“They won’t let us get anywhere near them,” said Dorothea. “They probably don’t approve of being stalked. I wouldn’t like it myself.”
Again Titty had that queer feeling. She turned suddenly towards the top of the ridge. Just for a second she thought she saw something move beside a rock close under the skyline, but she stared at the place and could see nothing but the rock itself.
“Dot,” she said, “look up there, where there’s a big rock sticking right up out of the heather.”
“What is it? Another stag?”
“No,” said Titty. “I believe we’re being stalked ourselves.”
“Not really?” said Dorothea.
“Yes, really,” said Titty. “I’m sure we are.”
“Keep still,” said Roger, “and listen. And throw up your heads. We ought to sniff the wind like the deer. And the wind’s just right. It’s coming from up there.”
For a minute or two the three explorers stood still as rabbits that have scented danger but do not yet know where it is. Their eyes searched this way and that along the ridge. Not a thing was moving.
“There’s no harm in pretending,” said Dorothea. “We could be prisoners escaped from the castle, with the villain hunting us for our lives.”
“I wasn’t pretending,” said Titty.
Roger looked at her, and so did Dorothea. No. She was not pretending. Titty really did believe that on that wild hillside above them somebody was watching them and keeping hid.
“I thought so before,” said Titty, “but I wasn’t sure.”
“If we are being stalked,” said Dorothea, “the thing to do is to pretend we don’t know. We must just go on, pretending we don’t know we’re being stalked, and all the time getting further and further away.”
“And then the stalker will get a bit careless and let himself be seen,” said Roger. “And then, when we know who it is and where he is, we’ll know what to do next.”
“It’s a pity we stopped,” said Dorothea.
“We could be picking flowers,” said Titty, looking about her and, as it happened, not finding any.
“Fossils,” said Dorothea. “Plenty of stones. It’s just the sort of place Dick finds them in.”
The three explorers groveled, picked up stones and earnestly showed them to each other.
“Come on,” said Roger loudly, to be heard by any stalker within a hundred yards. “There’ll be lots more fossils further on … ammonites.” He finished in a shout.
“Belemnites,” shouted Dorothea, and explained in her ordinary quiet voice, “they’re the straight ones with pointed ends. That’s it. We’re geologists. We ought to be tapping the stones with a hammer.”
“We can make the noise all right,” said Roger, picking up a stone. “Bang one stone on another and the stalker’ll never know the difference.”
Roger and Dorothea moved on. Titty followed. She knew that though they were ready to pretend to be looking at stones both Roger and Dorothea believed she was mistaken. She could not be sure herself. But whether they were right or wrong, whether there was a stalker or not, Dorothea’s plan was a good one. If there were no stalkers, it would do no harm, and if there were, it was the best thing they could do. All the same, they had come a long way up the valley. She glanced back. Dick’s lochs were far behind them. The Sea Bear, out of sight behind the Hump, was further still, and she wished they had turned and were going the other way.
The three explorers, now geologists for anyone who might be watching them, walked on with bent heads, staring at the ground. Roger, who had found a very good stone for a hammer, beat it loudly on every rock he passed. Down below them, the deer, now really worried, were restlessly on the move, but the geologists hardly noticed them. Whenever they stooped, they took the chance of looking up sideways towards the skyline, hoping to catch the stalker (if there was a stalker) unawares.
“What about eating our chocolate?” said Roger at last.
“All right,” said Titty. “We can sit on these rocks and watch. If there’s anybody there, we’re bound to see him move.”
“I wonder if Dick’ll remember to eat his?” said Dorothea.
“We ought to be turning back and looking for him soon,” said Titty.
They rested pleasantly, sitting on rocks, eating their chocolate, and looking at the hillside on which nothing was moving whatever. Even Titty lost faith in her stalkers, and she could see that Roger and Dorothea were no longer much interested in something they could not believe.
Dorothea was the first of the other two to change her mind. She and Roger both knew that Titty had not been pretending but had really believed they were being watched from a distance by someone hiding in the heather. But they both thought she was wrong, though they were quite ready to get as much fun out of that idea as they could. They had eaten their chocolate and had just started again on their way up the valley. Suddenly Dorothea sniffed the air. She stopped. Titty, close behind, almost walked into her. “What is it?” she said.
“Tobacco smoke,” said Dorothea. “I smelt it. There it is again.”
“I knew there was someone,” said Titty. “But I can’t smell anything.”
“Sniff again,” said Dorothea. “Sniff harder. It’s rather faint. But there can’t be anything growing here to smell like a railway carriage.”
“I can smell it too,” said Roger. “Try blowing your nose.”
“I can’t smell it,” said Titty. “But if you can, it must be coming down wind. And the wind’s blowing straight down on us. If there’s someone smoking, he must be pretty nearly straight up the hill from here. But I can’t see any smoke.”
“I’m going to charge straight up,” said Roger, and was off.
“Much better not,” said Titty. “If there is somebody, we can’t frighten him off. Hey, Roger! Come back.”
“There’s no one,” shouted Roger. “Come on and see.”
“We’d better make sure,” said Dorothea.
They left the track and scrambled up the steep slope after Roger. It was very hard work, climbing through heather and over rock and loose stones. Roger, struggling uphill, shifted a biggish stone, that rolled down past Titty and Dorothea. It rolled, jumped, gathered speed and went bounding down into the valley.
He stopped to watch it, taking longer and longer leaps until at last far below them it disappeared with a splash into what must have been boggy ground.
“It might have hit a deer,” said Titty, climbing up beside him.
“I didn’t send it down on purpose,” panted Roger. “Anyway, there’s nobody here.”
“There isn’t,” said Dorothea. “Funny. I’m sure I smelt that smell.”
“What about going down and starting home?” said Titty.
“Why should we?” said Roger.
“Time’s getting on,” said Titty. “Look where the sun’s got to.”
“Let’s go a little bit further,” said Roger, “just so that if there is a stalker anywhere, he’ll see we don’t care.”
They went on, working sideways down the slope, no longer bothering about being geologists. That