps, and I honour the feeling. If B. – P.'s movement turns out many more like you it will prove the finest thing we've had in the country for many a day.'

He gave his man a nod, and away shot the huge powerful car along the road which led to Bardon.

True to the colonel's promise, the car drew up outside Bardon Station a few minutes before the train which would bring their friends was due. Dick and Chippy sprang from the tonneau, where they had ridden in immense comfort, thanked the chauffeur, bade him good-night, and sought the arrival platform.

''Ow about Mr. Elliott?' said Chippy; 'we ought to tell 'im.'

'Ah, of course!' said Dick. 'He's our instructor, and the colonel said we might tell our parents. At that rate we might tell Uncle Jim.'

'I shan't tell my folks,' said Chippy; 'they wouldn't bother about knowin'. I'll tell Mr. Elliott instead.'

'All right, Chippy,' said Dick. 'Hullo, here's the train!'

Mr. Elliott was very much relieved when the first faces he saw on the platform were those of the missing patrol-leaders. Wolves and Ravens, too, swarmed out and sprang on their lost comrades, and plied them with eager questions. But to each inquirer Dick and Chippy merely said they had been on duty, and come home another way, and the patrols were left mystified and wondering.

'I've got to report to yer, Mr. Elliott,' said Chippy, and took him aside. Now, the patrols thought that this disappearance and reappearance of the leaders was something in connection with the day's movements, and their questions were checked, for discipline forbids prying into the arrangements made by officers.

The instructor was full of delight when he heard how the missing leaders had spent their time. He congratulated both warmly, and said: 'One to the Boys' Scout movement this time. If you hadn't been out on that scouting-run, the plans of the new Horseshoe Fort would have gone abroad as easily as possible. That's playing the game as it ought to be played.'

CHAPTER XVII

HOPPITY JACK'S STALL

When Chippy left the station and gained Skinner's Hole, he put away his patrol flag carefully behind the tall clock, which was the only ornament of the poor squalid place he called home, and then turned to and helped his mother with a number of odd jobs.

'There ain't much supper for yer,' she said – 'on'y some bread an' a heel o' cheese.'

'That's aw' right,' said Chippy. 'Gie it to the little uns. I don't want none.'

He left the house and strolled towards a corner of Quay Flat, where on Saturday nights and holidays a sort of small fair was always held. One or two shooting-galleries, a cocoa-nut 'shy,' and a score or more of stalls laden with fruit, sweetmeats, and the like, were brilliantly lighted up by naphtha flares. Towards this patch of brightness all loungers and idlers were drawn like moths to a candle, and Chippy, too, moved that way. It was now about half-past nine, and the little fair was at its busiest.

As he went he was joined by an acquaintance, who held out a penny packet of cigarettes.

'Have a fag, Chippy?' he said.

'Not me, thenks,' replied Chippy. 'I've chucked 'em.'

'Chucked 'em!' replied his friend in amazement. 'What for?'

'They ain't no good,' said Chippy. 'There ain't one in our patrol as touches a fag now. If he did, I'd soon boot 'im. 'Ow are yer goin' to smell an enemy or a fire or sommat like that half a mile off if yer spoil yer smell wi' smokin'?'

'I dunno,' replied the other. 'Who wants to smell things all that way? Why don't yer go and look?'

'Yer can't always,' returned Chippy, 'and when you dussn't go close, it comes in jolly handy to be able to smell 'em, and them wot smoke can't do it. So there ain't no fags for boy scouts!'

'I like a cig now and then,' said the other boy.

'Who's stoppin' yer?' asked Chippy loftily. 'You ain't a boy scout: you don't count.'

This view of the case rather nettled Chippy's acquaintance, and he began to argue the matter. But he was no match for Chippy there. Away went the latter in full burst upon his beloved topic, and the other heard of such pleasures and such fascinating sport that his cigarette went out, and was finally tossed aside, as he listened.

'Yer don't want another in the Ravens, do yer, Chippy?' he asked eagerly.

'Not now,' returned Chippy, 'but we could mek' another patrol, I dessay. I'll talk to Mr. Elliott about it.'

'Righto, Chippy,' returned the other. 'I know plenty as 'ud like to join. I've heard 'em talkin' about it, but I hadn't got 'old of it as you've been givin' it me. Hello, wot's up here? Here's a lark – they're havin' a game wi' old Hoppity Jack, and there's ne'er a copper about.'

While talking, the boys had drawn near the noisy crowd of Skinner's Hole residents gathered around the stalls and shooting-galleries. One of the stalls stood a little away from the rest, and instead of a huge naphtha flare, was only lighted by a couple of candles set in battered old stable-lanterns. The owner of the stall was a queer little bent old man wearing an immensely tall top-hat and a very threadbare suit of black. The collar of his coat was turned up and tied round his neck with a red handkerchief, and the ends of the handkerchief mingled with a flowing grey beard. He was a well-known character of Skinner's Hole, and the boys called him Hoppity Jack, because one of his legs was shorter than the other, so that his head bobbed up and down as he walked.

He kept a small herbalist's shop, and stored it with simples which he rambled far and wide over heath and upland to gather, and dry, and tie up in bunches. On Sundays he betook himself to the public park of Bardon, carrying a small stand. From this stand he delivered long lectures, whenever he could gather an audience, on the subject of the ten lost tribes of Israel. Altogether, he was one of those curious characters whom one finds at times in the byways of life. His many oddities marked him out very distinctly from other people, and often made him a butt for the rude jokes and horseplay of idle loungers on Quay Flat.

His stall was always to be found near the rest, and it was never stocked but with one thing – a kind of toffee with horehound in it. He made it himself, and vended it as a certain cure for coughs and colds.

As Chippy and his companion came up, Hoppity Jack was screaming with rage, and the crowd of idle boys tormenting him was convulsed with laughter. A long-armed wharf-rat had flung a piece of dried mud and sent the old man's queer tall hat spinning from his head.

The thrower was laughing loudly with the rest, when a sound fell on his ear. 'Kar-kaw! Kar-kaw!' He whipped round, for he was a member of the Raven Patrol, and saw his leader a dozen yards away, and ran up at once.

'Wot d'yer want, Chippy?' he cried.

'Come out o' that,' commanded Chippy – 'come out an' stop out. Wot sort o' game is that un for a scout?'

'On'y a bit of a lark wi' old Hoppity Jack,' said the surprised Raven. 'Why, yer've bin in it yerself many a time, Chippy.'

The patrol-leader went rather red. No one likes to be reminded of the days when he was unregenerate. But he spoke firmly.

'We got to chuck them games now, Ted. Theer's Law 5, yer know. He's old, an' more 'n a bit of a cripple.'

'Well, I'm blest!' murmured the astonished Ted. 'I never thought o' the scoutin' comin' into this.'

'It does, though,' replied Chippy, 'an' we got to stand by an' lend 'im a hand, as far as I can mek' it out.'

'He'll want a hand, too,' said Chippy's acquaintance. 'They're goin' to upset the stall an' collar the toffee.'

It was true; a number of boys were gathering for a rush, while Hoppity Jack danced in frenzy up and down in front of his stall and shouted for the police. But though no police were near, a staunch band of helpers sprang up as if by magic to aid the poor badgered old fellow beset by enemies.

The Raven patrol call rang out, and was answered swiftly. Most of the Ravens had come out on to Quay Flat after their return home, and in a trice Chippy was at the head of six of his scouts. His orders were brief.

'We got to stand that lot off old Hoppity,' he said, and every Raven wondered, but obeyed, for they adored their clever leader, and were held in strict discipline.

At that moment the marauders made their rush, but, to their great surprise, they were taken in flank by a charge which hurled them into utter confusion, and sent them rolling to the ground, one on the other. The seven scouts had timed their assault to the moment, and sent their opponents over like ninepins. There was a sharp, short scuffle when the assailants got to their feet, but it soon ended in favour of the patrol. Chippy had known what he was about when he enrolled his men, and the pick of Skinner's Hole now fought under his command.

'No punchin',' roared Chippy. 'Just start 'em. Like this! ' He bounded up to the leader of the rush on the stall – a youth a good head taller than himself – and gave him an open-handed slap on the jaw, which rang like a pistol-shot. The Ravens leapt to support him, and the marauders were driven off in short order, the Raven who had knocked the old man's hat off now exerting himself with tremendous zeal to show the sincerity of his repentance.

'That's aw' right,' said Chippy to his followers when the enemy were in full flight; 'yer off duty now.'

'But look 'ere, Chippy,' said the corporal, Sam Fitt by name, 'have we got to be ready any time to stand up for Hoppity Jack sort o' people? O' course, now we had orders from you, an' that's plain enough. But is it a reg'lar game?'

'Of course it is, Sam,' said Chippy; 'you can't be a scout when yer like an' then drop it for a lark. Yer must play the game all the time.'

Thus did Chippy turn from serving his country to saving Hoppity Jack's stall, and it was all in the day's work.

CHAPTER XVIII

CHIPPY'S BAD TIME

When Chippy told his followers that they must play the game all the time, he meant every word that he said. He had devoted himself heart and soul to becoming a true scout, who is also a true gentleman, and he not only could reel off the laws by heart, but, as we have seen, he honestly strove to put them into practice at every moment. But now and again he ran up against a hard streak of weather in doing this, and he hit an uncommonly hard streak the very next morning.

At seven o'clock he turned up bright and early at the fishmonger's shop where he was employed. His employer, Mr. Blades, was in a fairly prosperous way of business in one of the secondary streets of the town. Mr. Blades looked after the shop; his son, a young man of twenty-three, drove a trap round with the customers' orders; and two boys, of whom Chippy was one, cleaned up, fetched and carried, ran short distances with pressing orders, and made themselves generally useful.