This chapter and the next one are mostly about Wigley Weigand, but we usually call him Wig-Wag Weigand, because he’s a cracker-jack on wig-wag signalling. He’s good on all the different kinds of signalling. He’s a Raven, but he can’t help that, because there wasn’t any Silver Fox Patrol when the Raving Ravens started.

The Ravens were the—what do you call it—you know what I mean—nucleus of the troop. That’s how it started. There are about half a million scouts in America and all of them can’t be Silver Foxes, even if they’d like to.

Wig has the crossed flags—that’s the signalling badge; and the fellows say he can make the sky talk. Believe me, he can make it shout. He isn’t so bad considering that he’s a Raven and there’s one good thing about him anyway—and that’s that his mother always gives us cookies and things when we go on a hike. I got a dandy mother, too, and maybe you’ll see how much I think about her, kind of, in the next chapter. Anyway I have to thank Wig Weigand, that’s one sure thing.

Now maybe you think I did a good stunt in that marsh, but a scout doesn’t get credit unless he uses his brains and does everything all right. And that’s where I fell down, and it came near making a lot of trouble, believe me.

Many’s the time Tom Slade (he’s in the war now) told me never to leave a scout sign after it wasn’t any more use. “Scratch ’em out,” he said, “because even if it means something now, it might not mean anything six months from now.” Jiminy, that fellow has some brains. He said, “Never forget to take down a sign when it’s no use any more.”

Well, when I found I wasn’t going to die a terrible death (that’s what Pee-wee called it) I didn’t have sense enough to take away that note that I stuck on the reeds. When I stuck it there I reached up as high as I could, so even when the tide was high up there, I guess it didn’t reach it. I was so excited to find I could get away that I never thought anything about it. And when I sailed into Little Valley in my Indian canoe, gee, I had forgotten all about it.

I found that the troop had done a good day’s work caulking the hull up and slapping a couple of coats of copper paint on it, while the tide was out. So then we decided that as long as the tide was going down, we’d float her down with it to the Bridgeboro River and then wait for the up tide to float her upstream to Bridgeboro. We decided that we’d rather fix her up in Bridgeboro. So you see that this chapter is about the tide, too. Mr. Ellsworth and Mr. Donnelle both told me that I must have plenty of movement in my story, so I guess the tide’s a good character for a story, because it’s always moving.

Well, you ought to have seen those fellows when I sailed in shouting that I was Weetonka, the famous Indian chief. Doc Carson dropped his paint brush on Connie Bennett and he was splashed all over with copper paint—good night!

“Where did you get that thing,” Pee-wee shouted, “it looks like a horse’s trough.”

“You have to part your hair in the middle to ride in it, I can tell you that,” I told him.

“Where were you all the time?” he said.

“I was captured by a band of Apaches,” I said.

“What kind of a band?” Pee-wee yelled.

“A brass band,” I told him; “a brass band of Apaches.”

“You make me sick!” he said, kind of disgusted.

“They took me to their village and were going to burn me at the stake, only the butcher didn’t bring it, then they decided they’d chop me to pieces only the butcher didn’t bring the chops——”

Oh, boy! you should have seen that kid. He fired a wet bailing sponge at me and I dodged it and it hit one of his own patrol—kerflop!

I guess you’ll think all us fellows are crazy, especially me. I should worry. I told them I escaped in the canoe and all that kind of stuff, but at last I told them the real story and you can bet they were glad I was saved. They all said I had a narrow escape, and I admit it was only about an inch wide.

Now, I have to tell you about how we floated the house-boat down to Bridgeboro River, and maybe you’d better look at the map, hey? Oh, but first I want to tell you about the name we gave it. Some name! We christened it with a bottle of mosquito dope. Its regular name was all rubbed off, so we decided we’d vote on a new name.

This is the way we fixed it. Each patrol thought of a name and then we mixed the three names up and made one name out of them. Then you just add a little sugar and serve.

The Ravens voted the name Sprite, the Elks voted the name Fly and the Silver Foxes voted the name Weetonka, on account of me. Then we wrote all these letters down and mixed them all up and arranged them every which way, till we got this name:

Oh, boy, some laugh we had over that name. We were all sitting around in the two cabin rooms and believe me, it was some giggling match.

“It sounds like a Bolsheviki name,” Westy Martin said.

“You wait till the infernal revenue people get that name,” I said, “it’ll knock ’em out.” Because, of course, I knew we’d have to send the name to the infernal revenue people—I mean internal or eternal or whatever you call it—because you have to do that to get your license number.

“It’s a good name,” I said, “you don’t see it every day.”

“Thank goodness for that,” Doc Carson said, “it’s as long as a spelling lesson or Pee-wee’s tongue.”

“It’ll be a pretty expensive name; it’ll take a lot of paint,” Brick Warner said.

“We should worry,” I said.

So then I made some coffee, because I’m the troop cook, and we thought it was best to eat before we started. That bunch is always hungry. They said it was punk coffee, but that was because they didn’t bring enough to go around.

“Don’t laugh at the coffee,” I told them, “you may be old and weak yourselves some day.” I made some flapjacks, too, and then we started.

We didn’t have to do much work because the ebb was running good and strong, and we just sat around the deck with our feet dangling over, and pushed her off with our scout staffs whenever she ran against the shores. She didn’t keep head on, but that was no matter as long as she went, and pretty soon (I guess it must have been about seven o’clock) we went waltzing into Bridgeboro River.

And then was when we made a crazy mistake. Just for a minute we forgot that the tide would be running down the river instead of up. If we had only remembered that, three or four of us could have gone ashore with a rope and tied her in the channel, which ran along the near shore. Then all we would have had to do would have been to sit around and wait for it to turn, so we could drift up to Bridgeboro with it.

But just when we were floating out of the creek, we forgot all about what the tide would do to us, unless we were on the job and sure enough it caught us and sent us whirling around and away over on to the flats.

“Good night!” I said when I heard her scrape.

“We should have had sense enough to know the tide is stronger here than in the creek,” they all said.

“What’s the difference?” Dorry Benton said, “we’re stuck on the flats, that’s all. Now we don’t have to bother to tie her. When the tide changes, we’ll float off and go on upstream all right. We’re just as well off as if we were tied up in the channel.”

Well, I guess he was right except for what happened pretty soon. So we settled down to wait for the tide to go down and change. After a while we began to see the flats all around us and there wasn’t any water near us at all—only the water in the channel away over near the west shore. We were high and dry and there wasn’t any way for a fellow to get away from where we were, because he couldn’t swim and he’d only sink in the mud, if he tried to walk it.

Well, while we were sitting around trying to figure out how long it would be before the water would go down and then come up enough to carry us off, Doc Carson said, “Listen!” and we heard the chug of a motor boat quite a long way off. It was getting dark good and fast now, and there was a pretty wide stretch of flats between us and the channel. Pretty soon we could hear voices—all thin, sort of, as if they came from a long way off. That’s the way it is on the water.

“She’s coming down Dutch Creek,” one of the fellows said. After a while another fellow said he thought it was Jake Holden. Then another one said it wasn’t.

“Sure it is,” Connie Bennett said, “listen.” Then as plain as day I could hear the words “crab running,” and then in a minute something about “bad news.” Pretty soon, through the steady chugging I could hear a voice say very plain, “I’m glad it doesn’t have to be me to tell her.”

We couldn’t make them out because it was getting too dark, but it was Jake Holden, the fisherman, all right. Pretty soon the engine began chugging double, sort of, and I knew they were going around the corner into Bridgeboro River, because there’s a steep shore there, and it made an echo.

I was a chump not to realize what they were talking about, but they had chugged around into Bridgeboro River and were heading upstream before it popped into my thick head. And even then it was on account of something else they said, as the chugging grew fainter all the time. It seemed as if I heard it while I was dreaming, as you might say. I knew they were pretty far upstream by now, but the voice was awful clear, like voices always sound across the water, especially in the night.

“He was a nice little fellow,” that’s what it said, “but he had a right to keep out of that place.”

Then, all of a sudden, I knew. They were talking about me. They must have been up that creek fishing and found that note of mine. And they were going to tell my people as soon as they got home.

“Holler to them, fellows!” I said; “quick—all together.”

I guess the fellows must have thought I was crazy, but they hollered for all they were worth. But it was no use, for nobody answered. I guess the wind must have been blowing our way or something—anyway, they didn’t pay any attention. Then pretty soon I couldn’t hear the chugging any more at all.

Oh, jiminies, but I felt bad. Maybe you think that as long as I escaped and would get home all right I ought to be satisfied. But that’s because you don’t know anything about my mother. When my brother died I saw how she acted and the doctor said she had to stay in bed two or three days on account of her heart being not just right. Maybe he thought it would stop, I guess. And, gee, I didn’t want her to hear any bad news, even if it wasn’t true. ’Cause I knew just how she’d act—I could just see her, sort of. I guess I was kind of thinking about it and how it would be when Jake Holden went to the house, and how she’d have to wait five or six hours, maybe till morning, before she saw me, when all of a sudden I heard Will Dawson of my patrol say, “What’s the matter, Blakey?”—he always calls me Blakey.

But I didn’t pay any attention to him, because I couldn’t speak—exactly. I didn’t seem to see any of the troop, I only just saw my mother standing, maybe kind of unsteady like, and listening to Jake Holden.

Then all of a sudden I walked straight over to where the Ravens were all sitting on the cabin roof. And I spoke to Wigley Wig-wag Weigand. I said—this is just what I said—I said, “Wig, I always claimed Ralph Warner was the best signaller in the troop and maybe you’ll remember I was mad when you got the badge. But now I ain’t mad, and I ain’t jealous, only I don’t want those men to go and tell my mother I’m dead—I—I don’t. I forgot to take the note away and they’re going to tell her and she—she has—her heart isn’t very strong like. There’s only one fellow in the troop can do it—it’s you. You can do it. You can do anything, signalling. I’ve got to admit it now, when I need you. You’re a Raven, but I want you to signal, quick. They’ll see it in town. You’re the only fellow can do it—you are. I got to admit it.”

He didn’t say much because he isn’t much on talking. He’s always studying the Handbook. But he jumped down and he just said, “I’ll fix it.”

And I knew he would.