Pigeon Post. Arthur Ransome

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      Mrs Blackett did not seem to mind. Dorothea took him out a plateful of cold beef and potatoes and cauliflower and a glass of the pirate grog that natives, who know no better, call lemonade.

      “He wants the red book on mining,” she said, when she came back.

      “Where is he?” asked Mrs Blackett.

      “Sitting on the ladder by the pigeon-loft,” said Dorothea. “He can’t do anything till a pigeon comes, and he says Nancy told him to dig out all he could about gold.”

      “Oh well,” said Mrs Blackett, “if he doesn’t mind being worked so hard.”

      “He likes it,” said Dorothea, and went off to get Phillips on Metals from Captain Flint’s study, and to take it to the professor on the steps in the yard.

      She came back just in time to hear Mrs Blackett say, “That’s all very well, Peggy, but you’ve forgotten one thing. What about Timothy? Who’s going to look after him? What am I to do if the creature arrives and you are all away on High Topps? You haven’t even finished the box to put him in at nights.”

      “We’ll get it done this afternoon,” said Peggy.

CHAPTER VI

      NEWS FROM THE WILDERNESS

      TITTY outside and Dick inside the pigeon-loft were waiting for the first of the returning pigeons. Dick was finding it hard to keep his mind on gold. He never had been able to think of two things at once. He laid Phillips on Metals aside and had yet another look at the pigeons’ own front door. It was oblong, with a slide that closed either one half or the other. When the slide was pushed to the right the pigeons could go freely in or out. When it was pushed to the left it left an opening with a row of wires hung on a bar. A strip of wood on the threshold stopped them from swinging outwards, but a pigeon coming in could push through them, and as soon as it was inside they would fall back into place. Carefully, with a finger, Dick lifted two or three of the little swinging wires through which the pigeons had to push their way. They were very light. Everything would depend on the pigeons’ strength and eagerness. Did they simply crash in, or did they feel their way in timidly, so that any little extra weight would stop them from wanting to come in at all? Titty was on the steps outside the loft, steep wooden steps up out of the old stableyard, keeping watch to warn Dick of the coming of the first pigeon. From there she could look out over the low outbuildings, and the shrubs and little trees beyond them to the hills on the further side of the river, and, in the distance to the great mass of Kanchenjunga, brown and blue and purple, rising into the dazzling brightness of the summer sky. Somewhere up there, under the blazing sun, John, Susan, and Nancy, pioneers, were exploring on behalf of the Company. Sounds of painters and plasterers at work, the moving of ladders and furniture, whistling and laughter, came from the house. But the noise of hammering and sawing came not from the house but from the camp in the garden, where Peggy and Roger were finishing the sleeping hutch for Timothy. Every now and then Dorothea came running into the yard to get more nails or screws from the old stable under the pigeon-loft where Captain Flint had a carpenter’s bench.

      Homer was in the yard before ever Titty saw him. Her eyes were almost blind with staring into the sky, trying to see a black speck that would come nearer and nearer, bigger and bigger, and turn at last into a pigeon. But she never saw how Homer came. Suddenly there was the fluttering of wings, and Homer was already in the yard, flying uncertainly from house roof to stable roof, puzzled, perhaps, by the sight of Titty sitting on the steps.

      “Dick,” called Titty softly.

      There was no answer.

      The pigeon flew across towards the loft.

      “Dick,” cried Titty, desperate. “He’s here.”

      She heard a low murmur, “Go and tell Peggy.”

      The next moment Homer had lighted on the narrow shelf, stretched and closed his wings, and pushed his way in under the swinging wires which lifted to let him pass.

      Titty slipped down the ladder and ran round the corner of the house to the camp on the green lawn.

      “Peggy,” she shouted, “one of the pigeons has come home.”

      A saw was left sticking in the half-sawn plank that was going to be the armadillo’s bedroom door. Roger dropped the hammer.

      “Did Dick see it all right?” asked Dorothea.

      “There’ll be a message,” said Peggy.

      “They may want us to come along at once,” said Roger.

      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:-