see that now, and it's just the same
as if I killed him. Gee, I wish it was I that got killed, I know that.
Cracky, I deserved to after being such a fool.

After that, nobody spoke for a long time, then Hunt Ward, who's in the
Elk Patrol, said, "It's the first fellow in our troop that died. I
guess we won't go up to camp now."

"Not in this boat, anyway," I said.

Then after a while I said, "We'll send his name in and they'll print it
in Boys' Life."

"I know," Hunt said, "with a black line around it."

Yet we kind of kept hoping all the time, even though we knew there
wasn't any sense in it. "You thought you were a goner," Hunt said,
"and you came back all right."

Now I was a big fool that it didn't put a certain idea in my head when
he said that, but I only said, "Yes, but that was different."

Then Dorry Benton, who was two or three fellows away from me, said,
"One thing is sure, he went through the window and into the water.
Maybe he was half conscious and didn't remember there was only a
narrow strip of deck there. And he must have tumbled right off it."

"I don't know," I said, "only if he isn't in the boat then he must be in
the water and if he fell in the water and couldn't swim or shout either,
then he must be drowned."

Then nobody said anything and we just sat there keeping her off shore
and watching her drift up. When we got around Bentley's turn we could
see the lights in Bridgeboro and then was when I began to realize and
I hated to get home. I wished the tide wouldn't take us so fast. Some
of the fellows walked around on the roof, but none of them said
anything. I wished it was me instead of Artie, I know that. I ought to
have been satisfied to escape without getting the Ravens to do that--I
mean send that message for me. Anyway, I made up my mind I'd be the one
to tell Mr. Ellsworth about it, and Artie's people too, and I'd take all
the blame.

I guess nobody said anything more all the way up, until we came near the
Field Club landing. The shore is like low cliffs here and after we got
her over against it, a couple of the fellows got out and towed her along
with ropes, till we came to the long float.

"Are we going to tie her at the float?" Connie Bennett asked, very sober
like. Gee, it sounded funny to hear someone speak. Doc Carson said,
"Yes." He was kind of like head of the three patrols now, because he
has the most sense of all of us, I guess, and Tom Slade, who is head
of the Elks,