“I made that salute to _you_,” I said to Westy, all choking, I have to admit it, “and I meant it too.” “You’re a great tracker,” he said; “wouldn’t you like to be as good a tracker as he is, Skinny?” And I could see that all he cared about was amusing Skinny. “Don’t talk about _me_,” I said; “I’m a big fool, that’s what I am, but tell me all about it.” “There isn’t anything to tell,” said Westy, “except that Skinny always wanted to be a scout, but he didn’t have any money and all like that. But anyway, he got the Handbook and studied it all up and it got him.” “Same as it gets any fellow that looks inside of it,” I said. “And the part that interested him most of all was tracking and signalling. You see how he carved the tracking emblem on one of his shoes——” “You needn’t show it to me,” I said, “I saw it.” “Last night,” Westy said, “he read that smudge signal, because he learned the Morse Code out of the Handbook, and he knew that somebody might be coming up the river with the false report. He didn’t know just what he ought to do and I guess he was scared to go up to your house because he didn’t have any good clothes. So he ran down through the marshes and waited at the landing, because he knew Jake Holden would be coming up stream. Jake’s one good friend to him, and he often took him out and he wasn’t afraid of Jake. “Pretty soon he heard Jake’s boat coming up the river and saw the light and he just waited there and when Jake come up alongside the float, the first thing Skinny heard him say was, ‘_Roy Blakeley is dead_’—didn’t you, Skinny?” But I could see that Skinny’s eyes were shut now and he didn’t hear. “Go on,” I said. “So Skinny told him it wasn’t true, and told him about the signal. Jake didn’t pay much attention because he thought Skinny was just a little crazy on account of being so poor and hungry and all that and not having a good home. So he was going up to your house anyway and Skinny cried and hung onto him, and begged him not to. I guess he went on kind of crazy, but he said he was sure because he knew the Morse Code. Anyway, just to humor him, I guess, Jake promised him he’d wait till early in the morning, and meanwhile you came home. Do you see?” Honest, I couldn’t answer him. “Skinny was the one who did it,” he said. “That accounts for his tracks, don’t you see?” I shook my head to show him I understood. But I couldn’t say it. “And that’s how tracking and signalling have brought the three of us together—see?” Westy said. “It’s funny, isn’t it, how it brings the three of us together here in this tenement house.” “How did _you_ come here?” I said.