It was just like him not to bother about chaining the boat. “Hurry up!” he shouted. “Hurry up, come ahead, there’s a call for help!”
He did not pause to see if any followed. Like a madman he ran headlong up the road to his own camp where he lived discredited. They were getting ready for camp fire (a pleasure he eschewed) and he alighted among them like a meteor out of the sky.
“Come ahead, everybody!” he fairly screamed. “There were four—black—smokes like—in—over there in the sky. It means help!”
“I guess not,” said the camp manager.
“Four—col—columns,” Spiffy panted; “it means help.”
Spiffy’s prestige in camp was not strong enough to win him much attention.
“It would be a lot of little puffs then,” said the young camp manager.
“Or four dots, and one dot, and a dot and a dash and two dots, and a dot and two dashes and one dot,” said a scout, who certainly knew the Morse code off-hand. “That’s what means help around here, if you know how to spell.”
Spiffy glared at him in mounting rage. And he said something which I think is worth recording. “What difference does it make what it means here?” he fairly roared. “It’s what it means over there that counts. I’m not asking you or anybody else what it means because I know! I’m asking you if you’re going to answer a call for help. Come ahead, those that are coming. You can come, too, if you want to,” he added, addressing the camp manager.
