Chapter XXVII: Some Noise

There was one place where the searchlight message was translated with a readier skill than at Piper's Crossroads, and where it created quite as great consternation. That was at the camp on Frying-pan Island. It was like A.B.C. to half a dozen of those practiced scouts, and to others not so well practiced, for the skill of the sender had made the reading easy. In less than a minute the camp was the scene of hurried talk and lightning preparation.

"What do you know about that?" asked Sparrow Blake. He was in the Mammoth Patrol, made up of the smaller scouts in Safety First's troop.

"I don't know _anything_ about it," said Scoutmaster Ned, reaching for his plaited khaki jacket; "I don't know any more about it than you do. Nobody could get in that place, so I don't see how anyone could get out. Come ahead, Bill," he added hastily, addressing the other scoutmaster. This was followed by a vociferous chorus.

"Can I go?"

"I'm with you."

"I'll row."

"No you won't, _I_ will."

"You mean me."

"Get from under and go back to bed," said Scoutmaster Ned, excitedly. "What do you fellows think this is; a regatta?"

"Aren't we going to chase them?"

"You're going to chase yourselves. Do you think we've got a battleship? We've only got one of the boats here. Chuck me that leather case--"

"Your pistol?"

"Never you mind what's in it. Come ahead, Bill, and you Norris, and look out you don't step in the soup bucket. Is there a light over on shore?"

"Sure, they've got a lantern; trust Nick not to forget anything."

"I'm going so as to carry the lantern."

"Yes, you're not," said Scoutmaster Ned; "never mind your coat, Bill, come ahead. I hope they had sense enough to get hold of a machine somewhere. They could get Barney's flivver."

"Shall we signal over to them?" called a dozen excited voices.

"No, there isn't time. Come on now, _hustle_, and the rest of you go to sleep."

"While you're chasing thieves? Did you hear what he said? Go to sleep! Can you beat that, from a scoutmaster! And him always telling us to be wide awake."

"Get out of the way, all of you," said Scoutmaster Bill, alias Safety First. "You're like a lot of mosquitoes."

The whole camp followed the two scoutmasters and Norris to the shore, where there seemed likely to be a stampede for the one small boat.

"If you're going to take Norris--"

"Norris can drive the other car back if I get mine," interrupted Scoutmaster Ned. "He has a license; now are you all satisfied?"

They saw that under his persistent good nature he was worried and preoccupied, and like the good scouts they were, they said no more about going. They knew the pride he took in his Hunkajunk auto. They knew that his one thought was of that now.

Yet Scoutmaster Ned Garrison's sense of humor was ever ready, even in anxiety or disappointment. It was that which endeared him to his troop, whom he was forever denouncing and contemplating with a kind of mock despair. He called them an infernal rabble and they loved him for it. He was a new kind of a scoutmaster. And I honestly believe that when Scoutmaster Ned thrust that leather case containing his revolver down into his pocket, if he could only have known that it was for the purpose of shooting Pee-wee Harris, he would have laughed so hard that he would have capsized the rowboat.