ed--'not a bit of it. If we tek' money
for the job, 'ow 'ave we 'elped our country?'

'I quite understand,' said the colonel, smiling, 'quite. You're a pair
of trumps, and I honour the feeling. If B.-P.'s movement turns out
many more like you it will prove the finest thing we've had in the
country for many a day.'

He gave his man a nod, and away shot the huge powerful car along the
road which led to Bardon.

True to the colonel's promise, the car drew up outside Bardon Station a
few minutes before the train which would bring their friends was due.
Dick and Chippy sprang from the tonneau, where they had ridden in
immense comfort, thanked the chauffeur, bade him good-night, and sought
the arrival platform.

''Ow about Mr. Elliott?' said Chippy; 'we ought to tell 'im.'

'Ah, of course!' said Dick. 'He's our instructor, and the colonel said
we might tell our parents. At that rate we might tell Uncle Jim.'

'I shan't tell my folks,' said Chippy; 'they wouldn't bother about
knowin'. I'll tell Mr. Elliott instead.'

'All right, Chippy,' said Dick. 'Hullo, here's the train!'

Mr. Elliott was very much relieved when the first faces he saw on the
platform were those of the missing patrol-leaders. Wolves and Ravens,
too, swarmed out and sprang on their lost comrades, and plied them with
eager questions. But to each inquirer Dick and Chippy merely said they
had been on duty, and come home another way, and the patrols were left
mystified and wondering.

'I've got to report to yer, Mr. Elliott,' said Chippy, and took him
aside. Now, the patrols thought that this disappearance and
reappearance of the leaders was something in connection with the day's
movements, and their questions were checked, for discipline forbids
prying into the arrangements made by officers.

The instructor was full of delight when he heard how the missing
leaders had spent their time. He congratulated both warmly, and said:
'One to the Boys' Scout movement this time. If you hadn't been out on
that scouting-run, the plans of the new Horseshoe Fort would have gone
abroad as easily as possible. That's playing the game as it ought to
be played.'

CHAPTER XVII

HOPPITY JACK'S STALL

When Chippy left the station and gained Skinner's Hole, he put away his
patrol flag carefully behind the tall clock, which was the only
ornament of the poor squalid place he called home, and then turned to
and helped his mother with a number of odd job