Signs of activity about the life saving station always gathered a crowd, and to-day the appearance of the men in uniform, pulling out the life lines, hoisting the buoys and running the life boat down to the water, drew more than the usual number of spectators.
It was Scout Day and everybody seemed to know it.
The boys having agreed to accept the challenge of the girls, in true scout chivalry, now offered the girls every possible courtesy, even to choice of place at which to stand for the wig wag try out.
It was arranged that Captain Dave's men were to row outside the fish nets, and wait there for their code to be waved to them for a "wreck off the hook." The exactness and quickness with which the message was waved was to be judged by a committee of citizens with the mayor as the honorary leader.
It had all been carefully planned as a summer attraction, and the scouts were to share in honors for their respective troops.
The blare of the firemen's band, affording more blare than music, proclaimed the time had come for a start, and the crack of Mayor Jones' revolver gave the signal for a race through the sand to gain places.
Cleo, Grace, Margaret and Louise won the post for True Treds, they having outdistanced the boys who were led by Tommie Johnson, and who was said to stumble purposely so that the girls might reach the pier first. However that might be, the True Treds liked Tommie, and he seemed to like them "pretty well," as Grace expressed it.
No chance for holding conversation as a contest preliminary, for the four scouts were scattered at regular distances over the five hundred foot pier, while the boys on the sand, were dotted at similar distances, each armed with the red and white signal flag.
An exhibition of signalling was first presented, and this evoked generous applause from the crowds that jammed the board walk. Naturally the girls from their platform on the pier, "looked the prettiest," but the way they flashed their code did not admit of any self consciousness on the score of looks.
In a brief interval Grace waved to Louise a message in the True Tred secret code, and this was taken up by Cleo and Margaret who relayed it to Helen and Julia in their positions on the beach.