Now I have to go backward—that’s one good thing about this story, it has a reverse gear; you can go backward.

The first night we had the house-boat, Mr. Ellsworth went to see Mr. Darren, who is superintendent of Northside Woods (that’s owned by the Northside estate) and he asked Mr. Darren if we could chop down some saplings to use on the boat. Because we wanted to make some stanchions for the awning, and another flagpole, and some bumper sticks. He thought that was a good idea, because lumber costs so much. Connie said the reason it was high is because they’re building tall houses. So Mr. Darren marked some saplings with chalk and said we could take those.

The next afternoon after that last meeting, we all hiked over to Northside Woods to chop down the saplings. You have to go across the bridge to get to Northside Woods and then you go up the road toward Little Valley.

Westy didn’t go with the rest of us because he wanted to get a book out of the library, for he thought the library might be closed when we got back.

“Have a heart,” I said, “and don’t be late whatever you do, because there’s been enough of that kind of thing in our patrol lately.”

“I’ll be Johnny-on-the-spot, don’t you fear,” he said. And I knew he would, only he’s one of those fellows that’s always trying to do too much. He isn’t late much, I’ll say that for him, but he always comes running in at the last minute.

“Well, don’t get us in Dutch,” I told him, “that’s all I care about.”

We had a dandy hike over to the woods. My patrol got there first and pretty soon the Ravens came along and Doc Carson had his First Aid kit—you’d think somebody was going to fight a duel, honest. “Why don’t you start a base hospital and be done with it?” I said.

Pretty soon the Elks came along and Skinny was with them. As soon as I looked at him I felt kind of bad like, for I saw I was right about the two dollars. I knew I was right all the time, but now I saw it, and jingoes, it spoiled all my fun. Because he had a belt-axe on and I could see he was very proud of it. He came up to me and smiled that funny kind of a smile he had, and he said, “I got one; see, I got one.”

It was a new one all right, but not a regular scout-axe, and I guessed he must have bought it in the hardware store. It was what they call a camp axe—just the same only different. His belt was loose anyway, on account of him being so thin, but the axe dragged it way down and made him look awful funny, but he had on the scout smile and that’s the principal thing.

“It’s a good one, ain’t it?” he asked me.

“It’s all right,” I said, but I just couldn’t take it and look at it.

“It’ll cut, too,” he said; “and I’m going to chop down a lot of trees. And it’s my very own, isn’t it?”

Jiminy, I didn’t know how to answer that, so I didn’t say anything, only I told him not to chop down many because he wasn’t strong yet. And I told him not to chop any that didn’t have chalk marks. I told him to ask Connie Bennett, and to stay near him, because Connie is the Elks’ leader ever since Tom Slade went away. “You do what Connie tells you,” I said.

Well, the way that kid started you’d think he was going to chop the North Pole in half. “He’d be able to chop through the equator in a couple of hours at that rate,” I told Connie. But anyway, he was getting fresh air and a whole lot of fun.

Some of the fellows chopped and some of them cut off the branches and tied the saplings together, three or four each, because we were going to haul them as far as the bridge and then float them down to the landing.

Every little while I looked at Skinny and he was chopping away at one sapling for dear life. He had it all full of nicks and every nick had a place all to itself.

“That isn’t chopping, it’s what you call woodcarving,” Dorry Benton said.

“He’s a good butcher, anyway,” Artie said.

Every time Skinny hit, he hit in a different place and he would never get the sapling down, I saw that, but he was having the time of his life, just the same.

“Some Daniel Boone,” Will Dawson said. But I told them not to make fun of him.

All the while I kept wondering if Skinny really thought that axe was his very own like he said. And it seemed sort of funny that he could be getting so much fun out of it. Oftentimes he would get tired and begin to cough and Connie would make him sit down and rest. Then he would show his axe to the fellows and match it to theirs and say he liked his best. I don’t know, maybe there was something wrong about Skinny. Maybe he was more crazy about weapons than he was about scouting. He didn’t seem to think about anything except cutting down that sapling, and the more of a botch he made out of it, the harder he worked. I remembered something Mr. Ellsworth said to Tom Slade about not caring more for his gun than he did for his country. But, gee, when I thought about what Skinny said about the two things he liked most, the axe and the law about honor, good night, I couldn’t understand him at all.

Pretty soon I began worrying about Westy, because something is always delaying that fellow, and I even hoped that he wouldn’t stumble over any more good turns, until this day’s work was over. If Westy fell out of a ten-story building, he’d do a good turn on the way down—that’s the way he is.

Well, pretty soon I heard him coming through the woods on the dead run. We all stopped working and laughed, because he was coming along like a marathon runner. All except Skinny—he went right on chopping away and the sapling looked as if a cow had been chewing it.

I don’t know, but something or other made me feel kind of mad at him all of a sudden, and I didn’t laugh at him.

Then he called over to me and he said, “Look—how I’m chopping it down with my axe! See?”

“Who’s axe?” I said, because I just couldn’t help it.

“Look! See?” he shouted, all excited; “ain’t I a good chopper—ain’t I?”

Maybe you won’t understand how it was, because, gee, I can’t tell things so you’ll see them just right. Anyway, I’m not excusing myself, that’s one thing. But I just looked over at Skinny and I said:

“I don’t want to look at your axe! Shut up you little——” I was going to call him a little thief, but I’m mighty glad I didn’t. “Can’t you see I’m looking at something else?” I said, kind of mad.

“You’d be better off if you never thought about the axe; you’re a——”

Just then I heard somebody yell, “Look out, Westy, the boards are gone! You’ll have to climb!”

After that, everything seemed to be all jumbled up. I saw Skinny standing near his sapling just staring at me and he looked as if I had just hit him and he didn’t understand at all. He didn’t even notice all the other fellows who were running. Then I looked and I didn’t see Westy, but all the fellows were heading for the ditch and I knew right away what had happened. Somebody hollered, “Get your kit, Doc, and hurry up.” There was a ditch near where the saplings grew and usually there were a couple of boards across it. But they weren’t there when all of us fellows went across and we had to go down into the ditch and climb up the other side. I guess the woodsmen had taken them, maybe.

Anyway, when Westy came along the path he was running so hard he didn’t notice in time that the boards weren’t there, and he went head over heels into the ditch. I guess I was the last one to get there, and all the fellows were standing around and Doc was kneeling over Westy, and feeling his pulse. Westy’s face was all white and there was blood coming down from his eye and he looked straight up and didn’t notice anybody. All the fellows were quiet and scared, kind of, and waiting for Doc to speak. But he wasn’t excited, only he said we’d better get a doctor. “It isn’t a fracture,” he said; “it’s only a cut, but anyway, we’d better get the doctor.”

Then I saw some blood on the front of Westy’s khaki shirt. But Doc saw it first and he said, “Open his shirt, maybe he has something hanging from his neck that cut him. Feel and see if he has a knife in his breast pocket. Open his shirt first. Give me the iodine and some bandage, one of you fellows.”

I thought I ought to be the one to open his shirt, because he was in my patrol and besides we were special friends, as you might say. So I pushed through past the others and just as I was kneeling down I saw Skinny standing up on the edge of the ditch and his eyes looked big and he was all trembling and excited. There were big red spots on his cheeks and I knew that was the consumption that showed whenever he got excited. He was all by himself up there and he looked kind of wild—I can’t exactly tell you.

Then I opened Westy’s shirt and I saw he had a ring with two keys hanging there and they must have pressed into his chest and cut him. It kind of scared me, because there was so much blood, but Doc said, “Give me the iodine—that’s nothing.”

And I knew he knew what he was talking about.

While he was putting iodine in the cut I felt in Westy’s pocket like Doc told me to do, but there wasn’t any knife there. But there was something else there and I pulled it out. Oh, gee, I hate to tell you about it. It was my two dollar bill. I could tell because it was new and because it had a stain on it in the shape of a half circle.

I always kept oil on those oar-locks, so they wouldn’t get rusty.