TELLS ABOUT MY TALK WITH MR. ELLSWORTH

After they were gone, Mr. Ellsworth told me that I shouldn't get so excited about nothing. I have to admit that's the way I often do.

I said, "Do you know what that's a key to?"

He said, "It's a key to a padlock. I have an idea that perhaps it fits the padlock on that locker in the house-boat--the one that was always locked."

Jiminy, I never thought of that until just then when he spoke about it.

It made me feel awfully queer. Anyhow, I guessed right off that he was right, because probably it fell out of Lieutenant Donnelle's pocket along with the change that he spilled all over the deck. There was a kind of a lump in _my_ throat now.

I said, "Skinny gave you the money so we ought to believe him when he says he just put the key in another pocket and forgot about it."

"Why, surely," he said, "I'm not suspecting him of anything. Neither is anyone else. The only thing that puzzles me is, how the key happened to be on the deck where he found it. We swabbed the decks so thoroughly before leaving Bridgeboro. One of our boys might have dropped some change and never known it But how did the key happen to be there? We know how it happened in Alfred's pocket, but how did it happen on the deck? We scouts claim to be observant, and yet that key was right on the deck from Bridgeboro all the way down to St. George. That's the queer thing."

Oh, boy, didn't I feel guilty. Especially I felt guilty because Mr.

Ellsworth was so nice and pleasant about it. Because all the while I knew where that key came from, and it seemed just like lying not to tell. Gee, I was kind of sorry now that I promised Lieutenant Donnelle that I would never tell about him coming there. I couldn't say anything, so I just kept still.

All the while Mr. Ellsworth kept looking at the key and thinking and humming a tune to himself. Pretty soon he said, "You don't happen to know where Alfred went when he disappeared, do you, Roy?"

I said, "No, I don't; all I know is I couldn't find him."

"He was gone for four or five hours," he said, very slow, as if he was sort of thinking.

I guess I felt just about the same as Skinny did now. Anyway, I was all shaky and it was hard for me to get started saying anything.

Then I said, "Mr. Ellsworth, Skinny went off because he was all scared and excited, and he wanted to be all alone by himself. Often I've felt that same way. I felt that way after I pa.s.sed my second cla.s.s tests. I don't deny he's kind of freaky. I think he just went off in the woods.

You know yourself it's in the Handbook that trees are good companions.

He just wanted to be alone. I bet he wasn't a hundred yards from camp.

Skinny's kind of queer, you know that."

Then Mr. Ellsworth just laid down the key and put stamps on two or three letters and said "All right, Roy, just see that these get mailed, will you?"

He didn't say what he was going to do and I guessed he wasn't going to do anything. And even suppose he did, what was the harm?

But just the same I felt awful queer and shaky. I guess maybe it was because I couldn't come right out and tell him the plain truth about that key.

CHAPTER XXII

TELLS ABOUT HOW I VISITED THE OHIO TROOP'S CABIN

One thing I was sure of, and that was that Skinny went away into the woods just to be alone by himself, like he said. I knew it was just like him to do that. Maybe you'll think it was funny for him to do that when it was raining, but already he was good and wet; you have to remember that. I said to myself, "I should worry about the key, because anyway, that had nothing to do with Skinny." But just the same I kept worrying about something, I don't know just what.

Pretty soon I made up my mind to do something that I didn't want to do.

I went up the hill to where the Ohio troop bunked. They had one of the big troop cabins that holds two patrols. I guess they were a pretty fine troop, because they had everything fixed up dandy. One patrol was called the Royal Bengal Tigers, and the other was called the African Tigers, and both patrols wore yellow scarfs with black stripes, and all their scout staffs had tigers' heads on them. Even when they dived from the spring-board they had a certain kind of a way of jumping, they called it the tiger spring, and n.o.body could get the hang of it. Some organization they had, that's what Mr. Ellsworth said. Every one of those fellows had a tiger claw hung around his neck. Oh, boy, that was some troop for you.

I asked one of the fellows for Bert Winton, and he came around from behind the cabin where he was spearing papers and leaves. I said, "_You_ fellows ought to be called the gold dust twins, your two patrols I mean, because you're so plaguy particular--picking up leaves and everything. You'll be dusting the roof next."

He said, "We're a lot of old maids up here."

Then he climbed up on the cabin roof and sat on the peak and I scrambled up too, and sat down alongside of him. Honest, that fellow would squat in the funniest places. And always he had a stick with him.

"Nice and breezy up here," he said, in that quiet, easy sort of way he had, "and we can scan the horizon. Anything particular?"

I don't know, but I seemed to sort of feel that he knew what I was going to talk about, and I guess he just scrambled up there so the other fellows wouldn't hear. Cracky, that fellow always had his wits about him, that's one sure thing.

I said, "I don't deny that I was kind of sore at you when you spoke to me down at the lake, and I can't tell whether I like you or not, because I can never make out what you really think. You've got to know what a fellow thinks before you know whether you like him or not, don't you?"

He said you sure did, and then he said, "Well, I know whether I like _you_ or not, so it's all right."

"I don't care much whether you like _me_" I said, "it's Skinny I'm thinking about. I know I like _him_, you can bet."

"And that's one reason I like you," he said; "because you like _him_.

Ever notice how the cedar shingles shrink in a dry spell?"

I said I didn't know they were cedar.

"You can always tell cedar by the smell," he said, "and the S warp."

Gee, I didn't even know what an S warp was.

Then I said right out--I said, "You told me that you tracked Skinny.

Would you mind telling me where he went?"

For a minute he just kept moving the stick around and then he said, "What would be the use of telling you?"

"Because I've got a reason and I want to know," I said. Then all of a sudden I knew why he climbed up there. It was partly so he could see all around and be sure no one was coming.

"Well, why do you want to know?" he said.

"Because I'm a friend of Skinny's, that's why," I said. Then I just blurted out, "I might as well tell you because, anyway, you're smarter than I am. They found a key on Skinny."

He just said, "When?"

"To-day," I said, "and it's probably a key to one of the lockers in our house-boat. Besides, that fellow who nearly got drowned had about a couple of hundred dollars on him."

"Humph, I thought so," Winton said.

I said, "Why?"

"Oh, just because," he said. "The day he came over to try to buy a fishing-pole he had a roll as big as a cobblestone with him. I suspected he'd lose it some day and that somebody would get blamed."

"n.o.body is getting blamed," I said.

"No, but somebody is being suspected," he shot back.

"Well, he _did_ lose it, I have to admit that much," I said.

"And that's all you're ever going to admit, hey?" he said, all the while moving the stick around on the roof.