“Any more than if you’re chicken-hearted it gives you the poultry badge,” I told him. “That’s where lots of Scouts make mistakes. I never make any.”
“You have them ready made,” Pee-wee shouted.
Dub said—he was trying to be serious—he said, “Well it seems funny to me that if you save a life you don’t get the life-saving badge. If I could only do that, then I could finish my Eagle tests and get the Gold Medal too. You see I’ve got a towering ambition. What I’m thinking about is that Ellen Burnside award of a hundred dollars that goes with the Gold Medal. I thought I might save somebody’s life and get the medal and the hundred dollars, then get my Eagle badge on the strength of the life-saving stunt and then I could live up in Eagle Crag Cabin for the rest of the summer—”
“And have me visit you,” I said.
“Good-night, Napoleon didn’t have anything on you,” Sandy said.
“If you had a bean-shooter up at Eagle Crag Cabin you might conquer Temple Camp,” I said, “and you could send Pee-wee with a large detachment to demand the surrender of the cooking shack.”
Dub said, “Well I guess it can’t be did. First I was crazy enough to be counting on our getting some kind of a reward for finding that will, and then I was thinking maybe we’d get the reward for finding some bandits.”
“All you think about is money,” Sandy said.
“All I’m thinking about is staying till the end of the season with you fellows,” Dub said. “Just us four, I wish we could stick together till camp closes. We’ve had a lot of fun doing nothing. Gee, I like you fellows—” that’s just the way he said. He said, “That’s the way I am, I’d rather get in with just three or four fellows and bang around with them than be in with everybody. I’ve been here a week and I don’t know many Scouts at camp—only you fellows. Christopher, I wish I could stay with you. I’m kind of sorry I came up at all now, because it will be so hard to go back. Crinkums, you sure have kept me laughing.”
After he spoke like that we all just hiked along a little while and nobody said anything. Even Pee-wee didn’t say anything.