CHAPTER XXVII

SKINNY'S HERO

Danville Bently was not fifty feet distant from Skinny. He was bending over the boy he had rescued and was just recovering from his consternation at finding him a stranger when he heard the shouting. It was rather odd that Skinny's frantic call caused this prostrate boy to open his eyes, by which Danville knew that he still lived. He closed them again, as if he had been disturbed in slumber.

Danville scrambled up through tangled brush to the summit of the overgrown mound which enclosed the cave. Smoke was still coming from the hole; the place looked like a miniature volcano in the crater of which lay Skinny, the long branch which he had used tight against him like a stilt.

"Don't--don't touch me," he breathed almost in anguish; "keep away--look--the snake."

Danville could hardly believe his eyes. "He bit you?" he asked quickly.

"No he didn't--he's sort of asleep or something--don't scare him--he came out where I made a hole so--so as to save you. He's dopy from the smoke, I guess."

"He's not so dopy," said Danville, as the reptile shot out his tongue; "he's awake enough to do that. Lie still, that isn't what he bites you with; don't get excited. I wish I had my scarf if we need a twister."*

* Meaning a tourniquet, or bandage drawn tight by turning an inserted stick.

For a moment he paused, thinking and glancing about. Skinny lay trembling, not daring to stir. Somehow he was more fearful and excited than he had been before his friend's arrival; something was to be done and it might precipitate a fatal sequel. "Anyway you got safe," he said.

"Keep still--I know--now just, just a second," Danville said.

He moved with lightning stealth now. Quickly he took out his jack-knife, opened it, and held it between his teeth while he hurried to the nearest tree and pulled off a large piece of bark which was already warping away from the dried trunk. This was perhaps a foot in diameter. He next pulled off his shirt, tore a strip from it and looking about picked up a stick suitable for his purpose. Thus completely prepared he stole up, motioning Skinny to lie still, and laid the stick and the torn strip of shirt on the ground within easy reach. Then with lightning dexterity he slipped the piece of bark downward along Skinny's leg till it was stopped by the snake's coiled body. But it lay between that cruel head and Skinny's flesh, and being rounded to the curve of the tree, it fitted rather nicely.

With another movement that can only be described as instantaneous, he plunged his jackknife into the drowsy reptile's head. He was none too quick, for even as he did so its horrid tongue was darting, and scarcely had the knife touched its scaly head when its fangs were plunged against the bark. But there ended its deadly power; it was pinned to the protecting bark, and a trickle of blood flowed from Skinny's leg where the knife had pierced through. There was a spasmodic tightening of the coils around his little limb, then a loosening bringing infinite relief.

[Illustration: HE PLUNGED HIS JACK-KNIFE INTO THE REPTILE'S HEAD.]

"Did he bite me?" Skinny asked pitifully.

"No, he's gone out of that business," said Danville, lifting Skinny's big implement of rescue with the snake hanging limply over it. "See? Look at the size of him, will you! That was a blamed funny thing to happen, hey! He got busy just too late."

"Don't--don't drop him near me," Skinny pleaded, as his rescuer dangled the loathsome body. "My leg stings, I think he bit me."

"No he didn't, Alf; I just jabbed you with my knife. Look." He held up the curving slab of bark and there upon it was a tiny wet spot, appalling evidence of the deadly substance that had been ejected from those deadly fangs. "He struck out, but it was meant for a home run all right," Danville said. "Come on, don't be scared, come down and see my new boy friend. I'm going to pass you up now, I've got a new pal."

Skinny did get up at that. "See where I made a hole?" he said. "All the smoke came out here and maybe it saved you, hey?"

"I think I must have been out when you started, Alf. I pulled somebody out, I thought it was you; I guess I came blamed near getting suffocated. I don't know how I got out, all I know is I got out. I guess some scout from camp must have hiked here ahead of us; he's still dopy. What the dickens happened anyway? There wasn't anything that would burn in that damp place, was there?"

"Whatever it was, it was damp," said Skinny; "that's what made the smoke so thick; it was smudge smoke, like what scouts use for signals. Even little bugs came out. I lit a match and then I stumbled over something that was never there before. Anyway, one thing sure, you'll get the Gold Cross. You'll get it for saving me, and you'll get it for saving that other feller. I bet I know who it is, too; it's Pompy Arliss in that Brooklyn troop, because he's out for Test Four, and I was telling him about the cave. But I didn't know he was on his test to-day. You know the feller I mean, that wears his hair all sticking up? He's all the time kidding me."

They scrambled down, working their way through the thick underbrush and over rocks, making slow progress because of Skinny's bleeding leg, which soon they had to bandage effectively before going on.

"And how about you?" Danville asked.

"As long as I know I didn't get bit by poison," Skinny said in his quaint way; "as long as I know that I don't care."

"I mean about the Gold Cross," Danville said. "Is that bandage too tight--no? I mean about what you did."

"I didn't save anybody, I only tried to," said Skinny. "You don't get it for only trying. But maybe if you were still in there I'd have saved you, hey? But you get it twice, kinder. And I'm just as glad, too, because now I got a friend that's a hero. So are you going to stay my friend even now I Even when you get the Gold Cross, are you? I won't be mad if you don't--but are you? Because now Howell Cross and all those scouts will _surely_ be after you! Because the Gold Cross is the biggest, _specialest_ thing in scouting. Even it's greater than being an Eagle--even. It's for saving life when you risk your own, like you did--twice even. Because that snake might have killed you, mightn't he? So now you'll get your first class badge, and you'll get the Gold Cross, and will you let me be the first one to see it? I bet you're proud, hey--that you'll get it? Do you know who'll give it to you? Not anybody that belongs at camp--not trustees even. A commissioner! A national one!"

"No!"

"Honest, I cross my heart. So will you go around with me kinder steady, even after that?"

"No, that's asking too much," Danville laughed.

"I can tell you're joking."

For answer Danville only drew the little, limping fellow close to him, and so they picked their way down through the brambly thicket off the eminence which enclosed the little cave.

"Sure I'm proud, Alf," laughed Danville frankly.

"Then why don't you act so?"

"Do you want me to dance a jig in this jungle!"

"You'll be the big hero of Temple Camp, that's what you'll be. Even they print all about you in the newspapers, when you get the Gold Cross."

"And do you think I'm going to forget all about the pal that was with me when I won it?" Danville asked, rather more earnestly than was his wont.

"Because," said Skinny with that nervous eagerness that Temple Camp was so fond of mimicking, "now I got a friend that's a hero and I can talk about him. Because my brother Danny, I couldn't talk about him to fellers, but I can talk about you all I want--how you're a hero."

"Take your time, I haven't got it yet," said Danville.

"Sure, you've as much as got it."

"Don't count your chickens till they're hatched. When I get it I'll have it."

They picked their way down by a circuitous route and around to the entrance of the cave where Danville's rescued victim of the fumes sat on the ground with hands clasped around his updrawn knees, blinking and looking about in a dazed kind of way. Skinny stopped short, his whole thin little body trembling.

"Danny!" he cried. "It's Danny, it's my brother! It's Danny that you pulled out of the cave! Danny, nobody knows where you are, and they didn't catch you, hey? The reform school people--Danny?"

"Who's the guy you've got with you?" Danny asked uneasily.