Then I happened to notice a catching mitt and a baseball over on a table near Skinny, where there was some medicine too.  And then, all of a sudden, everything seemed to glisten like, especially when I blinked my eyes.  Gee, I know how easy it is for girls to cry, but a fellow—­anyway—­when I saw Westy sit down on the edge of that cot and not pay any attention to me, only to Skinny, I couldn’t speak at all.  I only just happened to think to do something and I’m glad I thought about it.  I just raised my hand and made Westy Martin the full scout salute.  Patrol leaders don’t do that mostly to the fellows in their patrols, but I should worry about rules and things like that.

“You’re taking care of him?”, I said as soon as I could, and I felt all foolish sort of.  “I tracked him, but I never thought”—­and I just couldn’t say any more.

But even still Westy didn’t speak to me, only he said to Skinny, “Here’s a real patrol leader come to see you—­that’s a big honor, that is, and he just made you the full salute.  You remember it in the Scout Handbook?”

“I made that salute to you,” I said to Westy, all choking, I have to admit it, “and I meant it too.”

“You’re a great tracker,” he said; “wouldn’t you like to be as good a tracker as he is, Skinny?” And I could see that all he cared about was amusing Skinny.

“Don’t talk about me,” I said; “I’m a big fool, that’s what I am, but tell me all about it.”

“There isn’t anything to tell,” said Westy, “except that Skinny always wanted to be a scout, but he didn’t have any money and all like that.  But anyway, he got the Handbook and studied it all up and it got him.”

“Same as it gets any fellow that looks inside of it,” I said.

“And the part that interested him most of all was tracking and signalling.  You see how he carved the tracking emblem on one of his shoes—­”

“You needn’t show it to me,” I said, “I saw it.”

“Last night,” Westy said, “he read that smudge signal, because he learned the Morse Code out of the Handbook, and he knew that somebody might be coming up the river with the false report.  He didn’t know just what he ought to do and I guess he was scared to go up to your house because he didn’t have any good clothes.  So he ran down through the marshes and waited at the landing, because he knew Jake Holden would be coming up stream.  Jake’s one good friend to him, and he often took him out and he wasn’t afraid of Jake.

“Pretty soon he heard Jake’s boat coming up the river and saw the light and he just waited there and when Jake come up alongside the float, the first thing Skinny heard him say was, Roy Blakeley is dead—­didn’t you, Skinny?”

But I could see that Skinny’s eyes were shut now and he didn’t hear.