Bennett’s.”

Now this is the way I thought about it, because I know Harry Donnelle. I remembered what he said about how a fellow might just as well take an auto trip in one direction as another, and I didn’t believe he was bothering his head much about finding buried treasure. That’s just the kind of a fellow he is—happy-go-lucky. I guess that’s why everybody likes him. But, cracky, I’m always game for an auto trip and I was crazy to have Skinny (that’s little Alf) go on one, because he had never been in an auto or had any fun like that.

I guess I might as well tell you about Skinny, because the way things came out, it will be best if you know all about him. And especially because he was one of the big four—that’s what Harry called us. Gee whiz, maybe we weren’t very big, but we made noise enough. I guess as long as I’m at it, I’ll tell you about the whole four of us, hey?

Anyway, you know all about Pee-wee, and I guess you know all about me. I’m patrol leader of the Silver Foxes and it’s some job. That’s what makes me so quiet and sad like—I have so much trouble. It’s such a nervous strain, I have to rub it with liniment. I should worry.

Harry Donnelle said that the reason he took Grove Bronson was, because Grove has the pathfinder’s badge and would be a good one when it came to hunting for something. But that wasn’t the reason he took him at all. The reason he took him was, because he’s Grace Bronson’s brother. Maybe he thinks he can fool me, but he can’t. Anyway, Grove is one of the raving Ravens (that’s Pirate Harris’s patrol), and he’s a nice fellow, only he’s left-handed, but he can eat four helpings of chocolate pudding. Gee whiz, that isn’t so bad for a fellow that’s left-handed. I knew a left-handed fellow up at Temple Camp who could sing dandy.

So that leaves only Skinny, because if I were to tell you all about Harry Donnelle’s adventures, believe me, there wouldn’t be any room for anything else, and my sister says I’d better stop using her note paper. Maybe you notice this story is pink—that’s because it’s written on pink paper.

Skinny’s right name is Alfred McCord, and he lives in a marsh shanty; there are a lot of those down near the river. He hasn’t got any father and he lives all alone with his mother. They’re awful poor, but Skinny should worry, because how he’s in our troop.

He’s a funny kid, Skinny is. All the fellows like him, but he’s kind of queer. His hair is sort of streaky like, and he’s awful white in his face. There’s one funny thing about him and that is that he can pass most any merit badge test, but he can’t seem to get out of the tenderfoot class. When he gets to be a first class scout, he’ll have about a dozen merit badges waiting for him. He’s kind of different from the rest of us and we call him our mascot, but anyway, all the fellows like him a lot.

So now you know about all four of us and about Harry Donnelle. You should worry about the rest of the troop.

The next day we went to the library and got a big book about trees. We couldn’t find Dahadinee in the index, but anyway, we found something about another tree. This is what the book said about it, and I read it in a whisper to the other fellows: