Then I said, "Mr. Ellsworth, Skinny went off because he was all scared and excited, and he wanted to be all alone by himself. Often I've felt that same way. I felt that way after I passed my second class tests. I don't deny he's kind of freaky. I think he just went off in the woods. You know yourself it's in the Handbook that trees are good companions. He just wanted to be alone. I bet he wasn't a hundred yards from camp. Skinny's kind of queer, you know that."
Then Mr. Ellsworth just laid down the key and put stamps on two or three letters and said "All right, Roy, just see that these get mailed, will you?"
He didn't say what he was going to do and I guessed he wasn't going to do anything. And even suppose he did, what was the harm?
But just the same I felt awful queer and shaky. I guess maybe it was because I couldn't come right out and tell him the plain truth about that key.
CHAPTER XXII
TELLS ABOUT HOW I VISITED THE OHIO TROOP'S CABIN
One thing I was sure of, and that was that Skinny went away into the woods just to be alone by himself, like he said. I knew it was just like him to do that. Maybe you'll think it was funny for him to do that when it was raining, but already he was good and wet; you have to remember that. I said to myself, "I should worry about the key, because anyway, that had nothing to do with Skinny." But just the same I kept worrying about something, I don't know just what.
Pretty soon I made up my mind to do something that I didn't want to do. I went up the hill to where the Ohio troop bunked. They had one of the big troop cabins that holds two patrols. I guess they were a pretty fine troop, because they had everything fixed up dandy. One patrol was called the Royal Bengal Tigers, and the other was called the African Tigers, and both patrols wore yellow scarfs with black stripes, and all their scout staffs had tigers' heads on them. Even when they dived from the spring-board they had a certain kind of a way of jumping, they called it the tiger spring, and nobody could get the hang of it. Some organization they had, that's what Mr. Ellsworth said. Every one of those fellows had a tiger claw hung around his neck. Oh, boy, that was some troop for you.
I asked one of the fellows for Bert Winton, and he came around from behind the cabin where he was spearing papers and leaves. I said, "You fellows ought to be called the gold dust twins, your two patrols I mean, because you're so plaguy particular—picking up leaves and everything. You'll be dusting the roof next."
He said, "We're a lot of old maids up here."