"Well, if he wanted to be by himself," I said, "why should I track him?"
"Why should you hunt for him at all, then?" he said.
"Just because I choose to," I told him.
"That"s a good reason," he said.
"It"s all the reason you"ll get," I blurted out.
"All right," he said, very nice and polite, "only then don"t go around thinking you"re a better friend to him than I am. I know this camp and I know those fellows across the lake and I know page fifty-one of the Handbook, and I"ve seen the kid once or twice."
"I suppose you think I don"t know what"s on page fifty-one of the Handbook," I said, getting mad; "it"s the tracking badge--pathfinding-- so there. And I see you have it on your sleeve, too."
"That"s where it belongs," he said.
"Well, then, if you think it was so important to track him, why didn"t you track him?" I blurted at him, for I was good and mad.
"I did," he said.
CHAPTER XIX
TELLS ABOUT A VISIT FROM ACROSS THE LAKE
Now at last I knew for sure that I hated that fellow. And I said to myself, "You can bet I"ll never have anything more to do with _him_."
When I got to our cabin all the fellows were asleep, except Westy, and I said to him, "Do you know that scout who"s patrol leader in the Ohio troop?"
He said, "You mean Winton?"
"That"s him," I said; "I hate him so much that it makes me hate the whole state of Ohio. I wouldn"t even go canoeing on the Ohio River."
He didn"t say anything--I guess he was sleepy. "I even hate the Baltimore and Ohio railroad," I said.
The next morning just as we were going in for a swim, we saw the canoe coming across the lake again. When it got near enough, we could see that another fellow was in it. We all went over to the landing to ask him how his pal was getting along. Right away he asked if he could see Mr. Ellsworth.
I said, "Sure you can; I guess he"s in the tepee, writing."
I felt sort of glad, because I thought probably it meant something good for Skinny. All morning he was sure one hero, and at the time the camper came he was off with the Elks somewhere, stalking I guess, and I was mighty glad of it.
The tepee is a little tent where the scoutmasters always go when they want to be alone, so as to write up troop stuff. n.o.body ever bothers them in there unless it"s important, and even then only one fellow goes.
I said, "Sure, come ahead, I"ll find him for you."
He was a pretty nice fellow, I could see that, even if he _was_ a tenderfoot, and he spoke mighty friendly, sort of, to me.
He said, "You have a wonderful little life saver here--with a bull dog grip."
"It"s more than a grip," I said, "it"s a regular suitcase. He"s going to get the highest award we have, too."
"Bully for him," he said, "we"re going to let him know what we think about it, too."
"Scouts aren"t allowed to take anything for things like that," I told him.
"Well," he said, "we heard him shouting on the lake the other night that he"d like to own a canoe, so we"re going to give him ours when we go away next week."
"Oh, boy!" I said. Then I just happened to think to say, "Did you hear all he shouted out on the lake? Because," I said, "he"s kind of--kind of freakish, sometimes."
"He"s a little wonder, that"s what he is," he said.
When we got to the tepee, Mr. Ellsworth jumped up and shook hands with him and said, "Glad to see you, sit down. Sit down too, Roy."
So we both sat down on the bench, and I don"t know, it seemed to me as if the fellow was sort of uncomfortable, as if he"d rather I wouldn"t be there. But he didn"t say anything about it.
Mr. Ellsworth said, "Your friend had a very narrow escape. Canoes are bad things in storms. You should be careful." And then he gave him some mighty good advice in that nice way he has.
The camping fellow said he"d come to thank the little fellow, that"s what he called him, and to tell Mr. Ellsworth how they both felt about it. He said they"d never forget about it, and he wanted to know if there was anything they could do.
"Absolutely nothing," Mr. Ellsworth said. "All awards and tokens of recognition are attended to right here among ourselves."
For about half a minute the fellow didn"t say anything and I thought he was thinking about how to spring that about the canoe. Because it wasn"t easy after what Mr. Ellsworth said. Then he said--I can tell you almost just the very words--because Mr. Ellsworth helped me with this part. He said:
"There"s a little matter I want to speak about, Mr. Ellsworth, and it isn"t easy. My friend didn"t want me to speak about it at all, for he was afraid you might misunderstand us."
Mr. Ellsworth said, awful friendly like, "I will try not to."
Then he said, kind of smiling, "I suppose we can trust this good little scout not to repeat out talk to anyone."
Mr. Ellsworth began to laugh, then he said, "Oh, yes, indeed; all good little scouts are to be trusted. That"s what Roy, here, would say is their middle name. Am I right, Roy?"
I guess that made it kind of easy for the fellow, for he started right in, though I could see it was hard for him to say it. He said, "My pal had quite a little sum of money in his jacket, which we can"t seem to find now. It was b.u.t.toned into a flap pocket. He thought, or rather _I_ thought, that perhaps it had been taken from him and laid away for safe keeping. Or perhaps it may have fallen into the water and gone down.
There"s a lot of valuable stuff under the water these days." I think he said that just so"s to kind of make a joke about what he was saying, so as maybe it wouldn"t seem so serious like. Anyway, he was awfully trice. "It seems pretty contemptible to be talking about money," he said, "after my pal"s life was saved by you folks, but it"s just because the money has to be paid out pretty soon that he"s worrying about it. He didn"t want me to come over and ask, but I told him I was going to, anyway. No harm in that, I guess."
"None whatever," Mr. Ellsworth said; "how much money was there?"
The fellow said a little over two hundred, but they weren"t sure exactly how much.
Mr. Ellsworth raised his eyebrows in that way he has and said, "Isn"t that a good deal of money for two young fellows to take camping?"
The camper said, "Yes, I guess it is, but we"re pretty punk campers, I suppose, any way you look at it."
Mr. Ellsworth said, "Just wait a minute," and he went away.
The camping fellow started to say how it made him feel mean and contemptible to come over and ask about the money, and he guessed it was probably in Davy Jones" locker, anyway.
Pretty soon Mr. Ellsworth came back and said, "I"m very sorry, my young friend, but no sum of money was found on your companion. If it had been, it would either have been restored to him or held by the camp authorities through oversight. I have just made inquiries of them. The boy who saved your friend is not in camp at present, but I think I can answer for him, that he did not find it. To make sure, I will ask him when he returns and one of the boys will row over and let you know."
I could see the fellow seemed kind of disappointed, but anyway, he was mighty nice about it.