"There he is, the crazy little Indian!" a fellow shouted; "come in here, Skinny, till we get our fists on you. You've won the gold cross, you little spindle shanks!"

Then a lot of fellows shouted, "Hurrah for Skinny! Come here, Skinny, till we pat you on the back--you little water snake!" They didn't even seem to know his last name or his front name either, and it made me mad.

"You trot right over here to mamma, Skinny," Vic Norris of the Elks shouted; "we'll take care of _you_."

The kid was smiling, all confused, as if he didn't know _what_ to do.

"Come ahead over; don't be scared," Connie Bennett shouted. So then Skinny went over, kind of bashful and staring all around him, and sat down with the Elk patrol.

Westy leaned over and whispered to me, "_Can you beat that?_ His own patrol leader telling him not to be afraid to go and sit down with his own patrol! I'll fix that bunch," he said.

Then he stood right up and shouted--oh, boy, you ought to have heard him. He said, "Let's give three cheers for Alfred McCord, of the 1st Bridgeboro Troop, B.S.A., the second fellow to win the gold cross in his troop and the first one to win it in his patrol--the _only_ one in his patrol that _could_ win it!"

Oh, boy, that was some whack.

Well, you should have heard the fellows shout for Skinny. Merry Christmas! but that was some noise. They all stood up, the Elks too, and gave him the biggest send-off _I_ ever heard at Temple Camp. Even the scoutmasters and the trustees joined in and old Uncle Jeb kept shouting, "_Hooo--ray! Hooo--ray!_" Cracky, you would have laughed if you'd heard him. Oh, bibbie! when Temple Camp once gets started, the west front in France is Sleepy Hollow compared to it.

And oh, didn't it make me feel good to see Skinny. He looked as if he was going to start to run away, but Connie had him by the collar, and all the Elks were laughing, and now I could see they were proud of him, anyway.

Then Mr. Ellsworth held up his hand and as soon as the racket died down, he began to speak. This is what he said, because Mr. Barrows (he's a trustee) knows shorthand, and afterwards he gave it to me all written out to copy in our troop book. He said:

"Scouts, you have heard that speech is silver and silence is golden. I think this kind of shouting is highest grade sterling silver. It is chunks of silver, as one might say. But since this is a matter of the gold cross, I ask for just a moment or two of golden silence, while I speak to you. I see about me, scouts from Ohio, and Michigan, and New Hampshire--"

"And Hoboken!" Pee-wee piped out. Jiminy, that kid is the limit.

"Yes, and Hoboken," Mr. Ellsworth said, trying not to laugh. "I speak to all of you from north, south, east and west--"

"One of them has been up in an airplane, too!" Pee-wee yelled.

"I speak to all scouts here," Mr. Ellsworth said, "whether they come from the heavens above or from the earth beneath or from the waters under the earth. That will include any scout who may happen to have been in a submarine. Will that do?" And he gave Pee-wee an awful funny look.

Then he said, "I want to thank you all for the tribute you have paid our troop in its moment of pride and honor. This little scout is brand new, he is not even out of the tenderfoot cla.s.s, and the gold cross award for heroism will be his. I think that every scout of his patrol should thrill with pride at this thought. I dare say we all find him a little strange, _we_ as well as _you_, and I'm afraid he is a kind of law unto himself--if you understand what I mean. But this beautiful cross which will soon be his will bring him closer to us all, I am sure. It is said in our Handbook that a scout is a brother to every other scout, so he has many thousands of brothers all over this broad land. The gold cross is very bright. Look in it and you will see your face reflected. You will see the scout smile, and that is brighter than any gold.

"The best of all, it reflects honor--honor on him who wears it, honor on his patrol, on his troop and on every troop and scout in this whole great camp. And Alfred McCord has brought us this honor. Come here, Alf, my boy, and let me shake your hand."

Wasn't that a peach of an address?

But I noticed that Skinny didn't move. He just stood there close to Connie Bennett He was shaking all over and he was smiling and he was crying. I saw Hunt Ward jump up and give him a rap on the back and he was so little and so thin, that it kind of made him stagger.

Then he said, "Can't I stay here with them?"

Oh, boy, wasn't I glad!

CHAPTER XVIII

TELLS ABOUT MY TALK WITH BERT WINTON

Believe _me_, that was _some_ night. I guess I knew how Skinny felt when he scooted off, because after camp-fire I felt just that same way myself. Christmas! I don't know how it feels to win the gold cross, and I guess I never will either, but just the same, after camp-fire that night, I just felt as if I wanted to go and be by myself--I can't tell you why.

It's fine hanging around the camp-fire after it's died down, but they're pretty sure to chase you off to bed if you do that. It's a danger zone, believe _me_. Anyway, I know a peach of a place on a big rock near the sh.o.r.e. You just go along under the spring-board and pa.s.s the boat landing and follow the path. So I went there and pretty soon Hunt Ward came along on his way to the Elk cabin, and he stopped a couple of minutes and talked to me.

"Well," he said, "we've got that little old medal in our patrol."

"You've got Alf in your patrol, you mean," I said.

"I don't know whether you could exactly say he _earned_ it," he said; "because he was crazy and didn't know what he was doing."

"I wish I knew some more fellows who were crazy like that," I told him.

"You seem to be kind of sore at us, Foxy," he said. Most of them called me Foxy, because I'm leader of the Silver Foxes.

"There's a difference between a mascot and a regular friend," I told him. "You fellows treat Skinny just as if he was a sort of a mascot.

Why don't you take him in with you, just like you would any other fellow?"

"He's a queer little duck," Hunt said.

"That isn't any reason why you shouldn't take him in. I'm not saying you haven't--_now_. And I'm glad if you have, that's sure. You ought to read him the Handbook and teach him some of the other stuff--the laws and all that. Gee, that's the least you could do, now he's won the cross for you."

"Grandpa Foxy," he said, and then he went along toward the Elk cabin.

I was just going to start off to our own cabin when I heard footsteps.

It seemed as if someone might be stealing along, and first I thought it might be Skinny. I was glad it wasn't, because I wanted him to stay in with his own fellows now and not bother with me.

It was Bert Winton.

"H'lo, Blakeley," he said, in that quiet kind of a way he has; "I thought everybody was in bed."

"I see _you're_ not in bed," I told him, kind of grouchy.

He said, "Me? Oh, no, I always prowl around after fox trails and things. I got on one fox trail, didn't I? Bet the kid won't sleep to-night, hey?"

"I bet I won't sleep either," I said; "and that's why I'm here."

"Kind of like the kid, don't you?" he said.

I said, "Yes, and that's more than _you_ can say."

He just looked at me a minute and then he sat down on the stone alongside of me, and he broke a stick off a bush and began marking on the ground with it. Then he said, kind of as if he didn't take much interest--he said, "Actions speak louder than words; did you ever hear that?"

"Sure," I said, "but I'd like to know what that has to do with Skinny."

He just kept pushing the stick around, then he said, "If you're such a good friend of his, instead of trotting all around and sticking your face into every cabin like an old maid hunting for a thimble, why didn't you find his trail and follow it?"

I said, "I don't know why I didn't"

"If you thought he just went off to be by himself, why didn't you trail him and make sure?" he asked me, all the while very friendly and quiet like.