THE MILL POND
It was Saturday. At 2.30 the Kangaroos were coming to drag the pond.
Danny had got up at 6.30 and was at the scene of yesterday’s adventures
by 7.30. The tracks were still clear, but there were no new ones.
All the morning he was on guard, now watching from his place of ambush
behind the old wall; now exploring the mill for any possible clues.
The sky was black with threatening clouds. At twelve the storm broke.
The rain came down in torrents. Danny took shelter in the mill,
keeping watch on the pond from the window. It was nearly two before
the downpour ceased. Then a pale sunbeam broke out, and Danny ventured
forth into the dripping world. Little streamlets gurgled down the
paths; cataracts gushed from pipes and gutters about the mill. Small
ponds lay in hollow places.
And, alas, the tracks of the stranger’s steps were hidden by an ocean
of muddy water!
Danny’s heart sank. He had counted so on showing the Kangaroos this
incontestable evidence. Any Scout would have read the true story of
yesterday’s adventures in those marks. And now they were gone!
At 2.30 the Kangaroos arrived, very keen on the job. They dragged the
pond from end to end. They raked its bottom with a hay-rake. They
probed it with a pitchfork. Then they laughed scornfully.
“Nothing doing,” said the Patrol-Leader. “’Fraid you must have been
dreaming yesterday, young Wolf Cub.”
Danny was astounded. He had seen the bicycle thrown in, and now he had
seen the pond dragged with great thoroughness and no bicycle revealed.
The youngest Kangaroo had a bright idea.
“I expect the chap came early this morning and dragged the pond himself
and got up the bike,” he said.
Danny shook his head.
“I was here before it began to rain,” he said, “and there were no fresh
tracks.”
The Kangaroos went away, very bored and very muddy. It was not long
before the story had spread through the whole Troop and the whole Pack.
Everyone was inclined to agree with Fred Codding, the Sixer, that
Danny the Detective was a little liar. But Danny, though hopelessly
bewildered, _knew_ that what he had seen the day before had not been a
dream.
The next few days were very unhappy. Danny was in hopeless disgrace.
The Scouts laughed. The Cubs were angry because he had brought disgrace
on the Pack. The Scoutmaster chaffed Mr. Fox, the Cubmaster, and said
he had heard there was a budding novelist in the Pack!
The only comforting thing that happened was that in a local paper
there appeared a short account of a gentleman’s bicycle having
mysteriously disappeared from outside a shop where he had left it.
But instead of this convincing everyone that Danny’s story was true, he
was only chaffed about the little paragraph.
All this made him quite determined to clear his honour and the honour
of the Pack. He made up his mind never to rest until he had solved
the mystery. From then onward he looked at everyone with the eye of a
detective. Not one stranger escaped his notice, or one unusual track
upon the road. He was untiringly on the alert.
Meanwhile the weather had cleared up. The hot July sun had dried the
mud completely. The roads became so hard that there was no chance of
tracking. Danny was sorry for this, for he was ever on the lookout for
the footmarks of which he had a sketch in his book. Now there seemed no
chance by this means of obtaining a clue.
But before a month had gone by he had met with another stranger who
seemed to form another link in the mysterious chain.
To their pride and joy the 1st Dutton Wolf Cubs had been invited by
the Scouts to take part in a great field day. Danny had been given a
quarter of a mile of road to patrol. It happened to be the lonely lane
that led past the deserted mill.
He had just concealed himself in the hedge when a market-cart rumbled
by. A little ahead of him it stopped. The carter looked keenly up and
down the road and all about him. Then, as if sure he was not perceived,
he pushed aside his vegetable baskets, lifted up a piece of sacking,
and helped a man to emerge from the bottom of the cart. Without a
single word the man jumped down on to the road, and the cart lumbered
on.
The stranger stood for a moment looking about him suspiciously. He
was a very ragged and dirty tramp, with a straggling red beard and a
great, bulgy sack on his shoulders. Presently, as if to make sure of
his whereabouts, he began to plod along the road.
Danny was after him like a flash, his rubber shoes making no noise on
the road. It was _real_ “stalking” this time! Scanning every detail
of the man’s appearance, Danny could find nothing to show that he was
not a genuine tramp. But that which caught his eye was the sack. It
was bulgy and ragged. Out of a hole hung a rabbit skin. But there was
evidently something large and square in the sack as well. It looked as
if it might be a box. And from inside this seemed to come a scraping,
scuffling noise, as if it contained something alive.
At this moment the tramp turned suddenly around and saw him.
Danny was a boy who always had all his wits about him. He was a London
boy, remember! He realised at once that he must put the man off his
guard and not let him think that he had followed him out of suspicion.
“Please, mister,” he said, “could you tell me the time?”
The man was staring angrily at him out of a pair of little, pale blue
eyes. He had evidently been startled at finding a Wolf Cub at his heels
when he had thought himself quite alone! The innocent question must
have reassured him, for he looked very much relieved.
“It’s three o’clock,” he said gruffly.
Danny was looking him over eagerly. What _could_ he say next, so as not
to have to go away? Surely this strange man who crept out from among
baskets in a cart, carried something alive in a bag full of rabbit
skins, and knew the exact time without a watch, must be a “suspicious
character!”
“I say, mister,” he continued, skipping along innocently by the man,
“are you collecting rabbit skins and bottles?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to Dutton?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you know the pub. called ‘The Green Man’----”
“Yes, I know it well.”
(_Ah_, thought Danny, _I’ve caught you, old sport_! _There’s not a pub.
called “The Green Man” at Dutton!_)
“Well,” he went on aloud, “just a bit further on, past the pub.,
there’s a little thatched house. That’s where my mother lives. She’ll
give you some skins, ’cos we had rabbit-pie last night for supper. You
will go to her, won’t you?”
“Yes, I’ll go there right enough,” said the man.
(_We’ll see_! thought Danny.)
But the man was walking fast. He had very nearly reached the part of
the road where Danny’s patrol ended. It seemed to the Cub that the most
important thing in all the world just now was to follow up this man.
But he knew that he must not fail in his duty. Senior Patrol-Leader
Church had posted him on that road and said:
“Don’t leave your post without orders.” So he must stick to it.
“Well, good-bye, mister,” he said. “I’ve got to stay here ’cos I’m a
sentry. Don’t forget to call for mother’s rabbit skins.”
“All right,” growled the man, and trudged on while Danny squatted down
on the bank and watched him.
“I bet he’s not going to the village!” he said to himself. “He’s a
stranger here, but he wants to make out he’s not. And I’m pretty sure
he’s not a real tramp, ’cos he has hands like a gentleman. Oh, I _do_
wish I could follow him! I wish it was a muddy day instead of this
rotten dry weather--then I’d soon pick up his trail when this game’s
over. I wonder if there’s not some way I could track him.”
He racked his brains for a moment and tried to remember what private
detectives on the pictures do on such occasions. Suddenly, like a
flash, he remembered a fairy story he had read in _Hans Andersen_.
It was about a mother who wanted to know where her daughter went off
to in the night, so she sewed a little bag full of flour on to the
girl’s dress and cut a hole in the corner of it, so that, as she went
along, the flour ran out, and the mother was able to track the girl all
through the streets.
“Wish I had a little bag full of flour,” thought Danny. But a Wolf
Cub is never at a loss how to do things, once he has got hold of the
idea. In a minute he had drawn his notebook out of his pocket and torn
a number of pages out. With quick fingers he tore these up into wee
scraps and put them into his cap.
The man was already out of sight round the corner. Scrambling up the
bank and through the hedge into a field, Danny sprinted along for all
he was worth.
Before long he was up with the man, who still plodded along, head bent,
his sack on his back. Creeping like a little green snake through the
hedge, Danny stole softly up behind him.
He felt just as Cubs do in the _Sheer Khan Dance_, only this time it
was _real_, not “pretend.” Holding his breath and treading as softly as
a cat, he crept so close that he could have touched the tramp. Still
the man trudged on. Danny’s heart was in his mouth.
Softly he straightened himself. Then he took a handful of the
paper-scraps from his cap and slipped them into the torn pocket of
the man’s ragged coat. Then he stood quite still and gradually crept
sideways until he was under cover in the ditch. His heart was beating
fast. As he watched the retreating figure of the man he saw a little
scrap of paper fly out here and there.
“I’ve got you!” said Danny, hugging himself. It was all he could do not
to give vent to a howl of joy that would have roused the very jungle!
It was at this moment that an “enemy Scout” trod on a dry stick the
other side of the hedge and set Danny on his guard. Lying flat on his
tummy in the ditch and peeping through a patch of nettles, he caught
sight of a flutter of red and grey that was unmistakably a Kangaroo
shoulder-knot!
Creeping along the ditch, regardless of the hundred nettle-stings that
raised great white lumps on his knees, Danny indulged in a little
strategy. Taking off his cap, he arranged it on a stump so that it just
showed above a mass of green and would be well in view from a gap in
the hedge.
Then he doubled along the ditch to where a hidden gap gave a beautiful
chance for the enemy to cross the road, and, getting over a stile
into the wood opposite, to get in touch with their own party. By this
tempting gap Danny took cover.
“I hope he sees my cap,” he said to himself, “then he’ll think I’m
there, and will bring his party up to this fence.” Suddenly a bright
idea struck him. “I’ll _make_ him have a look at it,” he said.
Standing cautiously up in the ditch, he picked up a stone and took
careful aim. _Plump_--it fell among the nettles, just by the cap.
“That’ll make him think there’s a chap there,” said the detective to
himself with satisfaction. And sure enough, before long, the Kangaroos,
thinking the sentry was safely ensconced in the ditch further up, were
making their way with an unguarded amount of crackling towards the gap.
Two minutes later Danny had taken three important prisoners and sent
them to the base “out of action.”
“Jolly smart piece of work,” said Patrol-Leader Church, when the field
was called in at five o’clock. “I knew I had put a good man on to
patrol that road, but I never thought he’d succeed in taking prisoners!”
Danny’s heart glowed at the praise, but his mind was more intent upon
the piece of _real_ scouting he had on hand than on the game. When the
other boys trooped home to tea, happy and hungry, Danny turned his
eager steps in the direction of the lonely piece of road he had been
patrolling. He forgot how hungry he was and how nice the cup of tea and
the plum cake at home would be. There was work to be done.
In about half an hour Danny was back at the place where he had
last seen the tramp. It was a still, summer evening. Not a breath
of wind stirred. Danny was glad, for it meant that the scent, in
the form of the scraps of paper, would not have blown away. Yes!
There was a little piece on the road. Here was another on the bank.
Another--another--another! Now there was none for quite a long way.
Then--a whole patch on the dusty road! Just here the tramp had been
walking at the side of the road, where the dust was soft and white and
thick. Joy of joys--his footmarks were distinctly visible!
Out came Danny’s precious notebook, and in a moment he had drawn a
quick sketch of the footprint and added its size in inches. Then he
went on carefully. Every here and there a little piece of white paper
showed distinctly. He had reached the old mill. And sure enough the
trail turned down the very path where he had followed the bicycle
tracks six weeks ago! In the same way it seemed to indicate that the
man had taken cover behind walls and hedges, so as not to be seen from
the road or from the mill. Little did he know that he left a tell-tale
track of white paper behind him! And as Danny reached the pond he had
to put his hands over his mouth to suppress a laugh of delight. There,
on the surface of the still, black water, showed a quantity of little
scraps of white paper!
Danny walked round the bank, thinking hard. What on earth could the man
have got into the pond for?
There were no wet marks on the dust where he got out. It was the most
mysterious thing he had ever come across. Here was a pond in which a
man and a bicycle had disappeared, and also a tramp with something
alive in a sack! Had they drowned themselves? No--for the Kangaroos
had dragged the pond and nothing had been fished up.
Suddenly Danny had an idea.
“There must be a kind of cave or cellar they get into from under the
water!” he said. “I expect they are burglars or smugglers or forgers or
something. And that’s where they hide their treasure. Then, after dark,
they come up.” He decided to have another try to make the Scouts take
him seriously; but he was still sore at the memory of all the ridicule
that had been heaped upon him before.
“I’ll log it down,” he said, taking out his notebook, “and after dark
I’ll come back and lie in wait for him as he comes up. Then to-morrow
I’ll make my report.”
He squatted down behind the ruined wall and began to write:
“July 26, 1914.
“Saw a tramp get out of a cart, where he was hiding. Followed him.
He had something alive in a sack, but he pretended they were rabbit
skins and bottles. Said he knew a pub. called ‘Green Man’ in Dutton,
which there isn’t. Tracked him down by scraps of paper. He must have
got into Mill Pond, but he has not got out yet (6.30).
“(Signed) D. Moor.”
Then he went home to supper.