dollars and say he was sorry and must have been
crazy or in a hurry. Jiminy, any excuse would be good enough for me, as
long as he told me straight out about it, like he did in the ditch. And
maybe things would get to be all right after a while. But I couldn't
understand how he could come up the lawn whistling and jollying Don and
feeling so good. I don't mean because he was hurt, because I knew that
wasn't so bad, but I didn't set how he could be feeling so happy.

Pretty soon he came in and Don was jumping up all around him and wagging
his tail. "I'm glad you're well enough to come out," I said.

"You should worry about me," he said; "I just have to limp a little,
that's all. I'm a swell looking Silver Fox, hey?" And then he gave me
a push and rumpled my hair all up and said, "You won't be ashamed of me
on account of my honorable wounds, will you? I was a punk scout to go
and do that."

Gee, I didn't know what to think, because it wasn't anything to be
laughing at, that's sure.

"Do what?" I said.

"Run right into that ditch."

"Is that what you meant you did--when you told me?" I said, kind of
disappointed.

"Sure it is," he said, "I'm a swell scout, hey? Going headlong into a
ditch!"

I just listened to him and I felt pretty bad, because now I saw that was
what he meant.

Then he gave me another shove and he said all happy like, "But I'm the
champion boy sleuth all right. Look at this--here's your two bucks and
Skinny never took it at all"?

"I--I know he didn't," I said.

"How did you know," he shot right at me.

"Because," I started to say and then he rumpled my hair up some more
and began talking and never gave me a chance.

"Because it was right in that copy of Treasure Island that's laying
there," he shouted, "and I'm one big gump, that's what I am! I got that
copy of Treasure Island out of the library this morning, because you
were telling me about it, and right there in the middle of it was your
plaguy old two buckarinos!"

Just for a minute I looked at him and I knew it was just like he said,
because he was laughing--he was so blamed happy about it.

Oh, boy, didn't I feel good!

"How in the dickens did it get there?" he said.

"That's one puzzle," I answered him.

"Anyway, you've got your two bucks back."

"A lot I care about that," I said; "jiminy, I've got something better
than two dollars, and that's friends, you can bet."

Then I showed him the stain on the page of the book an