'I'm done for,' said Dick, and came forward to pick up his ball. Chippy vanished into a clump of gorse, for the remaining members of the patrol were running towards the place, and all three had seen him.
The five who had been put out of the hunt gathered together, and watched the three effective fighters, who now began to beat the surrounding gorse in search of Chippy's hiding-place.
George Lee, Reggie Parr, and a comrade named Harry Maurice were left in the pursuit, and they went very warily to work to seize this wily bird.
Reggie Parr was creeping down a narrow alley between the gorse, when he saw something which pulled him up at once. He dropped flat, and signalled to George Lee, who was behind him, to come up.
'I can see him. I know where he is,' whispered Reggie eagerly when George was at his side. 'Lift your head very carefully and take a look at a big blackthorn-bush just ahead.'
George did so; and there, sure enough, was Chippy's queer old felt hat, with his rather pale face under it.
'We'll rush him from three sides at once. One of us is sure to get him that way,' whispered Reggie.
George nodded, and crept away to take up his position, while Reggie slipped off to find Harry Maurice and place him for his share in the attack. The signal for the charge was the cry of the patrol.
When all was ready, Reggie gave one howl, then the three scouts darted from their hiding-places, and bore down at full-speed on the little covert where Chippy's hat was still to be seen through a thin place in the blackthorn-bush.
But they burst into the covert, to find it quite empty. No Chippy was there, only his old hat cleverly arranged on a stick as if he were crouching behind the bush. And while they stared at the hat and each other, there came a swift fusillade of balls from an ambush a dozen yards away. Chippy had three balls, and every one hit its man.
'Got yer,' grunted Chippy in a tone of deep satisfaction, and crawled out of a patch of tall dried bracken, and came forward to fetch his hat.
'Well, by Jingo! That's an artful touch,' cried Reggie Parr. 'Why, I saw you. I saw your face plainly.'
'I know yer did,' replied Chippy, with a cheerful grin. 'I meant yer to. As soon as I wor sure yer'd seen my face, I rigged up th' ole 'at an' 'ooked it.'
At the sound of their voices in conversation the other five scouts came racing towards them. Dick Elliott was leading.
'How goes it?' cried Dick. 'Have you bagged him?'
'Not a bit of it,' replied George Lee. 'It's the other way about. He's bagged us.'
'Oh, Jerusha!' cried Billy Seton. 'The whole patrol! He's a scout and a half, this one.'
For the most part the patrol took their defeat with the utmost good humour, but Arthur Graydon's face wore a dark and angry look. This look deepened as Dick chuckled:
'Well, Arthur, not much choking him off about this. Our friend from the Raven Patrol seems to be doing the choking. There's nothing left for us to do but smile and whistle, according to Scout Law No. 8.'
'Look here,' said Arthur sharply to Chippy, who was smiling on the Wolves with a most amicable air; 'what do you mean by turning up behind us? We expected you to be in front.'
'Well, I dunno,' replied Chippy. 'Seems to me a scout 'adn't ought to expec' nothin'. He ought to be ready for wot may turn up – front, back, or anywheer else. That's 'ow I read the book.'
He dived into an inner pocket and fetched out Part II. The Raven Patrol had purchased it by putting together a halfpenny each, and Chippy was the custodian.
'Page 81,' read out Chippy. '"A scout must not only look to his front, but also to either side, and behind him; he must have 'eyes at the back of his head,' as the saying is." Now,' went on Chippy, 'that's 'IMSELF. Wot about it?'
Arthur had no answer to this home thrust. He turned to another point.
'How did you get behind us?'
'Me?' replied Chippy – 'I come clean through the line.'
'Oh, nonsense!' cried two or three boys. 'We were watching on each side and in front too closely for that.'
Chippy grinned. 'Yer worn't watchin' close enough to see wot wor in the waggon from Bland's Mill,' he remarked.
'You were in the waggon?' cried Billy Seton. Chippy nodded, and went on to explain.
'But at that rate,' said Arthur, 'you abandoned your duty of laying a track.'
'Well,' said Chippy, 'there's plenty o' track now. I've bagged the lot of yer long afore the track's finished. I reckon I'm in my rights theer.'
'Yes,' said Dick; 'there's a good deal in that. In my opinion it was a jolly smart bit of work.'
'Rather,' cried Billy Seton; and he began to sing the Scout's Song: 'Ingonyama' (He is a lion); and Dick responded with the 'Invooboo' chorus (Yes; he is better than that: he is a hippopotamus).
But Arthur Graydon's angry voice struck in: 'Stop that fooling, Seton and Elliott,' he said. Then he went on: 'Wolf Patrol, you will at once return to the sand-pit and then home. March!'
The patrol fell in at once, for orders must be obeyed instantly, and without question.
'Wot about my challenge now?' cried Chippy.
'The Wolf Patrol refuses to receive any challenge from you,' replied Arthur shortly. 'We're not going to have anything to do with a set of grubby bounders out of Skinner's Hole.'
He ordered his men forward, and was at once obeyed. Chippy had already given up the tracking-irons, and away went the patrol for the sandpit to fetch Dick's bicycle, which had been carefully hidden there.
Chippy watched them go with a sore heart. He had felt certain that he would be recognised as a brother scout, after capturing the whole patrol. But it seemed that he was not to be, and his bitterness found vent in speech.
'Fine ol' patrol, yo' are!' he called after them. 'I'll lay a bit as B. – P. wouldn't be any too proud of yer if he knowed about it. Ye've got too much edge on yer. Smart togs ain't everythink.'
Chippy's speech, all things considered, was very natural, but in the main it was undeserved, as we shall soon see.
CHAPTER VII
THE PATROL DECIDES
The Wolf Patrol were to meet Mr. Elliott the next Thursday afternoon. If the day should be fine they were to practise tracking tests on the heath; if wet, it was to be Kim's game in Mr. Elliott's study.
The day turned out one of pouring rain, and at three o'clock the Wolf Patrol had gathered in Mr. Elliott's room, where a tray of small articles, covered by a handkerchief, lay on a side-table.
'We'll begin with Kim's game,' said Mr. Elliott, 'and I'll be umpire. On that tray I have put twenty-five small articles, all different – a button, a pin, a stud, a ring, and so on. I shall give you each a pencil and a card, and I shall allow every boy one minute to study the tray. Then he will go away and write down every article that he can remember. The card with the longest list, of course, wins.'
He was about to give out the cards and pencils, when Billy Seton spoke up.
'Mr. Elliott,' he said, 'there's another matter that two or three of us would like you to umpire upon before we begin this game.'
'What is it, Billy?' said the instructor.
Billy told the story of Chippy's challenge, of his capture of the patrol, and told it fairly. 'We left him standing there,' concluded Billy, 'and I didn't like it, and I found that some of the other fellows didn't like it; but we had the order to march, and we had to go; that's Scout Law No. 7. But the same law says that we can reason about an order if we don't think it's fair, and I don't think that was fair.'
'What does the patrol-leader say?' said Mr. Elliott, turning to Arthur Graydon.
'I gave the order to march because it seemed to me the thing was too silly from beginning to end,' cried Arthur. 'I'm not going to scout about with