"Guess he wouldn't fit into any patrol," Winton said; "he seems to be a kind of an odd number."

Pretty soon Skinny came running back shouting for all he was worth, and believe me, he did look like an odd number. His streaky hair was all down over his forehead and his eyes were like a couple of camp fires.

He was shouting: "_Don't go, don't go! I can go with you"_

We rowed over to sh.o.r.e and as he climbed in I could see that he was trembling all over, just for fear we wouldn't wait for him, I suppose.

"I was going to swim out to you, I was," he said; "if you didn't wait."

"You wouldn't want your scout suit to get all wet, would you?" I said.

"Sit down and don't be so excited."

"I like the water better than hiking, anyway," he said; "and I like _you_ best of all."

I said, "The pleasure is mine," and then we all laughed.

"You can make fun of me all you want," he said; "I don't care. I told them they could make fun of me all they want if they'd let me go with them, but they wouldn't let me go."

"They wouldn't, huh?" Bert Winton said, and he studied Skinny awful funny like.

"When I win them the badge, then they'll take me, won't they?" he said.

"I guess so," I told him.

"I'm going to win the cup for them in the contest, too," he said; "I'm going to win it for them before I go home. Then I'll be friends with them. I told them I'd win it if _you_ didn't try for it."

"You should worry about me," I said, "I can swim, but _good night_, I'm not in the contest cla.s.s. And maybe you're not either, so don't be too sure."

He said, "I'm going to win them the cup, and I'm going to win them the badge. But I don't have to get to be a first cla.s.s scout guy to win the cup, I don't. It's made of silver. Once my father stole a lot of silver. It's all fancy, that cup."

"I know all about the cup, Alf," I said; (because, gee, I didn't like to be calling him Skinny) "but don't call the fellows scout guys. Just scouts--that's enough." He just looked at me kind of wild, as if he didn't understand, the same as he always did when anybody called him down, or tried to tell him something.

For a few minutes n.o.body spoke and we just rowed around. Then Westy said, "So that's their game, is it?"

I knew well enough what he meant. Every season Mr. Temple offers a silver cup to the best swimmer at Temple Camp. Once Mr. Temple had a son who got drowned because he couldn't swim, and that's why he's so interested in fellows being good swimmers. That silver cup hasn't got anything to do with the scout swimming badge. You can't win that (anyway they won't give it to you) till you've pa.s.sed your first cla.s.s tests. But anybody can try for the silver cup, and you can bet it's a big honor for any troop or patrol to have that. Most always they have the contest on Labor Day.

I said, "Alf, you can bet I'd be glad to see you win that cup, but don't forget that there are more than a hundred fellows at the camp.

Some of the troops come from the seash.o.r.e--you know that, and they're all crackerjack swimmers. It comes mighty hard to be disappointed, so don't you stay awake at night thinking about it." I said that because I could just see that poor kid dreaming about handing that cup over to his patrol leader, and honestly, I didn't think there was much chance for him.

Pretty soon Bert Winton leaned over and said to me, "Do you suppose that's true about his father?"

"Guess so," I told him.

"He doesn't seem to be very much ashamed of it," he said.

All I could say was, "He's a queer kid; he's all the time blurting out things like that."

"Maybe it's because he's just plain honest," Winton said.

"But you'd think he'd be ashamed," I told him.

He just shrugged his shoulders and looked kind of funny at Skinny. I had a kind of a hunch that he liked him and believed in him. Anyway, I remembered those words, "_just plain honest_."

CHAPTER XIII

TELLS ABOUT THE STRANGE CAMPERS

It was nice rowing around there in the dark. It wasn't so very dark, though, because the moon was out and you could see it in the water just as plain as if it had fallen kerflop out of the sky and was laying in the bottom of the lake. Over on sh.o.r.e we could see the camp-fire getting started and black figures going toward it, and the blaze was upside down in the water.

"How about camp-fire?" Westy said.

"We should worry about camp-fire," I told him; "there's plenty of time.

Wait till it gets to blazing up good and high."

"It's fine out here," Bert Winton said; "I always take a row before going in to camp-fire."

"We should worry about you, too," I heard somebody say, and then a lot of fellows began laughing. By that I knew they had heard everything we said.

Winton said, "Funny how clear you can people talk when they're on the water."

Pretty soon we were away over at the other side of the lake and it was awfully still, and even our oars seemed to make a lot of noise dripping the water.

All of a sudden Westy said, "There's a canoe."

We could only just see it as it went gliding by us, but I noticed there were two dark figures in it.

Winton said, "Shh, wait till they pa.s.s us, then I'll tell you about them."

"I bet they're evil cronies," I said; "like they usually have in books," Because you know how it is in books; there are always a couple of bad fellows that won't join the good ones, but go camping right near them and make a lot of trouble for them. Hanged if I see why they don't join in with them and be done with it, hey?

Pretty soon Winton said very low, "They're a couple of millionaire campers--young fellows. Their people are staying near Leeds and those fellows have got a tent right across there in the woods near the sh.o.r.e.

They're having the time of their lives with an up-to-date oil stove and a couple of fireless cookers and some thermos bottles and things.

They've got cushions with buckskin fringe--presents from Dearie and Sweetie, I suppose, and they've got a cedar chest with bra.s.s hinges.

Regular modern Daniel Boones, they are."

"Oh, me, oh, my!" Westy whispered; "have they got jackknives hanging from their belts?"

"Right the first time," Bert Winton said.

"And leather cases of writing paper?" I said, just for fun.

"Everything except a burglar alarm and a telephone," Bert said; "but they're not half bad chaps. We'll row over and see them some day. They have wild times around their camp-fire, telling yarns and watching the roaring blaze in their oil stove. They've got a fancy Indian blanket, you ought to see it. One of them paddled over to camp one day and wanted to buy a fishing rod. He had about a hundred dollars with him.

He couldn't even swim."

"_Good night!"_ I said.

Then, all of a sudden Skinny piped up, "If I had a hundred dollars I'd buy a canoe, I would. I'd have it painted red. I'd have a sail for it, too. Then all the fellows would like me, wouldn't they?"

I said, "Shh, don't shout like that; people can hear you all over. The fellows like you now, don't you worry."