“Not all mining camps have such good cooks,” said Mrs Blackett, sitting by the camp-fire after supper.
“The pemmican would have been better with a little chopped onion,” said Susan, “but I didn’t think of it in time.”
“I do hope I’m not doing wrong,” said Mrs Blackett, as at last she left them, and they walked with her across the lawn in the dusk and said their good nights at the garden door.
“You’re doing exactly right,” said Nancy.
“I mean what I say about those pigeons,” said Mrs Blackett, almost hopefully. “They’ll have to ring bells if I’m to agree to your going.”
“They shall,” said Nancy.
“Don’t sit up late.”
“Just till the flames die down.”
They walked slowly back to where the embers of the campfire were glowing behind the bushes.
“You really think you can do it, Dick?” said Nancy.
Dick pulled his torch from his pocket and turned it on. “I’ll just go and make sure,” he said.
Very quietly they went into the stableyard. Dick climbed the ladder to the pigeon-loft, leaned across and laid his torch on the pigeons’ landing-place, and felt the swinging wires. There was a sudden fluttering in the loft.
“Phiu … phiu … phiu …” Peggy and Titty were making noises to reassure the pigeons.
“I think it’s all right,” said Dick. “The wires are all separate, aren’t they? We’ll have to fasten three or four of them together.”
“What are you doing?” Mrs Blackett called from an upper window.
“Just making sure about something,” said Nancy. “Good night, mother. We’ll all go to bed right away.”
CHAPTER V
PIONEERS AND STAY-AT-HOMES
LONG BEFORE Beckfoot was awake people were stirring in the camp. Nancy moved on tiptoe from tent to tent. Orders were given in whispers as if the old grey house itself had ears. Susan boiled a kettle at the fireplace among the bushes. Peggy laid wait in the road for the boy who brought the morning’s milk from Low Farm. Dick and Dorothea, Titty and Roger woke to find smoke from the fire climbing through the morning mist, and Susan, John and Nancy beginning an early breakfast of tea and eggs and bread and butter. Another lot of eggs were being boiled hard and Peggy was cutting bread and butter sandwiches for the pioneers to carry in their packs. “Don’t make a noise,” whispered Nancy. “Don’t wake the house. Second thoughts are always worse, and you can’t count on natives not to have them. Not even mother. The sooner we’re off the better. Before she has time to change her mind. Hi, Peggy, you’re the best hand with the pigeons. You go and catch them while we’re getting the food down.”
The others hurried into their clothes.
“Look here, Dick,” said Nancy. “The whole thing depends on you. It was only what you said about the pigeons that made her say she’d let us go. She’d ever so much rather have us roosting in the garden every night. We’ll find a camp easily enough, but if you don’t manage the pigeons’ bell-ringing, it won’t be any good.”
“And you know the things to buy in Rio,” said John. “Hammers and new torches.”
“And goggles,” said Susan. “Motor goggles will do. But you must have something if you’re going to go chipping at rocks.”
“Don’t send off the first pigeon too soon,” said Dick. “Not till after twelve.”
“Are you going to send messages?” asked Titty.
“Of course,” said Nancy. “It’s a splendid chance.”
“Mother’s moving about,” said Peggy, coming back with the pigeons in their basket. “And cook’s stoking up. You won’t have long to wait now, Roger.”
“Shiver my timbers,” said Nancy. “We ought to be stirring our stumps. We’ve ten thousand miles to go.”
They did not take the risk of going out by the stableyard and the gate, but slipped away in single file along the path through the wood and climbed the wall to get into the road. The others watched them out of sight.
The pioneers were well on their way when a gong sounded in the house. Peggy and Titty were tidying up in the camp, putting rugs and sleeping-bags to air. Roger was helping them, pointing out the things they had left undone. They hurried in to find Mrs Blackett already dealing out plates full of bacon and mushrooms along the bare trestle table in the dismantled dining-room.
“Good morning,” she said cheerfully. “And where are the others?”
“Dick’s gone to the stable,” said Dorothea, “to look at the electric bell.”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” said Mrs Blackett. “He isn’t really going to try to do anything with it, is he? But where are John and Susan and Nancy?”
“They’ve started,” said Titty.
“The pioneers are on the march,” said Dorothea.
“Not without their breakfast?” said Mrs Blackett.
“They’ve had their breakfast,” said Roger, rather hungrily.
“They haven’t gone?” said Mrs Blackett. “I did want to see Nancy. I’ve been thinking over that idea of your all going up on the fells to camp. There was something I wanted to say to her.”
“She was afraid there might be,” said Roger.
Mrs Blackett’s mouth opened. For a moment no word came out of it. Roger, who had just made a very neat forkful of mushroom and toast, never saw how she looked at him. And then, suddenly, she laughed aloud.
“My own fault,” she said. “I ought to have got up in the middle of the night to make sure of that dreadful girl. What I wanted to say was, why couldn’t we think of something else instead of gold-hunting, so that you wouldn’t have to go so far away?”
Everybody looked at everybody else. How right Nancy had been.
“It was your idea, mother,” said Peggy.
“It was a dreadful mistake,” said Mrs Blackett. “I never dreamed of Slater Bob sending you half across the countryside.”
“He couldn’t help it if that’s where the gold is,” said Titty.
“Oh well,” said Mrs Blackett. “The Atkinsons may be sending all their milk to town, and I did say you couldn’t go unless those pigeons rang bells, didn’t I?”
“They’re jolly well going to,” said Peggy, just as Dick came in.
“Can I use the electric bell there is in the stable under the pigeon-loft,” said Dick, “and the wires that go across the yard?”
Mrs Blackett sighed. “I suppose it would be unfair if I said you couldn’t. Yes, you can do what you like with it. There’s one thing about it,” she added hopefully, “it hasn’t worked for years.”
Soon after breakfast Peggy, Titty, Dorothea, and Roger set sail for Rio in the Amazon, leaving Dick to see what he could do with the bell. He had already taken it to bits and spread them on a sheet of newspaper on the bench in the old stable. Peggy had found him a large coil of insulated wire in Captain Flint’s tool cupboard. It might almost have been left there on purpose. Dick had given Dorothea a list of things to buy,