ll been carefully planned as a summer attraction, and the scouts
were to share in honors for their respective troops.

The blare of the firemen's band, affording more blare than music,
proclaimed the time had come for a start, and the crack of Mayor Jones'
revolver gave the signal for a race through the sand to gain places.

Cleo, Grace, Margaret and Louise won the post for True Treds, they
having outdistanced the boys who were led by Tommie Johnson, and who was
said to stumble purposely so that the girls might reach the pier first.
However that might be, the True Treds liked Tommie, and he seemed to
like them "pretty well," as Grace expressed it.

No chance for holding conversation as a contest preliminary, for the
four scouts were scattered at regular distances over the five hundred
foot pier, while the boys on the sand, were dotted at similar distances,
each armed with the red and white signal flag.

An exhibition of signalling was first presented, and this evoked
generous applause from the crowds that jammed the board walk. Naturally
the girls from their platform on the pier, "looked the prettiest," but
the way they flashed their code did not admit of any self consciousness
on the score of looks.

In a brief interval Grace waved to Louise a message in the True Tred
secret code, and this was taken up by Cleo and Margaret who relayed it
to Helen and Julia in their positions on the beach.

"Grace says 'nervous,'" whispered Helen, "and she is never nervous. I
wonder what she means?"

"Just joking, I guess. No, see they are sending 'a,' that's error, of
course," replied Julia, holding her own flag up in the interrogatory
slant.

But the signal for the second event precluded any possibility of
following out the private messages and presently all were again wrapped
in attention at the silent waving contest--that language of distance,
copied from the trees, and fashioned from the winds.

"Look! Look!" gasped Julia. "Louise is waving danger! What can be the
matter."

Frantically the little scout on the extreme end of the pier was
spelling "danger," then shooting her flag out to demand "attention."

"Oh, it's some one on the water," whispered Helen, fearful of causing a
panic in that crowd.

"And she is signalling the life boat," gasped Julia. "But how far is it
away?"

Suddenly Louise was seen to throw her flag high in the air, and dive
from the pier!

Shouts, screams, and yells rent the air!

"The boat,