Pigeon Post. Arthur Ransome

CHAPTER III

      CONSULTING SLATER BOB

      WALKERS, Blacketts and Callums, Swallows, Amazons and D’s, eight of them together, were nearly half-way up Kanchenjunga. They had set out in the Beckfoot rowing-boat, but had not been able to get far upstream because there was so little water in the river. So they had pulled its nose up a shingly beach and tied its painter to a hazel bush, and continued their journey on foot. All but Nancy carried knapsacks, with sandwiches and thermos flasks of tea. Peggy’s knapsack held Nancy’s provisions as well as her own, for on Nancy’s shoulders, instead of a knapsack, was a pigeon-basket with Homer, Sappho and Sophocles inside. The expedition had followed their old track of the year before, past Low Farm, turning up from the Amazon beside the little beck, that usually came tumbling down to join the river but this year was no more than a trickle. They had come up out of the trees close by last year’s halfway camp, and were following the cart-track up to the quarries. “We may just as well use it,” Nancy had said. “No point in pretending no one’s ever been here, when we’re going up to see Slater Bob.”

      A great spur of Kanchenjunga, Ling Scar, rose above them to the left. They had been slowly climbing ever since they had left the river.

      “There it is,” said Nancy at last, and pointed ahead of them, up the side of the Scar to a rampart of loose stones that rose out of the heather and bracken and scorched grass. “All that stuff has come out of the inside of the hill.”

      “Come on,” said Peggy. “Buck up the able-seamen.”

      But Susan stopped short. “What’s the time, John?” she said. “Ages after twelve o’clock. He’ll be in the middle of his dinner if we go in now. We’d better have ours first.”

      “Good idea,” said Roger.

      “Oh well,” said Nancy. “Everybody is a bit out of breath.” Knapsacks were unslung and tired explorers flung themselves down on the heather at the side of the track. Nancy wriggled out of the straps by which the pigeon-basket had been fastened to her shoulders.

      “I’ll let them go now,” she said. “No point in keeping them just for another few hundred yards. Come on, Roger, let’s see you fly one. And you, Titty. I’ll send Sappho off to show you how.”

      She opened the basket, and put her hand in and caught the plump Sappho. A moment later, with a quick upward swing, she launched her into the air.

      “Now then, Roger. Careful not to squeeze him.”

      “Which is it I’ve got?”

      “Homer. Off with him. That’s right, Titty. Get hold of Sophocles. Don’t wait, Roger.”

      Homer and Sophocles were tossed into the air almost together. In a few seconds they were joined by Sappho, and circled high over the heads of the explorers.

      “Mine’s off,” said Roger.

      “That’s Sappho,” said Nancy.

      “There goes Sophocles,” said Peggy. “And old Homer.”

      “I wonder which’ll get home first,” said Roger.

      “We can’t tell,” said Nancy, “unless someone sticks at home to watch the pigeon loft.”

      “Couldn’t they work some sort of signal?” said Dick.

      “It’s no good trying to teach pigeons to go and tap at windows,” said Nancy.

      “But what about a bell?” said Dick, with sudden eagerness. “I say, Peggy, how do those wires work when the pigeon flies home and pushes through them to get in?”

      Out came pocket-book and pencil, and if it had not been for Dorothea reminding him about them, Dick would have had no time to eat his sandwiches. “There ought to be a way of working it,” he said, putting his pocket-book almost unwillingly away, as Nancy jumped to her feet once more and empty thermos flasks were being stowed in the knapsacks.

      “He’s sure to have finished his dinner by now,” said Nancy, and the eight would-be prospectors took to the road again.

      And then, just as they left the main track and began to climb up to the left towards that rampart of grey stones, they saw a man working his way down the ridge.

      “Hullo,” said John, “somebody’s been climbing Kanchenjunga.”

      “He’s chosen a funny way to come down,” said Peggy.

      Presently they saw that he, too, was making for those great piles of stones.

      “I say,” said Nancy. “I wonder if he is going to see Slater Bob.”

      “Who’s going to get there first?” said Roger.

      It was going to be a very near thing. They had not got so far to go as the stranger, but they were working uphill, whereas he was scrambling down.

      “Jib-booms and bobstays!” exclaimed Nancy suddenly. “Do you see who it is?”

      “It’s that Squashy Hat again,” said Peggy.

      “Who?” said Titty.

      “You know. That man who was goggling over our gate.”

      “You don’t think he overheard any secrets?” said Dorothea.

      Nancy stared at her. “He couldn’t,” she said, and then stopped. “But that other time we caught him looking over the wall. He may have been there ages and heard all kinds of things. Hurry up. If he’s going to be there, we shan’t be able to ask Slater Bob about gold.”

      But the stranger, it seemed, was as little anxious to meet them as they were to meet him. He was slowing up. He stood still, watched for a moment, and presently sat down on the hillside.

      “That’s all right,” said Nancy. “Come on. We’ll easily hear if he comes in after us.”

      A moment later they could see him no more. A scarred rock face rose above them. On either side were the great outworks of loose stones. A thin trickle of water ran along a winding gutter beside a narrow railway track. There was just room for them to step round a four-wheeled trolley. They passed a neat pile of the green slates with which the houses for miles round are roofed. Nancy put her head into a tumble-down shed.

      “Not here,” she said. “Bob must be inside.”

      And then, turning a corner between the high walls built up on either side of them, they saw the narrow railway line disappear into a black hole in the rock.

      “Hand out the candles, John,” said Nancy. “One for everybody.”

      John wriggled clear of his knapsack, opened it, and took out a bundle of eight brand-new candles that Nancy had wheedled out of cook.

      “Are we going into that?” said Roger, looking doubtfully at Susan.

      “We’re all going in together,” said Titty. “It’ll be just like Peter Duck’s cave in Swallowdale, only bigger.”

      “Your cave in Swallowdale was probably an old working,” said Nancy. “Uncle Jim said he thought it must be.”

      “How far does it go in?” said Dick, peering through