re, while I rowed over to Catskill for some iodine and stuff.
Would you believe it? I ran plunk into the Gold Dust Twins in the drug
store; they were drinking sodas. They've got you beaten seven ways at
that game. Well, I told them all about the flood and how I found Skinny
and how their camp was carried away, and they didn't seem to take it
hard at all, they just laughed and said it was part of the game.

"Oh, Blakeley," he said, "then was when the fun started--telegrams! One
of them had to buy out a peanut stand for Skinny--and then for a tent.
We rooted out that old sail maker from bed, and made him sell us a
tent. They gave him an order for a flag--_CAMP McCORD_--mind you.
Laugh! I just followed them around. They're two of the gamest sports
you ever saw. We went back to the landing in a taxi with cans of food
rolling all over the floor. _'Go faster_,' one of them shouted to the
taxi man, 'or I'll fire a can of pickled beets at your head.' We hired
a motor-boat to take us over and then they retired from the game. Some
whirligig, take it from me!

[Illustration: map: "This map shows you how the water broke through
Frick's Cove and flowed into the old creek bed."]

"But they wouldn't pick out the place for a camp," Bert said; "they
made me do that. 'We don't want to be drowned out again,' they said.
Honest, Westy, those two fellows are down there now, digging a drain
ditch and carrying it way over to the Hudson. '_Safety First_--that's
what they said. And Skinny's sitting there with a bandage around his
head, eating peanuts."

As soon as Bert got out of the boat, he started right off up the hill
for Tigers' Den, as they called it. We could see him stumbling up the
path, limping to favor his leg.

"He'll go back by the road, I suppose," I said.

Westy and I just sat in the boat watching until we couldn't see him any
more. Then he said:

"_Some_ scout, hey?"

CHAPTER XXXVII

TELLS ABOUT HOW I VISITED CAMP MC CORD

Of course, everybody in camp said that Bert Winton was a wonder; they
couldn't help saying that. His own troop didn't seem to think so much
about it. One of them said to me that he guessed Bert was having the
time of his life. They were funny in that way--those tigers. They
didn't seem to get excited over him at all. None of them went around
shouting.

The next morning everybody was talking about Bert. All the time fellows
kept going over in boats to see the remains of Nick's Cove, and most
a