hat a little fellow like Skinny isn't important, and that's the
trouble, hey? Because he kind of punched me in the chest and laughed
and said I was a good little sport. He said fellows by the name of Roy
are all right."

All the while Bert Winton just sat there holding his oars out of the
water and watching me steady, like a fellow watching a bird that he's
been stalking.

Then he just said, "Well, I guess the big fellow was right."

CHAPTER XXV

TELLS ABOUT THE LETTER WE WROTE

Anyway, I don't care. Maybe you'll think I was wrong, but I don't care.
I just had to tell that fellow. There was something about that
fellow--I just can't tell you what it was.

So then we fixed everything all up while we were rowing around. What
did I care about going tracking or stalking with my patrol? I should
worry, they could get along one day without me, all right We decided
we'd write two letters to Lieutenant Donnelle and send one to his house
and the other to Camp Dix in Wrightstown. We decided we'd write them
that very day and hike into Catskill to mail them, so he'd be sure to
get one wherever he was, in time for us to get an answer before next
Wednesday.

Mr. Ellsworth went to Albany that day, because he had some business to
attend to, but I knew he wouldn't do anything more about Skinny till he
got back and that was one good thing. This was the letter that we
decided to send because I kept the first copy we made. We wrote it as
if it came from me, but Bert Winton helped me.

Dear Lieutenant Donnelle:--

I hope you got back to camp all right and that Uncle Sam didn't get mad
about it. I hope you're there now, so you'll surely get this. Anyway, I
hope you'll admit that two heads are better than one, because I had to
tell a fellow about you. That was because I guess he's the only one
here who would help me.

There's a little fellow named Skinny McCord here, and he came from
Bridgeboro with us. His name isn't really Skinny, but they call him
that because he's that way, and one thing, you'd be sorry for him if
you saw him. He talks kind of crazy sometimes, but that's because he
lived in a tenement house and didn't have enough to eat. You know it's
bad when you don't have enough to eat.

He swam out and saved a fellow's life and then there was a lot of money
missing out of the fellow's pocket, and the fellows here think Skinny
stole it.

The reason they think that is, because he found the key to your locker
and he w