"Andy can go in with Peter and Lige, and I'll tent with Davy and Jamie." There was little else than the proposed camping expedition talked about on the return to The Jug, and in the days that followed David, Andy and Jamie devoted every spare moment to the study of first aid and signalling.

Doctor Joe, with no end of patience, drilled them so thoroughly in first aid that they were soon really expert in applying bandages.

He even instructed them in improvising splints and reducing fractures.

In this secluded land, where for three hundred miles up and down the coast there was no other surgeon than Doctor Joe, it was not unlikely that some day they would be called upon to set a leg or an arm.
Doctor Joe was as ignorant, however, of the art of signalling as were the lads, and he must needs take it up from the very beginning and study with them.

It was decided that they should learn both the semaphore and Morse codes, and Doctor Joe insisted that neither he nor the lads should consider the Second Class test satisfactorily passed until they had not only learned the codes but could send and receive messages at the rate of speed designated in the handbook as required for the First Class test.
"It wouldn't be fair to the scouts in the big cities," he declared.
"They have to learn a great many things that we already know how to do, like building fires, using the axe and knife, and tracking.