twin with his swell
bathing suit and his waterproof mackinaw was going to lose his roll in
the water. He carried it loose in his mackinaw pocket--a camper, mind
you. He had a wad big enough to pay off the national debt, and I knew
it would tumble out and it did. Skinny's one of those poor little
codgers that's always unlucky. He happened to be there. He happened to
have a key. He happened to go to the house-boat. I got hold of his
tracks just because I didn't want him to come to any harm while he was
all worked up. The reason I didn't say anything about where he went
was, because there are a whole lot of fellows in this camp that would
put two and two together and get five. Understand? They'd say he went
to hide Goldie's freight shipment of dollar bills. So I kept still. No
harm in keeping still."

"Oh, cracky," I said, "but I like you. _I'm_ keeping still about
something too and you can bet I know how to keep my mouth shut. You can
just bet I'd do anything for a friend, I would."

"Well, Skinny's got a good friend," he said.

"I didn't mean Skinny," I told him; "but he has got two good friends,
anyway, and that's us, hey?"

He just said, "That's us," and then he slid right down the roof and
jumped off the edge, awful funny like.

CHAPTER XXIII

TELLS ABOUT HOW I DID A GOOD TURN

That night Mr. Ellsworth wasn't at camp-fire and nobody knew where he
was. All the time I had a funny feeling and I kept looking away from
the fire and up the dark path to see if he was coming. I wasn't
listening to the yarns at all.

And that night I didn't sleep--I just kind of felt that something was
wrong. You know what I mean--I could just feel it in the air. The next
morning was nice and bright and sunny and it seemed good, because there
had been such a lot of rain lately. On my way over to breakfast, I
stopped outside of Council Shack to read the bulletin board and see
what was on for the day. I saw that the Elks were going stalking, and I
was glad of that, because I knew Skinny liked stalking and I was glad
he was with them at last. But just the same I felt kind of funny all
the while I was having eats.

Afterward Artie Van Arlen (he's head of the Ravens) came and told me
that Mr. Ellsworth wanted to see me. I felt awful shaky. When I went
into Council Shack he was sitting there all alone, and on the table
right in front of him were the key and a lot of money all crunched up.
Oh, but didn't Mr. Ellsworth look sober and