He never had said that before and it surprised us.
"You may," said Skinny, looking fierce and swinging his club.
"Fellers," began Benny, "Skinny was a good enough leader when we went 'sploring out in Illinois last summer and I 'most got drowned in Fox River, and he was a good enough leader when we found a tramp in this 'ere cave and smoked him out. He lassoed the robber, that time, didn't he, when the guy was stealin' Hank's pearl, and—and—lots of things? I guess that anybody who could do that is good enough to be patrol leader."
That was a long speech for Benny to make, and we all patted him on the back except Bill, who sat thinking and getting ready to say something. All of a sudden he spoke up.
"Fellers," said he, "three cheers for Skinny Miller, who is always there with the goods."
"You're out of order," Skinny told him, but nobody could hear.
I shouldn't wonder if they heard us voting clear down in the village.
We also had to have an assistant patrol leader, called a corporal, and we elected Bill Wilson. Bill is great at such things. As corporal he would be in command whenever Skinny was away. That didn't count for much, though, for Skinny is almost always around when anything is going on.
The next thing to do was to decide upon our patrol animal, like the book said.
At first we couldn't agree very well on that. Nearly every one wanted a different animal. Skinny wanted us to choose a snake because he liked the hissing part and a picture of a snake would be easy to draw on our signs.