ut and darted in pursuit, his staff
raised. Dick followed, saw the staff fall, and came up to find the
Raven turning over a dead hedgehog with the point of his stick.

'Supper for two,' chuckled Chippy, 'an' a jolly good un.'

'Supper?' cried Dick, 'Why, it's a hedgehog. Who can eat a thing like
that?' and he made a face of disgust.

'Them as know's wot's good,' murmured Chippy, with a cheerful wink.
'Wait till ye've had a bit. Besides, ain't we scouts? An' scouts ha'
got to tackle anythin' an' everythin'. Look wot it says in the books.
Look wot B.P. et at one time an' another.'

'You're right, old chap,' said Dick; 'but just for a minute it seemed
so jolly queer to knock over a spiny little brute like that, and then
talk of eating it.'

'Gipsies eat 'em reg'lar,' replied Chippy, 'an' I know 'ow they handle
'em. They're good--I tell ye that.'

Carrying the hedgehog by a withe cut from a willow, the scouts went on
to the ground below the hanger, and pronounced the spot first-rate for
a camp. There was a sandy patch at the foot of the bank, and here they
resolved to build their fire and sleep.

CHAPTER XXX

THE FIRST CAMP

The fire was taken in hand first thing, for Chippy would need a great
pile of red-hot embers for his cookery. The hanger was littered with
dry sticks, so that there was no lack of material, and soon they had a
rousing fire crackling on the sandy soil.

At the foot of the hanger they met with a stroke of luck. They found a
young beech-tree which had been blown down in some winter storm. It
was now as dry as a bone and easy cutting, and Dick went to work with
the little axe, and soon cut and split a heap of logs some eight or ten
inches long and three or four inches through--first-rate stuff, for no
tree in the wood burns more sweetly than beech. While the fire was
under way, and while Dick hacked at the beech, Chippy had gone in
search of clay. He was gone soms time, for he did not hit on a clayey
spot at once. But he worked along the bank of the stream where the
wash of the water had laid bare the nature of the soil until he struck
upon a seam of red clay, and dug out a mass with his knife and the
point of his staff.

He brought the clay to the fire, and next fetched a billy of water from
the river, and worked the clay into a mass which would spread like
stiff butter. Now he took the hedgehog, opened it, and removed its
inside. Then he began to wrap it in a thick cover