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 was Tom Slade.  Maybe I took a chance when I went into all that smoke, I’m not saying I didn’t, but if I got anything at all, it would be the Bronze Medal, I guess, but nix on the Gold Cross.  You don’t find gold crosses growing around on every bush, you can bet.  Anyway, I didn’t want any honor medal because I knew Wig wouldn’t get one (because they’re only for lifesaving) and gee, if he didn’t deserve one, I’m sure I didn’t.

Anyway this wasn’t any time to be thinking about medals, because Artie Van Arlan was missing and that was the principal thing we had to think about.  He wasn’t on the house—­boat, that was one sure thing, because we looked everywhere and couldn’t find him.  Wig said he remembered somebody speaking to him when he was lying there, and he guessed it must have been Artie.  He didn’t know what he said though.

The fellows were all excited about it, especially because the boat was just beginning to float, and we didn’t know whether we’d better anchor there and wait to see if he turned up.  Two of the fellows climbed down and swam around and the rest kept caning.  It wasn’t very deep yet and they could even feel around the flats, but they couldn’t find him anywhere.