'Page forty-two,' said Chippy, who certainly knew the text-book very thoroughly. 'See it? I gi'ed yer the signal.' 'And then you show your badge!' cried Arthur triumphantly. 'Now, where's your badge, wharf-rat?' For a moment Chippy looked stumped. Then he recovered himself and read out: '"Or proves that he is a scout,"' and scratched his jaw and looked hopeful again. 'Yes; but how are you going to prove it?' said Arthur. 'You can't prove it! Clear out, and don't waste any more of our time!' 'Yus, I can prove it!' replied Chippy. 'Try me! I'll let yer 'unt me, if yer like. If yer cop me, yer can call me no scout!' 'That's a fair offer, Arthur,' said Dick quietly. And two or three of the patrol expressed the same feeling. 'Oh, rubbish!' cried Arthur impatiently. 'I'm patrol-leader, and I give orders. I don't mean to go shuffling over the heath after a chap like that!' Chippy's sharp eye fell on Arthur's necktie. It was hanging outside his waistcoat, with a knot in the end of it. Every boy scout has to do one good turn a day, and the knot is to remind him of that duty. 'Look 'ere,' he said, 'the knot ain't out o' yer necktie yet! Now's yer chance for a good turn. Lemme prove it.' Everyone had to laugh at this clever twist of the argument, and Billy Seton murmured: 'I'm hanged if this chap is any sort of a fool! Come, Arthur, give him a show! It'll be great fun, anyway. We're tired of hunting each other. Perhaps he'll give us a merry little run.' 'Well,' said Arthur, 'if you fellows are keen on it, I won't stand in your way. Seems to me a pretty poor sort of game. Still, it will do to choke him off with as well as another.' CHAPTER V THE CHOKING-OFF OF CHIPPY 'We'll make a man-hunt of it,' said Billy Seton. 'I suggest that somebody lends him a pair of tracking-irons, and we give him a quarter of an hour's start. When we come up to him we'll fire at him with tennis-balls, as usual. If we hit him three times, he's dead. If he hits one of us first, that man's dead, and out of the hunt.' 'Righto!' said Chippy. 'I've studied them rules. I'm ready.' 'And I'll lend the tracking-irons,' cried Dick Elliott. Chippy put on the tracking-irons with immense pride and delight. He had wondered so much what these things were, and to fasten a pair on his feet, and to make tracks with them for a real patrol to pursue him--it was simply great. 'Wait a bit!' said George Lee. 'We've got our tennis-balls to fire at him; but how is he going to fire at us?' 'That's all right,' said Chippy. 'We've played that game. I've got mine 'ere.' He dived a hand into one of his wide-spreading pockets, and brought out a ball. 'That isn't a tennis-ball,' said Arthur scornfully. It was not. Chippy's funds did not run to tennis-balls. It was a bottle-cork wrapped up in pieces of rag, and whipped into shape with string. 'I'll tek my chance wi' it,' said Chippy calmly, and prepared to start.