Your friend,
Roy Blakeley.
P.S. Be sure to send the answer as soon as you can.
We wrote the letter up on sunset rock near the camp and as soon as we got it finished we started off to Catskill, because it would go sooner than if we mailed it in Leeds. Just as we were passing the pavilion, we met Connie Bennett and Hunt Ward and Vic Norris.
Connie said, "Well, I suppose you know what your little birthday present put over on us." He called Skinny a birthday present, because Westy Martin and I gave Skinny to the Elks when we first found him. "I suppose you think we were after that two hundred, too. Well, you can take your little birthday present back. It was a lemon. We got stung."
"If you got what you deserved," I said, "you'd get more than stung."
He said, "Yes?"
"Yes," I said—"Y—e—s—yes! I never said you wanted the money. I know every one of you is square—Skinny too. Did I ever say you were not? I said you wanted the cross—that's what I said. And so you did. And I tell you now that you're going to get it and Skinny's going to bring it to you. Chuck him out if you want to—he should worry. If he isn't good enough for you, he's good enough—do you see that cabin up on the hill? Do you see this fellow that's with me? He belongs to the Royal Bengal Tigers, if anybody should ask you, and Skinny's good enough for him. He can sleep up there—he should worry. They've got three extra cots.
"They'd better keep their watches near them," Vic Norris said. "Take him, you're welcome to him. Nobody ever said we were crooks in our patrol."
"Nobody said you were," I shouted, and Bert Winton just had to hold me back, "but you wouldn't talk like that if Mr. Ellsworth was here, and you know you wouldn't. Do you suppose I'd let anybody say you weren't on the square? We're all in the one troop. But you boosted Skinny—you used him. And in a crazy fit he went out and blamed near gave his life for you. He doesn't know two of the laws. He can't say the oath straight, because you had his head filled with awards and medals and things. You wanted the gold cross and now, by Christopher, I'm going to see that you get it. You'll have nothing to say about it. Skinny McCord is going to bring you the gold cross just as you wanted, and you're going to shout and cheer till you can't speak."