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.'