“I know,” he said, “I thought about that, too, but we’ve got to hustle.”

So we started down the hill and neither of us said anything.  Of course, we were both thinking about Skinny, but neither one of us would say it.

“Pee-wee’s to blame in a way,” Westy said, after a while; it’s the belt-axe the poor kid was thinking about.”

“No, he isn’t to blame, either,” I said; “he didn’t mean anything—­he didn’t mean for Skinny to do anything like that.”

“He should have kept his mouth shut,” Westy said.

“Anyway,” I said, “I’m not going to make that speech; I just can’t.  I’m not going to say anything to Skinny about it.  Maybe I’ll tell Mr. Ellsworth sometime—­I don’t know.  But anyway, I can’t present him to the Elks that way, I can’t.  I just can’t.  Poor kid, I don’t suppose he ever saw as much as two dollars before.”

“You shouldn’t have left it out like that,” Westy said.

After that I guess neither of us said anything.  Gee, I can’t tell you how I felt.  I know if a fellow is low down and fires stones and calls names and all like that, even still he can get to be a scout.

But if he steals-jiminy, I’ve got no use for a fellow that steals.  A plaguy lot I care about two bucks, but, oh, boy, I was looking forward to that meeting and how we were going to have Skinny all decorated and present him to the Elks.  And now we couldn’t do it, Honest, I didn’t even want to see him, I didn’t feel sore at him, but I didn’t want to see him.  Because he’d spoiled all the fun for me, that’s all.

CHAPTER XXII

SHOWS YOU WHERE I DO THE TALKING

Westy said we shouldn’t say anything to Mr. Ellsworth, but wait until Skinny had taken the oath and knew all the laws and all about scouting, and then maybe say something to him, how we thought maybe he had made a mistake sometime and would like to fix it right.  Westy said we’d call it just getting off the trail.  Westy’s a mighty nice fellow, you bet, and he’s a good scout.  But anyway, it knocked all the fun out of that meeting for us, and I don’t know what the other fellows thought.

Skinny was there in his new suit and he showed how proud he was to have it.  He was always smiling in that bashful kind of a way, as if he was kind of scared but happy at the same time.  Mr. Ellsworth told him to sit with us and he came over and sat in an extra chair right next to me.  I guess he kind of liked to be near me—­anyway, it seemed like that.  I was nice to him all right, but I don’t know, it didn’t seem like it did before.  But no fellow could get mad at him—­he looked so poor, and his suit didn’t fit him very good and he looked all strange and nervous.

Pretty soon I said to him, kind of half interested, you know, I said, “That’s where you’re going to sit, in that vacant chair where the Elks are.  They’re a good patrol, the Elks, and the fellow who used to sit there with them was Tom Slade.  You have to try to be a good scout just like he was.”