"There is somebody. The twins were right... Divide up and some go one side of the track and some the other. Don't get too near because we don't want him to see us. Let him walk between us and we'll trail him and see where he's going. Quick now and quiet. Nobody to make a move after he's passed until I do."

They scattered obediently and lay full-length in the heather watching the top of the little hill over which the stranger must come. Jenny almost screamed when a dim figure did appear against the skyline, But now they had a surprise, for instead of running towards them the figure stopped, looked round intently, and then disappeared again. The Lone Piners lay still waiting for David's signal. They saw him stand up and were just ready to follow him when he signalled them down again and flung himself flat on his face. Then they heard an odd rattle or jangle and suddenly a figure on a bicycle appeared at the top of the hill and came bumping down the track between them.

It was too dark and they were all too far away for any of them to recognize the cyclist, and they could not even be sure that it was the same man who had come out of the wood. As soon as possible they scrambled through the heather to the track, but by then there was no sign of the mysterious cyclist.

Nobody said much. If the cyclist was the man who had been watching them from the spinney and again from the top of the rise he had certainly made them all look rather foolish.

"P'raps he's got an invisible bike," Dickie said. "I mean invisible some of the time... I'm cold and I want my supper, but you all see now that Mary and me were right, don't you?"

The path led downhill and after ten more minutes they found themselves between hedges and David's torch proved that the track was now a rough lane.

"We'll be all right now," Tom said thankfully.

He was right for, soon after, they came to a road and a signpost, the righthand finger of which said "Clun".

When, tired, cold and hungry, they clattered at last up the steps of Keep View it was to find a very angry Agnes waiting for them. She was very cross indeed and threatened to send the twins to bed at once.

"Just let me have my supper, Agnes," Dickie pleaded, "and then be mad with us all after. You know how sorry we are, but it's like Jenny says and Fate was against us."