Jiminies, I don’t often get scared, but I could feel my heart up in my mouth, kind of, and I didn’t know what to tell the fellows and Mr. Ellsworth.  It was like a disgrace to my patrol and it disgraced me, too, you can bet.  He would go off and play ball and let us fellows do all the work on the boat and then he’d go in it up to Temple Camp.  Gee, that’s one thing a scout never is-mean.  We had it all fixed up to work and then he flunked and let us do it all.

First I thought maybe I’d kind of not tell Mr. Ellsworth all about that phone call and say I couldn’t hear very plain, and all like that.  But I saw if I did that, I’d be worse than Westy.  It was bad enough having a slacker in my patrol without having a liar.

No, siree!

So I just went up to him and I said, “Mr. Ellsworth, he’s out playing ball somewheres and I guess he didn’t intend to come.  I admit it disgraces my patrol and it disgraces the whole troop.  I was going to ask you if you thought maybe I could go away for an hour or so to follow a track I found, but I won’t now; I’ll just stay here and work twice as hard so as to make up for him.  And the other fellows in my patrol will too.  Maybe that will make it seem not quite so bad.”

CHAPTER XV

DURING NOON HOUR

One of the things that made me feel especially bad was that Wig Weigand and Artie Van Arlen were there working, even after being nearly killed the night before, and Artie was kind of lame, too, from straining his ankle when he fell.  Gee, I had to hand it to those fellows.  And even Pee-wee was working away with the rest of the Ravens and running to buy nails and everything.

Both of the other patrols were all there except Tom Slade in the Elks, but they kept his place open for memory, sort of.

After a little while Mr. Ellsworth strolled over to where I was working and said to me—­gee, he was awful nice the way he said it—­he said, “Roy, if you want to follow up that trail you may as well go ahead and come back after lunch.  We’re going to hit the eats pretty soon now.”  That’s the way he always says it, “hit the eats.”

“I was expecting Westy to go with me,” I told him.

“Well, no matter,” he said; “Go alone and don’t worry any more about Westy.  It wasn’t because Westy or any other single scout was needed here for we have plenty of scouts on the job, but it was just that he didn’t show up when we all planned to be here, that’s all.  I don’t like to think of any; of my scouts falling down.”

“It’s the same about my patrol,” I said, “and I’m ashamed, that’s one sure thing.”