The Wolf Patrol: A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts. Finnemore John
small parcel from his pocket, and opened it. Inside there were sixteen little flags – eight yellow and eight black.
'You see, I am prepared with your patrol colours,' he said. 'The truth is, I was intending to suggest this game myself as one to be taken. Now, let every scout fix a flag in his hat.'
The Wolves took the yellow, and the Ravens took the black, and the flags were fixed.
'The next thing,' said Mr. Elliott, 'is full trot for the Beacon;' and away they all went.
The Beacon was a small hill which rose sharply from the heath, and stood quite alone. It was not very high, perhaps a hundred feet, but from the top you could see far over the heath on every side. In old days a beacon-fire had been lighted on it to warn or arouse the country in times of danger; a fire had burned there when the Spanish Armada came.
The scouts swarmed up the side, and raced each other to the top. Then they gathered once more about the umpire.
'Now,' said Mr. Elliott, 'here's my idea of "Scout meets Scout." The Wolves will go to that patch of burnt gorse which is about half a mile east of the Beacon. The Ravens will go to that big oak which is about half a mile west. Those are the boundaries, and no one must pass them. North and south the land becomes open quite close to us, and nobody may go out there. It isn't likely he would wish to, for he would be seen at once. When I blow my whistle, the two sides will begin to work towards each other, and the hunt opens. The scout who strikes an enemy with his ball captures that enemy's flag. The flag is handed over, and the beaten scout comes up at once to report to me on the Beacon. He is dead, and will leave the contest. That patrol wins which finally captures the whole of the flags belonging to the other patrol.'
'But, Mr. Elliott, suppose you hit a man who has already taken two or three flags belonging to your own side, what then!' asked Billy Seton.
'He gives up everything,' replied the instructor, 'both his own flag and those he has taken. You see, it's a fight to a finish. The last man will simply collect the whole of the flags. The patrol with the finest scout is bound to win, and it gives everybody first-rate practice. There are heaps of hiding-places, and you may employ any means to decoy or deceive an opposing scout, except using his patrol cry, or, as the book says, disguise. But disguise is out of the question at the present moment. Now, away with you!'
Off the boys dashed, the Wolves scouring down the eastern face of the Beacon, the Ravens down the western. Within five minutes both patrols were in position, and they signified this to Mr. Elliott by holding up their patrol flags. Chippy had made the flag for the Ravens, and made it very well too, cutting the raven out of a scrap of an old green curtain, and stitching it on to a piece of calico. When the umpire saw the patrol flags raised above the gorse clumps which hid the patrols, he blew a long blast on his powerful whistle, and the contest began.
On the side of the Wolf Patrol, Dick Elliott ordered his men to spread out widely in the thick cover of gorse-bushes and low-growing thickets, and to push slowly and cautiously towards the Ravens.
'You've got to be jolly careful,' said Dick, 'or if there are many like that patrol leader of theirs, we shall be snapped up before we know where we are. Work in pairs, and one scout will support the other.'
So the Wolves split into four couples, and spread themselves as widely as possible on their front. On the other hand, Chippy sent his men out singly, but also on a well-extended front; and so, creeping, gliding, stealing from patch to patch of cover, and watching closely on every hand, the Wolves and the Ravens drew nearer and nearer to each other.
Dick, with the corporal, Billy Seton, had taken up a post in the centre of their patrol line, and they advanced together. Dick looked on every hand, and was very satisfied with the way in which his men took cover. He could not catch a glimpse of one of them among the patches of gorse and heather and brushwood.
Suddenly Dick stopped dead. He scented danger. Twenty yards ahead a wren was perched on the topmost twig of a thorn-bush, chattering and scolding furiously. Now, there is no bird which gives prompter warning of an intruder than the wren. Whether the intruder be two-legged, man or boy, or four-legged, stoat, weasel, or pole-cat, the plucky little wren always gives the enemy a piece of her mind.
'That bird's been disturbed,' thought Dick, and he dropped behind a great tuft of withered fern and waited and watched. Billy Seton crawled up without a sound, and lay beside him. Three minutes passed, and then Dick saw a shock of black hair pushed right under a low-growing blackthorn, a dozen yards in front.
It was one of the Ravens coming along flat on the ground like a snake. The Raven put his head out of the blackthorn bush and looked and listened carefully. He seemed reassured by the silence, and made a swift dash across the open for the very patch of cover where his opponents were in hiding. Both were ready for him, but he came in on Billy's side, and fell to Billy's deftly-thrown ball.
'You're done for, old chap!' chuckled Billy. 'Hand over your flag, and leg it for the hill, and report yourself.'
The Raven pulled a wry face for a moment, then remembered Law 8, and tried to look cheerful.
'It's a fair cop!' he remarked. ''Ere's the flag. 'Ope you'll soon lose it!'
The others grinned and retired to their ambush, while No. 7 of the Ravens ran to the Beacon to report himself as out of the hunt.
Twenty minutes of careful reconnoitring passed, but Dick and Billy had seen no further token of any Raven on the move. They gained a thick hazel copse, and crept into the heart of it to wait in ambush a little for any sign of an opponent's presence. Peering through the boughs, Billy whistled below his breath.
'What is it?' whispered Dick.
'Look at the top of the Beacon,' replied Billy, 'We can see it from here.'
Dick looked, and understood Billy's whistle. Four at the Wolf Patrol were up there with Mr. Elliott, while of the Ravens there was but one, the scout whom they had discovered.
'Our fellows have been bagged pretty easily,' whispered Billy. 'I shouldn't be surprised if that artful patrol-leader isn't at the bottom of it.'
'Oh, by Jingo! Look there, look there!' burst out Dick, but below his breath. Billy rounded his eyes, and the leader and corporal looked at each other in anxious surprise. Two more of the Wolves were climbing the hill; they were being sent in as captives.
'Why,' murmured Billy, 'there are only the two of us left. Every man Jack of the Wolves has been settled except us, Dick!'
'Yes, and there are seven Ravens out for our blood!' said Dick, 'We've got to do something, I can tell you, or it's a very easy win for Skinner's Hole.'
'What's the best plan?' whispered Billy.
'Stay here a bit,' replied Dick. 'We're in good hiding, and they'll scatter freely, and very likely be more careless in showing themselves, for they know there are only two of us left.'
Each clutching his ball ready to fire, the two remaining Wolves lay closely in their ambush, eye and ear strained to catch the first glimpse, the faintest sound. Within five minutes a Raven appeared, stealing as softly as a cat, though his boots were heavy and clumsy, over the short, crisp heath-grass. His very care led to his capture. He was watching the grass so closely lest he should step on a dried twig or fern-stalk that he only looked up when Dick's ball bounced on his shoulder. He gave up his flag and retired, and the odds against the Wolves were now six to two.
'Billy,' said Dick, 'we must separate. If they catch us together, it's all over with the Wolf Patrol this time; but apart we can only be collared one at a time.'
'Right!' said Billy. 'Which way do we move?'
'The Beacon's in front of us,' replied Dick. 'I'll work round it to the right, you to the left. If we're not caught, we'll meet at the oak-tree where the Ravens started.'
Billy nodded, and the two survivors of the patrol slipped out of the hazel copse and went against their friends, the enemy.
Billy's suspicion that the patrol-leader of the Ravens had had much to do with the downfall of the Wolves had been correct. Chippy, working well ahead of his line, had soon discovered that the Wolves were in pairs. He hid himself in a hole under a mass of bilberry-bushes, and soon one pair of scouts