Well, in two seconds he had us all flying 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.
“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 good now.
“Take it down in the bilge and treat it,” he said, very sober like, to one of his patrol.
“Don’t let it spend a cent,” I called after him. But I didn’t go because I could see he would rather have Ravens help him. You can’t blame him for that. In about half a minute they came upstairs and they had a lot of the excelsior all damp, but not exactly wet, and I don’t know how they got it that way, except I know there was bilge water down under the flooring. They’re a lot of cracker-jacks on signalling, I’ll say that much for them.
There was a stove in the main cabin with a stovepipe going straight up through the roof like a smoke stack and there was a damper in it right near the stove.
“Get a handbook or a pocket code,” somebody said, “so he’ll have the signs right near him.”
“He doesn’t need any signs,” Pee-wee shouted, disgusted like.
Well, this is the way Wig did it, and after he got started, most of us went up on the roof to see if we could read it. But that’s mighty hard to do when you’re right underneath it.
By the time the fellows came upstairs with the damp excelsior (that’s what they call the smudge) Wig had a good fire started in the stove.
“Lay that stuff down here,” he said; then he said to me, “What do you want to say?”
“Just say I’m safe, Wig,” I told him. “Say for them not to pay any attention to what they hear.”
I only waited long enough for him to get started, just so as to see how he did it, then I went up on the roof and watched the long black smoke column. Cracky, I was glad it was moonlight, that’s one sure thing.
As soon as he had a good fire started he stuffed some of the damp excelsior in and shut the door, and told Artie Van Arlen (he’s their patrol leader) to hold a rag over the crack in the door, because the black smoke was pouring out that way, especially because the damper in the pipe was shut.
I didn’t stay there long, because the smoke was too thick for me and when I saw Artie bind a wet rag over Wig’s eyes and mouth, I knew then it was going to be mighty bad in that little cabin.