'Yer look all right now,' said Chippy, and Chippy spoke truly.
The lodger appeared the picture of health. He was tall, broad, of fair complexion, had sandy hair and blue eyes, and, as he drank his tea, he looked as fit as a fiddle.
'Ah, it's a healthy place here on th' old h'eth!' said Mrs. Ryder.
'Look at me!' said Albert. 'I'm a livin' example!'
The conversation now turned on Bardon, and the stranger showed keen interest in the ships which had lately gone up and down the river.
'I know a bit about ships,' he remarked, 'I 'ad a brother as went for a sailor.'
After a time he returned to the garden to smoke his pipe, and Chippy looked after him through the window.
'He seems a smart un!' remarked the boy.
'Ay, that Lunnon do mek 'em lively!' replied Mrs. Ryder. 'He's the best o' comp'ny – a very nice young man, I'm sure! He's no trouble at all – blacks his own boots, an' looks arter hisself all ways! I worn't willin' at first to let him have my empty room, but I'm glad I did. The place has done him a power o' good, though he didn't look very ill time he come down!'
'What's his name?' asked Chippy.
'Albert,' replied the old woman.
'I know that one,' said the boy, 'What's t'other name?'
'I dunno,' returned Mrs. Ryder. 'He told me to call him Albert, and I niver asked his other name.'
Everything that happens, everyone that appears, must furnish food for practice for a Boy Scout, and Chippy ran his eye over Albert from head to foot, and noted every detail of his perfectly commonplace appearance. Then the boy followed him into the garden, and, true to the habit which was rapidly becoming an instinct, he dropped a glance on Albert's track. There was a patch of damp earth near the door, and the lodger's footprint was plainly stamped on it. At the first swift look Chippy gathered that there was something slightly different from usual about the heel-print. He did not look closely, for you must never let anyone know that either he himself or the trail he leaves, is being watched; but there was something. Chippy strolled forward, but no other mark was to be seen; the garden path was hard, clean gravel.
Albert had seated himself on a bench nailed against an elm in the garden fence, and was smoking calmly in the sunshine. As Chippy drew near, he turned his head and smiled in a friendly fashion.
'I s'pose you know all the creeks along the river pretty fair?' he asked.
'Most of 'em,' replied Chippy.
'I've heerd Jem Lacey talk of a place they called Smuggler's Creek, where the old smugglers used to run their boats in,' went on Albert; 'I should like to 'ave a look at that. When I was a kid I used to be fair crazy arter tales of old smugglers an' that sort o' thing.'
'I know it all right,' replied Chippy. 'There ain't no 'ouse nor anythin' for miles of it.'
'Not nowadays?' cried Albert.
'Yus!' returned Chippy. 'It's just as quiet as it used to be.'
'Could a boat from a ship in the river go up it?' asked Albert.
'Oh, easy!' replied Chippy; and, in response to the other's request, he gave clear directions for finding the spot.
'I'll 'ave a look at it,' said the lodger. 'I like a good long walk. The doctor told me as that was the best thing for me. So I got a good strong pair o' trotter-cases, an' I tramp out wet an' dry.'
He raised one of his heavy boots for a moment, and let it fall.
'Got it,' said the pleased scout to himself, but gave no sign of his discovery. The heavy iron tips on Albert's heels were screwed on instead of nailed on, and the groove in the head of each screw had left a small but distinct ridge in the earth at each point where the screws came in the heel.
It was only practice, but Chippy was as keen in practice as he was when chasing the thievish tramp for the lost basket. He had mastered the idea that it will not do to be keen by fits and starts: you must be on the spot all the time. So he took away from Locking that afternoon one fact which he had discovered about his grandmother's lodger – the boots from a London hotel – that the tips on his heels were screwed on, whereas the common method is nailing.
CHAPTER XII
DICK AND CHIPPY MEET A SERGEANT – THE QUEER TRAIL – A STRANGE DISCOVERY
The Monday week after Chippy's visit to Locking was Easter Monday and a general holiday. The Wolves and the Ravens made it a grand field-day, and they were on the heath by nine o'clock, each with a day's food in pocket or haversack, and a grand scouting-run ahead – a run which had been planned from point to point by Mr. Elliott, who accompanied them. The patrols had by now worked together several times, and had become brothers in arms.
The old foolish feuds between them were completely forgotten, and when Dick and his friends crossed Quay Flat the wharf-rats would now swarm out, not with sticks for a 'slug,' but with salutes and eager inquiries as to progress in this or that game dear to the hearts of Boy Scouts.
But it is not with this Easter-Monday scouting-run of the combined patrols that we are about to deal. We shall go straight away to the hour of three o'clock on that afternoon, when a very memorable and exciting experience for the two patrol-leaders began to unfold itself.
Mr. Elliott had set his band of scouts the hardest task of the day. He himself had put on the irons, and was laying the track. He had warned them that it would be a tough test – something to really try them – and so it proved. If they failed to run him down, they were all to meet at a little railway-station about two miles away, from which they would go back to Bardon by rail. They were already a good eight miles from home, for they had marched right across to an unknown part of the heath to carry out their manoeuvres.
At one point, where Mr. Elliott's track seemed to have vanished into the very earth, Dick took a long cast away to the right by himself. As he moved slowly forward he heard a rustle of bushes, and looked up and saw Chippy trotting to join him.
'He's done us one this time!' said Chippy, grinning; 'I'm blest if I can 'it the trail anywheer!'
'It's jolly hard to find any sign,' answered Dick; 'but he told us it was to be a stiff thing, and if we can't get hold of it we shall have to head for the station, that's all. But we'll have a good go at it. What about a cast round by that rabbit warren over there? The ground's half covered with soft soil the rabbits have thrown out of their holes. If he's gone that way the irons will leave a dead certain track.'
'Righto!' murmured the Raven leader, and they trotted across to the rabbit warren and began to search the heaps of sandy soil.
They were working along the foot of a bank with faces bent to the earth, when suddenly they were startled by a voice hailing them a few yards away.
'Hallo, there!' called someone.
The boys glanced up, and at once straightened themselves and came to the salute. A tall man in khaki and putties stood on the top of the bank looking at them, a revolver in the holster strapped at his side.
'And who may you be, and what do you want here?' he asked pleasantly, and returned the salute.
'We're Boy Scouts,' replied Dick, 'and our patrols are out for a big scouting-run over the heath.'
'Ah, yes! Boy Scouts – I've heard of you,' said the big man, still smiling at them. 'Well, I'm in the same line myself. But you can't come any further this way, mateys. You'll have to scout back, if you don't mind.'
'Why must we do that, sergeant?' asked Dick, who had noted the chevrons on the big man's sleeve, and understood them.
'Well,' said the good-natured soldier, 'it's like this: We've got a lot of big, bad convicts at work over there,' and he jerked his head behind him, 'and we keep 'em strictly to themselves, you see. They're bad company for anybody but the men as looks after 'em, so we keep this corner of the country clear of other people.'
'At