“He’s a queer duck,” one of the party sprawling around the tents said as the two made their way down toward the shore.

“Who, Pete?”

“No, Nick; jiminy, it always seems as if—­I don’t know—­as if he has something up his sleeve.”

“It’s his arm,” commented a joker.

“Maybe he knows about a mystery,” Pee-wee said; “maybe there’s treasure buried on this island.”

“There’ll be some scouts buried on this island if we all die laughing at you,” another scout observed.  “Come on, let’s dig some bait.”

Nick did not decide what he was going to do till he reached the shore.  That was just like him.  Peter was all excitement.

“Are you going to signal?” he asked.

Nick often signalled over to town and sometimes he got an answer, for there were other scouts over there.  He did it just for pastime.  Usually it was the wigwag that he used.  But on this morning, noticing the dried leaves all about, he said, “We’ll try a smudge, that’s pretty good sport; Morse Code, you know.”  He looked about half-interestedly and began kicking leaves into a pile, Peter doing the same.  If Nick had any particular purpose in this business, at least you would not have supposed so.  He seemed as aimless as a butterfly.  “Are you going to ask about school?”

“No,” laughed Nick, dragging some leaves with his foot; “there’s no school for a month, we know that.  If you know a thing you know it; isn’t that so?”

“I don’t know many things.”

“No?  Well, get some water in your hat—­here, take mine.  These blamed scout hats are made to hold water.”

Peter brought some water, which Nick poured on the leaves.

“Now haul that old raft up here and we’ll hold it up.  We’ll just say ‘hello’ to be sociable, show the town we’re not stuck-up.”

They held the old raft, of about the area of 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.