The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest Part 25

"What for?" asked Tommie, whisking his towel over the table.

"Why, for the contest," answered Grace, as if the whole world should know that.

"Oh, yes a little," admitted Tommie, gliding off to a new customer.

"Didn't notice that he waved any program," said Louise.

"Don't give up," Margaret encouraged. "I could manage another sundae."

"So could I if I had the price," said Helen dryly.

Cleo tapped on the table and Tommie sauntered back.

"Say Tommie, you know we are strangers here," she began adroitly, "and don't know a single Girl Scout in town, and we are supposed to keep up our activities. How do we get in the contest?"

"Who told you about it?" he asked, his face betraying the fatal boyish weakness of succ.u.mbing to girls' flattering attention.

"Why, folks are talking about it, of course," went on Cleo sweetly. "It promises to be a big event."

"Bet your life," and the secret spring had been tapped. "That will be some event. We wanted to flash a surprise, but you being Girl Scouts, I think you ought to be in it."

"Of course, we should," came a chorus.

"Tell you what I'll do. I'll propose it at to-night's meeting. I saw you girls save the Bentley chap, and I know you're game," he said stoutly, "so I don't see why not."

"Good for you, Tommie!" Helen wanted to cheer. "And when they put you up for office, just let the True Treds know."

"That's right, Tommie," Cleo a.s.sured the blus.h.i.+ng boy. "We'll see you through."

And why shouldn't they? As Tommie said: "I don't see why not."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WIG WAG RESCUE

"THEY'LL be sure to enjoy the shouting," Julia remarked, "but aside from that, I don't see what interest spectators can possibly work up in a wig wag contest."

"We almost agree with you, Julie," said Grace, "but don't you know everything, including bad weather, is interesting at the beach?"

"All right, scouty, I'm glad of it, for I think it is going to be simply great. And wasn't it splendid to get the sanction of headquarters?"

"Trust Cleo to take care of the official end," replied Grace. "Don't forget to-day is the day, and the pier is the place."

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.

"Grace says 'nervous,'" whispered Helen, "and she is never nervous. I wonder what she means?"

"Just joking, I guess. No, see they are sending 'a,' that's error, of course," replied Julia, holding her own flag up in the interrogatory slant.

But the signal for the second event precluded any possibility of following out the private messages and presently all were again wrapped in attention at the silent waving contest--that language of distance, copied from the trees, and fas.h.i.+oned from the winds.

"Look! Look!" gasped Julia. "Louise is waving danger! What can be the matter."

Frantically the little scout on the extreme end of the pier was spelling "danger," then shooting her flag out to demand "attention."

"Oh, it's some one on the water," whispered Helen, fearful of causing a panic in that crowd.

"And she is signalling the life boat," gasped Julia. "But how far is it away?"

Suddenly Louise was seen to throw her flag high in the air, and dive from the pier!

Shouts, screams, and yells rent the air!

"The boat, the guard, the life line!" the air itself seemed to form the words, but only that speck at the end of the pier could be seen now, bobbing up and down, then--yes--it was a little boat, a canoe! That was what the scout had dived for!

If ever they had occasion to summon and use courage, the scouts, both boys and girls, had need of it now. Along the boardwalk the excitement was so intense as to cause danger of children being trampled on, and in this emergency those Girl Scouts not on the pier helped the Boy Scouts in efforts to prevent disaster.

But it was that tiny spot on the water that held the crowd with a bated breath.

"She must drown! Oh, that lovely girl!" they were gasping.

"Louise won't drown," said Julia, her face white as the muslin in her flag.

"No, Weasie _can_ swim," Helen a.s.sured her, holding her arm very tight, and begging comfort in the embrace.