a door, slanting ways over
the leaves, and Nick showed Peter how to manipulate it so as to control
the column of black smoke arising from the damp leaves. Peter was
greatly interested, even excited, over this new kind of signalling. He
was not quite as careful as he had been in talking with Scoutmaster Ned.

"Make one long one first to call their attention," he said, quite
aroused by the novel enterprise.

"Yes?" said Nick, half interested apparently. "Who told you that?"

"I--I just knew it. I know now--let _me_ do it--it's easy. Only they
have to be careful over there. That's--that's the hard part. I hope
they have a--one of those books over there--and then--maybe--I hope they
keep it open at page two hundred and eighty-four. Let _me_ try it--"

"Ned give you one of those books?"

"N--no, I--I saw one."

"Hmm."

"Well, let's get busy with the message, Pete."

Nick Vernon did not seem greatly interested in where or when or how
Peter had seen the handbook, nor how he happened to remember page two
hundred and eighty-four. But one thing Nick Vernon knew (it was a
reflection on Scoutmaster Ned and just exactly like him) and that was
that _there was not a single copy of the scout handbook on Frying-pan
Island_.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE FIXER

"All right, you can do as you choose," said Pee-wee; "only I'm just
telling you. There's always better fishing on the east side of an island
because that's what Uncle Jeb up at Temple Camp said and he knows--he
knows--"

"He knows all the fish personally," said Charlie Norris.

"You think you're smart, don't you?" thundered Pee-wee. "There's a
better spring over there than there is here and then besides, the rain
will drain out better on account of the ground being higher, because I
know all about camping, you can ask my scoutmaster. It won't be so cold
over there at night, either; you see. You move the tents over there, gee
whiz, Arabs move their tents every day, and look at gypsies, they keep
moving all the time."

"It will be a scout movement," said Scoutmaster Safety First, rather
impressed with Pee-wee's arguments.

"I'm game for anything," said Scoutmaster Ned. "Variety is the spice of
life. The housing situation--"

"I know all about the housing situation," said Pee-wee; "my father owns
a house and the water's calmer on the east side of an island, because I
can prove it by the Pacific Ocean."

"The Pacific Ocean is west of here," said Scoutmaster Ned.