Then it came faster and faster and it seemed as if he must be turning that damper like a telegraph operator moves his key.  “Don’t worry!” it said, “reports false,” “Roy Blakeley safe,” “Roy safe,” “Blakeley alive.”  He said it all kinds of different ways.

Once Artie came up coughing and choking and watched a few seconds to see if the wind was blowing the smoke away as fast as the signs were made, because that was important.

“It’s lucky we have that wind,” he said, and then went down again in a hurry.

Pretty soon we could see some searchlights far away and I guess they were on the ships.  But ours was different and nearer to Bridgeboro, and people would be sure to see it, only maybe they wouldn’t understand it and that’s what made me worry.  I’m good on reading smudge signals, even though I never sent many and I never have to have the handbook when I read the code, that’s one thing.  And I didn’t pay much attention to all the talking and yelling, only kept my eyes up in the sky, watching that long smoky column.  It beat any searchlight you ever saw.  “Roy alive”—­“Roy alive” it kept saying and sometimes “don’t worry.”

I didn’t see how any fellow could manage a smudge and send it so fast and keep his spaces.  The last word before it stopped was safe, or that’s what it was meant to be, only the short flash for E didn’t come.  The fellows all began shouting when there wasn’t any more, and I heard Pee-wee shout downstairs, “Aren’t you going to put the name of the boat?”

“Do you want him to crack the sky open?” I heard a fellow say, and they all laughed.

But I remembered how that last E didn’t come and I started down the ladder for all I was worth.  I scrambled around the narrow part of the deck to the window and called, but nobody answered.  The smoke was coming out thick.

“Wig,” I said, “are you there?  Are you all right?  Artie, where are you?”

I had to turn away my face on account of the smoke.  I pulled off my scout scarf and tied it over my mouth, so that it covered my ears too.  Then I looked in and down low, because I knew that the smoke wouldn’t be so thick near the floor.  And I saw Wig Weigand lying there right under the stove pipe and his hand was reaching up holding the damper, and his hand was all white like and his eyes were wide open and staring.  Then I shouted for all I was worth.

“Doc!  Come down—­hurry!  Send Doc Carson down, Wig Weigand is dead—­he’s suffocated.”

CHAPTER X

THE RAVENS

Doc Carson is a Raven and he’s our First Aid Scout.  He always has some things with him, because that’s our rule.  But you can bet I didn’t wait for him.  And I didn’t care if I was killed or not, I didn’t, if Wig Weigand was killed.

So I jumped right through the window and the smoke got into my eyes and made my ears ring, but I didn’t care.  I could taste it all thick, too, but I didn’t care.  That was the smoke that had to do what Wigley Weigand told it to, and he scribbled all over the sky with it, that’s what he did, and now it had turned around and killed him.