"I think you fell in soft," I said; "it shows how thoughtful I am. A scout is foresighted--"

"You make me sick!" Pee-wee shouted.

"Tell Doc Carson to give you some medicine," I answered.

Laugh! Because, you see, we were all feeling so good about Artie being saved that we'd laugh at nothing, like a lot of girls. But girls are all right, I have to admit that.

Let's see, where was I? Oh, yes, I was telling you about Artie. You see when I first arrived with that canoe I tied it just under the cabin window and then scrambled up through the window. So there it was all the time. Lucky thing, too. Only the funny thing was we never missed it--we were punk scouts, that's sure.

Then Artie told us how it was. "After the smoke got so thick that I was dizzy and couldn't see, I got scared and groped around for Wig. I couldn't find him anywhere and he didn't answer. I didn't know whether all of the signal had been sent or not, but anyway I knew I couldn't stand it in there any longer. I thought Wig must have climbed out of the window. So I decided I would do the same thing. Oh, but didn't I have some job finding it! I lay down flat, I knew enough to do that anyway, and then I crawled around with one hand up feeling for the window sill. When I found it I was so dizzy I just hung to it and I thought I was a goner sure."

"I know how you felt," I said, "because I was in the same trouble myself."

Then he said how he dragged himself up to the window sill and tried to shout, but couldn't. Then he fell across it and kind of wriggled out. He didn't have his senses, but he knew enough to know that there was a narrow part of the deck, just a pa.s.sageway sort of, outside, and he thought he'd fall on that. But it was lucky he didn't. He fell past it right into the water and that brought him to his senses, kind of. So he sputtered and groped around till he happened to clutch the Indian dugout and it rolled over with him and the anchor that we had laid in it with a rope to hold it fast to the houseboat, the anchor rolled out, and the first thing he knew he was drifting up the river, hanging onto the dugout for dear life.

He was feeling so weak and sputtering so on account of his lungs being all filled with smoke, that he couldn't shout and after a while he drifted up on the bar near Second Bend. Then he got the dugout set right side up on the mud while he bailed it out by splashing in it with his hands and afterwards making them into a cup.

After that it was easy drifting up stream and when he got to about a quarter of a mile below the boathouse, he managed to paddle over to the sh.o.r.e and then he pulled himself along by holding on to the weeds and things.

"You had a pretty narrow escape," Pee-wee said.

"It was a narrow boat, why shouldn't he have a narrow escape," I said; "I had a good wide escape, anyway."

"Didn't you have your hat with you to bail with?" somebody asked Artie.

"All I had was my copy of Initiation Drill," he said.

"Why didn't you drill a hole in the boat then," I said.

"What for?", Pee-wee shouted.

"So the water could get out as fast as it came in".

"What are you talking about? You're crazy!" he yelled.

"There should be two holes in every boat," Connie Bennet said, in that slow way he has; "one for the water to come in and the other so it can get out."

Gee-williger! You should have seen Pee-wee.

Anyway, I suppose you think by this time that we're all crazy. I should worry.

CHAPTER XIII

TRACKING

Anyway, you can bet I didn't stay there long, because I wanted to find out if Wig's signal had been received. Maybe you won't understand, but down the river it seemed all right and I was sure somebody must have caught it. But after we landed and I started up home, it seemed as if it was just kind of playing, after all, because that's the way some people think about the scouts, so I hurried as fast as I could so that my mother and father wouldn't be worrying. I felt awfully funny, kind of, as I went up the lawn because I knew that if no one had come and told them about the signal, they'd think I was dead.

They were sitting on the porch waiting for me and I knew from the way my mother put her arms around me that they had been worrying. She asked we what had kept me so late and my father said that I ought to send them some word when I was going to stay out as late as midnight. I have to admit he was right, too.

But anyway, I knew that they hadn't received any word about me from anybody, and I was all up in the air about that. I could see that Jake Holden hadn't been there at all and that n.o.body had come and told them about the signal, either. I didn't exactly ask them, but I could tell it all the same. So I told them all about everything that happened, about how I got caught in the marsh and all that, and especially about Wig being such a hero. Then she cried a little, kind of, and I said there was no use crying because I was home all right. But anyway, she cried just the same, and hugged me awful tight just as if everything hadn't ended all right. That's a funny thing about mothers.

So then I went to bed and I lay awake thinking about everything that happened. What I thought about most was why Jake Holden hadn't come and told my mother and father like I heard him say he was going to do. You remember how I heard him say that. So that was a mystery--that's what Pee-wee would call it. And I was wondering why he hadn't come to the house to give them that note he had found. Because I knew Jake Holden (he always called me "Scouty") and he liked me, too, and I knew he would sure have come to the house if something hadn't happened.

Now that I was all calmed down, as you might say, I wasn't surprised any more about no one reading the signal, because maybe it didn't show very plain in Bridgeboro and anyway, most grown people seem to think that signalling and all that kind of thing are lots of fun for scouts, but not much use except when grown people, and especially the navy, do it.

Anyway, I should worry about grown people, because we have plenty of fun.

Oh, boy, didn't I sleep that night! When I got up I made up my mind that I'd go to Jake Holden's shanty, just for the fun of it, and find out why he didn't come and tell my family that I was dead. Because, if I was dead, he sure ought to have come and told them. Of course, I knew I wasn't dead, but anyway, how did he know that? After breakfast I did my good turn--I turned my sister Ruth's bed around for her so as it faced the bay window. I was going to turn it twice and tall it two good turns, but she said that wouldn't be fair--that that wouldn't be two good turns. I said it would be just as fair as Pee-wee turning the ice-cream freezer till the cream was all frozen and then saying he did a hundred good turns. Then she threw a tennis ball at me, but it missed me. That's one thing about girls, they can't throw a ball. They can't whistle, either.

Now comes another adventure. After breakfast I went to Marshtown (that's a few houses down near the river) to Jake Holden's shanty.

It's a funny kind of a place made out of barrel staves and part of a boat all jumbled up together, and it looks kind of like a chicken coop.

He lives all alone and kind of camps out. He's a nice man, you can bet, only you have to get on the right side of him. If you can't get on the right side of him the safest place is behind him. He catches fish and crabs and goes around town selling them.

He taught me how to cook.

When I got to his shanty I saw it was locked up and he wasn't anywhere around. I guess he event down the bay crabbing. Anyway, I ran as fast as I could to Marshtown landing to see if he had gone yet, but there wasn't any sign of his boat there. Maybe you think I wasn't disappointed. Anyway, I began looking around like a scout is supposed to do, to see if there were any signs to show me whether he'd be back soon, because maybe he only went up to the club landing for gasoline.

But there weren't any signs and he didn't show up.

Now, if I hadn't been a scout I would have gone home and played tennis or followed the sh.o.r.e up to the club landing and waited for the troop to come and go to work on the houseboat. But instead of that, I kept looking around and pretty soon what do you think I saw? I saw a footprint. Some Robinson Crusoe, hey?

It was a funny kind of a footprint. It wasn't Jake's, I knew that, because he always wore fisherman's boots. It was in the soft earth near the landing and I could see it plain. I guess maybe it was made by a good shoe, because it was pointed, but it was all worn out, that was one sure thing, because there was a place that was made by a stocking or a bare foot, where there wasn't any sole at all.

Maybe you don't know much about deduction, but that's one thing scouts learn about, and I tried to make out what it meant, but it had me guessing. Because the shoe was pointed and had the remains of a rubber heel--I could tell that by the big screw holes. And that meant good shoes. And I thought it was funny anybody who could wear good shoes would let them wear out like that.

Anyway, it was none of my business, only there was one mighty funny thing about that footprint. There was an Indian's head stamped right in the mud. It wasn't very plain, but I could see it was an Indian's head all right. It was something like the Indian's head on a cent.

Oh, boy, I was all up in the air then, because I didn't understand how that could be there, Maybe you'll say that it was stamped there to show what make of shoes they were, but that's where you're wrong, because most of the sole was all worn away and the mark would be worn away, so somebody must have cut it there lately, that was one sure thing, and I couldn't understand why any body would want to cut that on an old worn-out shoe.

So I sat down on the edge of the float to think about it and then I saw two or three more just like it, and even more, too, only not all of them were so plain. Believe me, I didn't know what to think. Then all of a sudden I happened to remember that the Indian's head is the design of the scout pathfinder badge.

Jiminetty, but didn't I get down on my knees and study those some more. Maybe it didn't have anything to do with the scouts, but maybe it did.

And even if it did I couldn't make out what it meant, because that shoe was no scout shoe. I know a scout shoe when I see one, you can bet.

Anyway, I made up my mind I was going to follow that track as far as I could. Maybe it would peter out on a street or something and then--good night!

You'll see what happened in the next chapter. Oh boy, it's going to be a peacherino!

CHAPTER XIV

THE SLACKER