The two patrol-leaders burst through a bramble-thicket, stopped dead, and raised with all the force of their lungs their patrol cries; for they had run their man to earth. There, straight below them, in a little hollow, sitting on the stump of an old thorn, and peacefully smoking, was a man with their basket set before him, its contents rolled out on the grass. 'Why, it's a big, dirty tramp!' said Dick. 'Yus,' agreed Chippy. 'It's a Weary Waddles, right enough. Now we'll get 'im on the 'op.' Up dashed Wolves and Ravens, and there was no need for their leaders to say a word: the situation explained itself. 'Charge!' roared Dick; and the two patrols burst from the thicket and swept down upon the marauder in a wild, mad wave of shouting boys and whirling sticks. For a second the tramp sat moveless in paralyzed astonishment. Then he grasped what it meant, and he jumped to his feet and scuttled away as hard as he could pelt. The swift-footed boys pursued, yelling in delight, and promising that he should feel the weight of a scout's staff, when a long shrill call on a whistle checked them. Mr. Elliott had come in sight of the chase, and he recalled the pursuers at once. 'Let him go,' said Mr. Elliott; 'you've given him a good fright; and the next time he comes across a hidden basket perhaps he won't be so prompt in carrying it off.' 'Has he done any harm, Mr. Elliott?' asked Harry Maurice. 'He's had a couple of oranges, Harry, that's all,' said Mr. Elliott, putting back into the basket the bag of flour and the potatoes which had been tumbled out. 'Now all of you take an orange apiece--there are plenty left--and we'll start back and have a go at our chupatties after all.' 'He knew the heath, that fellow,' cried Billy Seton. 'He'd made for a jolly quiet place to unpack the basket and see what was in it.' 'Yes,' said the instructor. 'You might have rambled over the heath all day in a haphazard fashion without hitting on him. It was quite a scout's bit of work to follow him up. You're coming on; I shall be proud of you yet!' So, laughing and talking, and eating their oranges, the Wolves and Ravens and their instructor marched back to the sandpit, where the rest of the afternoon was spent in the merriest fashion, so that all were sorry when the dusk began to settle over the heath and drove them homewards. CHAPTER XI CHIPPY MEETS A STRANGER On a Sunday afternoon, some three weeks after the contest round the Beacon, Chippy was crossing the heath towards the little village--or, rather, hamlet--of Locking, three miles from Bardon. He was taking a message from his mother to his grandmother, who lived in the hamlet. The latter consisted of not more than half a dozen scattered cottages, tucked away in a quiet corner of the heath--a lonely, secluded place.