"Will the twins make them?"

"Never you mind. Come down to-morrow and give us the once over. Just
follow the shore up from Pike's Landing; you'll see a khaki colored
tent in among the trees. That's us. They're putting up the tent now."

"Have you got drainage?" Westy asked him, kind of funny.

"They're digging a regular Panama Canal around that tent," he said.

"Bert," I told him, "you know the rule--"

"Now don't begin about rules. Listen. Your scoutmaster is away. About
every fellow in Temple Camp thinks Skinny is just a miserable little
thief. He went over to see those fellows because--well you know why.
They took him in. And, by jinks, he's going to stay there and so am I--
till this thing is fixed up. Blakeley and Westy," he said, and I could
see he was pretty serious now; "I went into that passageway with that
kid on my back. I was ready to crawl a mile and drag him along if I had
to. As it turned out, the passage was about a couple of hundred feet
long and came out in the old creek bed, like I said--up above the flood
area. Blakeley, when I saw the light of day--or the light of night
rather, because anything was lighter than that black hole--and when I
laid that skinny little kid down--he doesn't weigh fifty pounds,
Blakeley--I just said to myself, '_By the great Eternal, I'm going to
stick to him like glue!_' That's what I said. Even then I didn't know
he had been over to plead with those fellows and ask them _please_ not
to believe he was a thief. When I heard that--"

[Illustration: I WENT INTO THAT PASSAGEWAY WITH THAT KID ON MY BACK.]

"I know, Bert," I told him, "you're right"

"I'm not thinking about myself," he said; "my troop understands me; and
they understand Skinny. He could bunk with us, or with you fellows. But
this is better."

"I hope nobody'll raise a kick," Westy said.

Bert said, "A kick? We're the ones to raise a kick. Haven't I got
anything to say about it? I _couldn't_ bring the kid here--I'm not a
horse. So I did the next best thing; I carried him down the old creek
bed a ways, to where the water flowed into it. It was flowing easy
then. I laced a couple of broken off branches together and made the
craziest raft _you_ ever saw. Then I laid the kid on it and held his
head and poled with the other hand and that way we got down to the
Hudson. I intended to get him to some house down there and then notify
camp. He was a little better by then and a fellow stayed with him near
the sho