ey'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."

"I don't care if they hear me," he said.

Pretty soon we rowed over and went up and sprawled around camp-fire.
Gee, whiz, I guess the whole camp was there. One of the scouts in a
Virginia troop was telling a yarn about somebody who had an adventure
at sea. It was mighty interesting, you can bet, and it kind of started
me thinking about Lieutenant Donnelle. Little I knew of the terrible
thing that was going to happen at camp the very next day. Right across
from me I could see Skinny sitting near Mr. Ellsworth, but the rest of
the Elks were sprawling around with the Ravens. One thing, my patrol
always sticks together. Skinny's eyes looked awful big and wild, kind
of, with the fire shining right in his face and it made me feel kind of
spooky to look at him. Poor kid, little he knew what he was going to go
through. Anyway, I wished that the Elks would call him over to them.
Probably he was thinking about how he was going to win them the silver
cup, hey?

CHAPTER XIV

TELLS ABOUT THE STORM ON BLACK LAKE

One thing I have to admit, and that is that Mr. Ellsworth helped me a
lot with this chapter and the next one too. But just the same both of
them are by me, all right.

It's a funny thing, but all that night I was dreaming about that canoe
with the two fellows in it. I could hear them paddling just as clear as
could be, only when I woke up before daylight, I knew it was just the
sound of rain on the roof of our patrol cabin. It was dripping into the
rain ditch, I guess.

Pretty soon I went to sleep again, and I could see Skinny standing in
front of me and his eyes were staring and his face was all white and
there was some blood on it and he said, "I want to be a Silver Fox,
because my father stole a lot of silver;