Then, as he was starting, something came to him.
Smoke signals! Perhaps one of the Scouts would see them and know what they meant.
He was too weak and lame to spell out a message, like we did on Bob's Hill. Instead, he built two fires, throwing on grass and leaves to make a thick smoke. There was no wind and the smoke went straight up. That was one of the signals, which Mr. Norton had taught us. It meant:
"I have lost the camp. Help."
He hadn't lost any camp, of course, but he didn't know what else to send. He hoped it would let us know where he was and that something had happened.
All day long he tended his fires, his ankle aching horribly because he had to move around so much. Between times he sat on the mountain, looking down at Bob's Hill and Plunkett's woods and the village beyond, chewing birch bark and moistening his lips with the few drops of warm water that were left.
Late that afternoon he gave up and made up his mind that he would crawl down to the spring before dark and die there, he was so thirsty. He turned to look down at his home, perhaps for the last time, and to see Bob's Hill once more.
There were Plunkett's woods, and there, the twin stones, like thimbles, they were so far away. And there—what was that?
From the ground close to one of the stones, the one where we build our fires, a great column of smoke went up and he saw some things moving around it, like flies or ants, they looked so small. Then the column of smoke broke into long and short puffs. It was a signal.
Slowly he spelled the words: