d 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.

"Go on," I said. "So Skinny told him it wasn't true, and told him
about the signal. Jake didn't pay much attention because he thought
Skinny was just a little crazy on account of being so poor and hungry
and all that and not having a good home. So he was going up to your
house anyway and Skinny cried and hung onto him, and begged him not to.
I guess he went on kind of crazy, but he said he was sure because he knew
the Morse Code. Anyway, just to humor him, I guess, Jake promised him
he'd wait till early in the morning, and meanwhile you came home. Do
you see?"

Honest, I couldn't answer him.

"Skinny was the one who did it," he said. "That accounts for his tracks,
don't you see?"

I shook my head to show him I understood. But I couldn't say it.

"And that's how tracking and signalling have brought the three of us
together--see?" Westy said. "It's funny, isn't it, how it brings the
three of us together here in this tenement house."

"How did you come here?" I said.

"I was just starting for the house-boat this morning