“We’re in a desperate predicament,” Pee-wee said, very dark and serious like. I guess he got those words out of the movies. “Maybe we could tie a note to the fish and throw him in the water,” I said. “When someone catches him they’ll find out we’re in distress.” “No you don’t,” the kid yelled, hanging onto the fish while I tried to take it away from him. “If we could only send up a signal,” Warde said. “It’s all very well joking but if it gets dark it will be mighty bad with this bridge open and no one standing guard at the ends of the road.” “There’ll be a tragedy,” the kid said. Gee whiz, when I heard Warde speak that way I realized that it might be pretty dangerous there after dark. And I was a little scared about it because it seemed that no one came along that road very much and maybe it would be night before anyone came. I said, “Well, if it gets toward night and no one comes either way I’ll take a chance and dive and swim to shore. One of you fellows will have to dive and swim to the other shore too.” “I’ll do that,” Hervey sang out. “But we’ll wait till it’s necessary,” I said. Now maybe you think that because we are scouts we should have been able to get to shore easily enough, and if it were only a case of swimming that fish wouldn’t have anything on us. But we couldn’t get from that bridge into the water except by diving and diving is dangerous when you don’t know the water you’re diving into. Especially near a bridge it’s dangerous because there are apt to be piles sticking up under the surface of the water. So that’s why we have a rule never to dive unless we know about the place where we’re diving. But, gee whiz, if it’s a case of an auto plunging into the water or taking a chance myself, I’ll take the chance every time. And I know that Hervey Willetts would dive into the Hudson River from the top of the Woolworth Building if anybody dared him to do it. “Anyway, let’s not lose our morale,” I said. “We’re here because we’re here. Scouts are supposed to be resourceful; let’s sit up on the railing again and think.” “As soon as the sun goes down I’m going to dive,” Hervey said. “Do you see that big maple tree in the woods? As soon as I can’t count the leaves on that top branch any more I’m going to dive. I don’t know how deep it is or what’s under the water, but I’m going to stand guard down the road a ways. What do you say?” “Are you asking me?” I asked him. “I sure am,” he said; “you’re the only patrol leader here.”