All four of them ran to the stableyard. Peggy was first at the steps to the loft, the others close behind her.
“Got to go quiet now,” she said. “Don’t all barge in together. Sometimes they’re a job to catch. Where’s Dick?”
“In the loft,” said Titty.
Peggy gingerly opened the door and slipped in. The others waited on the steps.
In the loft Homer was enjoying his dinner, watching Dick out of one red-rimmed eye. Dick was still looking at the swinging wires through which the pigeon had pushed its way.
“It ought to be quite easy,” he said. “If only we can make sure of a good contact when the wire is pushed up …”
“Eh, what’s that?” said Peggy. “Have you caught him?”
“Not yet,” said Dick. “But he’s got a message. Left leg.”
“Coo … coo,” murmured Peggy, and whistled the low pigeon call, “Pheeu … phiu … phiu … phiu … phiu.”
Homer took a drink of water. Peggy caught him and took a tiny roll of paper from under the rubber ring on his left leg, let him go again, and Homer settled by the drinking-trough while Peggy carefully unrolled the message.
“Can we come in?” said Titty, just outside.
“Come along,” said Peggy. “It’s all right now.”
The others crowded into the loft. Peggy read aloud from the crinkled scrap of paper that tried to roll itself up again as she read:-
“NO SUPPLIES FROM ATKINSON’S. OCCUPIED BY TREACHEROUS ENEMY.”
The signature was a skull, particularly grim.
“Bowlines and gaskets,” said Peggy, in the Nancy manner. “That’s pretty bad. The only other farm’s right down in the bottom of the valley. Jolly long way to go for the milk.”
“Oh, I say,” said Roger.
“Shall we have to give it up?” said Dorothea.
“Nancy’ll manage somehow,” said Titty.
“Come on,” said Peggy. “Let’s get our part done. We’ll want the hutch for Timothy whether we go or not.”
“Well,” said Mrs Blackett, who had heard the rush to the stableyard and put her head out of the back door as they came down from the pigeon-loft.
“We’ve had a message from them,” said Titty.
“We can’t get milk from Atkinson’s,” said Peggy.
“I was afraid you might not be able to,” said Mrs Blackett, but she did not look particularly disappointed. “And did the pigeon ring a bell?”
“I think the next one will,” said Dick.
“It may be no good even if it does,” said Dorothea.
“Will you want me to watch?” said Titty.
“No. It’s all right now,” said Dick. “I’ve seen how they come in. I’ve only got to make a bell-push for them.”
“Come on, Titty,” said Peggy. “There’s some painting to be done.”
*
Dick, who meant pigeons to ring bells no matter how melancholy were the messages they carried, knew now exactly what he had to do. Homer had shouldered through those swinging wires in the most encouraging way. There was going to be no difficulty about that. What he had to do was to make a little swinging trigger that would move with the wires as the pigeon pushed through and make contact between two strips of copper springy enough to grip and hold it till someone came to let it go. He did it, after two or three false starts, with the help of some stiff wire, a cork, a scrap of lead and the copper Dorothea had brought from Rio, which he cut with a pair of scissors borrowed from the unsuspecting cook. He worked as hard as he could to have it ready for the next pigeon, but by the time he had finished his pigeon bell-push and joined it up to the old wires across the stableyard, the afternoon was over and the workmen had gone for the day.
It was funny that second pigeon had not come. Good thing, though. He might yet have time to get the bell itself fixed up at the other end.
There was a sudden shouting in the yard.
“Ahoy!”
“How are you getting on?”
“Hasn’t another pigeon come yet?”
The carpenters from the camp, their work done, were at the foot of the steps. Dick looked down, but hardly saw the finished sleeping-box for the armadillo, with a door to open and shut, and Timothy’s name painted upon it. There wasn’t a second to lose.
“Nearly done,” he said, and ran down the steps, picked up the bell and the coil of flex and bolted into the house. Lucky the batteries for the house bells were close to the kitchen door. He had not any too much flex to spare. With trembling fingers, he connected up his bell and put it on a chair in the passage. Better than nothing. He was ready now, but in the stable he had seen a discarded, rusty tea-tray. That would be wanted too, before everything was quite as he had planned.
“No more news?” That was Mrs Blackett in the yard. “Surely they’ll have sent off another pigeon before now. Isn’t it a blessing to have the place to ourselves and the workmen gone? Well, I must say, you’ve made a very handsome hutch, and those leather hinges to the door … Peggy, you awful child, you haven’t been cutting bits off your blue belt?”
Dick started to cross the yard. There might yet be time to fix that tea-tray.
“That belt was miles too long,” Peggy was saying.
Mrs Blackett flapped her hands in despair, and turned to Roger, who had taken Titty’s place on the ladder and was finding his sun-goggles very useful in searching the sky for a pigeon. She was just going to say something to him, when Roger shouted, “Here he is,” and nearly fell off the ladder, pulling the goggles hurriedly off in order to see better as a pigeon swooped down into the yard.
“Don’t frighten him,” said Peggy.
But Sophocles was startled only for a moment. He flew to the loft, waited on the ledge, looking down at the crowd of people in the yard, and then plunged in as if the swinging wires had not been there.
“Trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr …”
Dick, who had stopped short as the pigeon flew down, smiled a slow, happy smile. The thing had worked. Sophocles had rung the bell.
“Trrrrrrrrrrrrrr …”
“Well done, Dick!” “What about that, mother?” “He’s done it.” Every one was talking at once.
“Well, Dick, I must say it’s very clever of you,” said Mrs Blackett.
“It’ll go on ringing till you go to the loft and switch it off when you take the pigeon’s message,” said Dick, watching the bell dithering as it lay loose on the chair.
“But do you think we’ll hear it?” said Mrs Blackett, “when we’re racketing about and busy with other things.”
“It’s going to be a lot louder than that,” said Dick.
“So we’ll be able to go,” said Roger eagerly.
“Not if they can’t get milk …”
“Come on, Dick,” said Peggy. “And shut off the bell while I’m catching Sophocles.”
HOW DICK MADE THE PIGEONS RING A BELL
A moment later she was reading the second message:-
“CRAWLING HOME MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE. BELLIES PINCHED. THROATS PARCHED. PLEASE PUT THE KETTLE ON.”
“Doesn’t sound as if they had found a good water supply either,” said Mrs Blackett.
“It’s just Nancy making it more exciting,” said Peggy. “Come on. Let’s get tea ready for them.”
“Can I borrow the step-ladder?” asked Dick, looking up at a beam that crossed the passage in a most convenient place.
“Anything you like,” said Mrs Blackett, and went off with the others to the camp in the garden, while Roger, much interested now that the bell was really working, stayed behind to help Dick.
It was a huge old tea-tray, and noisy if you only touched it. Dick punched a hole in the middle of it with a hammer and nail, and fastened the bell there. He punched two more holes, good big ones, and then, with Roger to help, put two screws through these holes and into the beam above the passage, not screwing them tight, but leaving them loose so that the whole tea-tray was free to rattle. Then he connected up the bell once more, put the step-ladder b
ack in the hall where the plasterers had been using it, and took the tools back to the carpenter’s bench.
“I’ll just try it,” said Dick. “They’ll hear it everywhere.”
“Don’t let’s,” said Roger. “Keep it till no one’s expecting it. There’s another pigeon to come yet.”
They joined the others by the camp-fire. Dorothea looked at Dick.
“Done?” she said.
“You wait,” said Roger, grinning.
There was a noise of cracking twigs in the wood, a noise of feet on dry leaves.
“Here they are,” cried Titty, and a moment later the pioneers trudged wearily into camp.
“What was it like?” said Roger. “You haven’t gone and found the gold already?”
“What about tea?” said Nancy. “Our throats and tongues and skins are stiff with dust.”
“Kettle’s boiling,” said Peggy. “Here you are, Susan, you’d better put the tea in yourself.”
“Quick, quick before we faint,” said Nancy.
“But do tell us what it was like,” said Dorothea.
“Grand Gobi isn’t in it,” said Nancy. “Not a drop of water anywhere. The beck by the old pitstead, where we meant to camp, is dry. We saw a dead sheep in it … in the place where it was. Vultures overhead …”
“A peregrine,” said John, who had caught the eager look in Dick’s eyes.
“And what about Atkinson’s?” said Mrs Blackett.
“Is it Squashy?” said Dorothea.
“Yes it is,” said Nancy. “Well done, Peggy. Ow, I’d forgotten it’d be boiling … And I haven’t breath to blow it.
“It is Squashy,” she went on. “He’s taken rooms at Atkinson’s, so he’d be bound to find out everything we’re doing. We’ll have to keep away from there altogether. And I say, we know he’s prospecting. There was a copy of the Mining World on Mrs Atkinson’s window-sill.”
“Last week’s,” said John. “I saw the date.”
“Shove a little more milk in,” said Nancy, “and then I’ll be able to drink it.”
“But do go on,” said Dorothea. “What did you do in the desert?”
“Walked and walked,” said Susan.
“Tightened our belts and staggered on,” said Nancy. “There’s no water for a camp. Not on the Topps, or even near the Topps. Up in the higher reaches the Amazon itself is only a trickle.”
“Never mind,” said Mrs Blackett. “Worth while going up there just to find out for certain that that particular plan is no good.”
“No good,” exclaimed Nancy, spilling some of her tea. “No good! But didn’t you hear Squashy Hat is really a miner and lodging at Atkinson’s? We can’t let him have all the Topps to himself. Just think how sick Uncle Jim would be if Squashy found it … Of course we’re going. What about the pigeons? …”
“We got your two messages,” said Titty.
“Homer and Sophocles are back,” said Dorothea. “And Dick has got the bell working. It wasn’t done when Homer came, but Sophocles rang it like anything.”
“Not very loud,” said Mrs Blackett.
“But what about Sappho?” said Nancy. “We sent her off second, ages before Sophocles.”
“She must have got lost on the way,” said Titty.
At that moment there came from the house the violent shrilling of a bell, a long jangling rattle and a resounding crash of broken crockery.
“Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr …”
“What about that?” said Roger.
They started to their feet.
“Whatever was that smash?” said Mrs Blackett.
Nancy looked at Dick.
“It’s Sappho coming home,” he said.
“Br!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r! …”
Tired as they were, the pioneers raced across the lawn with the stay-at-homes. The bell rang louder and louder. They turned into the yard. Cook was standing at the kitchen door with her hands to her ears.
“Br!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r! …”
“Where is it?” cried Nancy.
“In the passage,” said Roger.
As they went in, the noise was almost deafening. There, above their heads the bell was whirring, the big tea-tray throbbing like a sounding-board. In the passage was a pile of broken plates.
“Lucky it wasn’t the best service,” said cook. “A noise like that, and me just crossing to the pantry …”
“Gosh!” said Nancy. “Jib-booms and bobstays!”
“Br!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r!r! …”
“Is that loud enough?” said Peggy, and ran after Dick up the steps to the pigeon-loft.
The bell suddenly stopped. Dick had turned it off from inside the loft. Peggy, who had caught the dawdling Sappho, came down again with a scrap of paper in her hand. Gloom showed in her face.
“Do read it aloud,” said Titty.
“It’s the second message really,” said John, looking doubtfully at Mrs Blackett.
Peggy read it, while Nancy watched her with dancing eyes.
“WELLS DRY. BONES SCATTER THE DESERT. LIFE IMPOSSIBLE.”
“Well, that settles it,” said Mrs Blackett.
“No it doesn’t,” said Nancy. “We sent that off before going down to Mrs Tyson’s. She says their pump’s all right. And we can have all the milk we want. Only she wants to see you first about where we’re to camp. She’s in an awful stew about fires. And we promised you’d come tomorrow to talk to her.”
“But Mrs Tyson’s right down in the valley,” said Mrs Blackett. “You might just as well stay here.”
“Oh, mother, how can you?” said Nancy. “Tyson’s is miles nearer than here. It isn’t like being on the wrong side of Ling Scar …”
“Oh dear, oh dear …” said Mrs Blackett.
“What about those hammers?” said Nancy.
“We’ve got them,” said Titty.
“And gorgeous goggles,” said Roger, putting his on for her to see.
“Giminy,” said Nancy. “Have you got a pair like that for me?”
“And we’ve got a splendid lot of stores,” said Roger.
“Good old mother,” said Nancy, and gave her mother a hard and dusty hug.
“And we’ve finished Timothy’s sleeping-hutch,” said Peggy.
“Three cheers,” said Nancy. “We’ll start first thing in the morning. I wish my throat wasn’t too dry to shout.”
“But Nancy …”
“Come along, mother,” said Nancy. “That tea’ll be just cold enough to drink.”
“And what about all that crockery?” said Mrs Blackett. “If you’re going to startle cook into dropping a trayful every day when your pigeon comes home, we shan’t have a plate or a cup left at the end of the week.”
“Stop it out of our pocket money,” said Nancy.
“We’ll all subscribe,” said Titty. “There couldn’t be a better cause.”
CHAPTER VII
TREK TO TYSON’S
IN the morning they bathed in the river.
“It’ll be the last chance,” said John.
“Except for anybody who comes to bring back the pigeons,” said Nancy. “Somebody’ll have to come every fourth day.”
“Poor beast,” said Roger.
“All right on a dromedary,” said Nancy. “And we’ve got two.”
“Dromedaries?” said Roger.
“Bicycles,” said Nancy. “Come on. I’ll race you across the river and back.”
But, last chance though it was, nobody made the most of it. Nancy and John and Susan kept remembering things and reminding each other lest they should forget them later. Dick wanted a final look at the article on gold in the Encyclopædia. Peggy wanted to make sure that Timothy had not arrived during the night, and was going to telephone to the railway station. Dorothea was a little worried lest she and Dick should not be able to pack their tents as neatly as the more experienced explorers. Titty, looking up at the hills and thinking of the long march before them, was eager to be already on the way. Roger had just been promised that
he might go over the dromedaries with an oil-can and see that their tyres were pumped up. It was impossible just to swim and float in the morning sunshine as if nobody had anything else of which to think.
Ten minutes after breakfast was over, the camp was a wreck. Tents were being rolled up, tent-pegs gathered into bags, tent-ropes made up into neat hanks for easy stowage. Susan was putting out the camp-fire in the bushes with kettlefuls of water brought from the river.
“Giminy,” said Nancy, looking at the lawn, all scarred with the marks of torn up tent-pegs. “It’s a good thing the G.A. isn’t here to see that.”
“Lots worse than daisies,” said Roger.
“Never mind,” said Mrs Blackett. “It’ll have cured itself by the time we’ve got the house straight. But perhaps it is a good thing Aunt Maria can’t see it now.”
They had hoped to get off right away, but the wrecking of the camp was only the beginning of getting ready. There were a hundred things to do. The handcart was waiting in the stableyard with the dromedaries, but it was very soon clear that the expedition had more baggage than it could carry. More and more things joined the waiting pile. A big wooden pigeon-cage, with wire netting in front and a slanting roof, was lifted up and made fast on the handcart with a loose end from the big coil of alpine rope. Bags of tick beans, Indian corn and maple peas for the pigeons were slung on underneath. Boxes of tinned foods joined the pigeon-cage. The handcart looked already as if it could hold no more while the big pile of baggage had hardly been touched. Every other minute one of the workmen came out of the house to ask Mrs Blackett this or that. And Mrs Blackett was going through a list with Susan and at the same time trying to answer not only the questions of the workmen but also those of the prospectors.
“What about our sleeping-bags?”
“Do the tents go on the handcart?”
“Can’t we hang the cooking things on the dromedaries?”
“Titty, where’s your ground-sheet? Oh, where is Titty?”
“She’s in Captain Flint’s room with Dick.”
“Where’s Peggy’s pillow?”