ke to Wigley Wig-wag Weigand.

I said--this is just what I said--I said, "Wig, I always claimed Ralph
Warner was the best signaler 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.

CHAPTER IX

THE LOST LETTER

Then Elmer Sawyer (he's a Raven) came up to me and said, "He'll do it,
Roy; don't worry. And they'll get it too, because everybody in town is
out these nights looking at the searchlights down the Hudson."

That was one lucky thing. A lot of cruisers and torpedo boats were down
in the harbor and up the Hudson, and we could see their searchlights
even in Bridgeboro.

Wig looked all around the cabin as if he was hunting for something and
then he said, "No searchlight, I suppose." If we had only had a
searchlight it would have been easy, but there wasn't any on board.

"Don't you care," Pee-wee said to me, "he'll think of a way." Oh, jiminy,
but he was proud of Wig. I could see that Wig was thinking and for just
a few seconds it seemed as if he couldn't make up his mind what to do.

"Can you smudge it?" Connie Bennett asked.

"Guess so," he said, "you fellows rip open the ends of these cushions,
but don't tear the covering any, and somebody get the stove cleared out;
see if there's a damper in the pipe, and see if there's any bilge under
the flooring. It'll take those fellows about twenty minutes to chug up
to Bridgeboro."

Well, in two seconds he had us all Hying every which way, Elks, Silver
Foxes and all. We didn't have to open more than one of the seat cushions
and, lucky thing, we found it full of excelsior. That makes a good
smudge.

"Only you've got to treat it," Wig said.

"Treat it!" I said; "I'll treat it to all the ice cream it can eat, if
it'll only help you to send the message." I was feeling goo