"you're a brick."

I always thought; that I was as big as he was, but he called me kid,
and I didn't care. Anyways I couldn't see him very good, I admit that.
Because--oh, well, maybe you can understand.

"Artie's missing," he said. "You didn't see anything of him in there?"

"I couldn't see at all, hardly," I told him.

Then Wig turned his head and looked at me and he was all white and weak
looking, especially when he smiled. And he had the remains of my Silver
Fox scarf, all torn, around his neck.

"All right?" he said very low.

But I just couldn't speak to him. I don't know what made me do it, but
I went up to him and he looked at the bump on my forehead and said,
"Hurt?"

"You should worry about that," I told him.

Then I kind of fixed the Silver Fox scarf better, so that it was around
his neck and I tied it in the Silver Fox knot. "Your fellows won't mind
if you wear it a little while," I said, and then I unfastened his own
scarf, yellow and brown, and tied it around my neck. "There's no fellow
can get this away from me to-night," I said, "I'm going to wear the
Raven scarf--I am."

Then, all of a sudden, I noticed that Doc had gone away and I was holding
his head up alone. So I let it down on the cushion very easy and I saw we
were all alone. Maybe you won't understand and it's hard to tell you. But
I didn't say anything; I just stayed there and rubbed his forehead.

"We told her," he said, kind of as if he was weak and tired.

"Yup," I said, "you told her"

"Somebody'll get it--maybe," he said.

"I ain't thinking about that," I said, "I'm only thinking about how you
did it, I--I don't want the signalling badge in my patrol now, honest I
don't, Wig. I want it to stay where it belongs. And I want there to be
only just the one in the troop. I got mad first. That's because I'm
always getting mad, I guess. But there will never be any signalling badge
in my patrol, Wig. That's going to be the rule."

"There'll be a Gold Cross though," he said. And then he shut his eyes.

But I stayed right there--just because--oh, I don't know, just because
I wanted to stay right there. You can't always tell why you want to do
a thing.

CHAPTER XI

LOST

Now when Wig said that about the Gold Cross I thought it was just
because he was weak and didn't know what he was saying. Because, maybe
you know as well as I do, that the Gold Cross isn't so easy to get.
Only one fellow in our troop ever got it, and that w