I said, "Alf, you can bet I'd be glad to see you win that cup, but don't forget that there are more than a hundred fellows at the camp. Some of the troops come from the seashore--you know that, and they're all crackerjack swimmers. It comes mighty hard to be disappointed, so don't you stay awake at night thinking about it." I said that because I could just see that poor kid dreaming about handing that cup over to his patrol leader, and honestly, I didn't think there was much chance for him. Pretty soon Bert Winton leaned over and said to me, "Do you suppose that's true about his father?" "Guess so," I told him. "He doesn't seem to be very much ashamed of it," he said. All I could say was, "He's a queer kid; he's all the time blurting out things like that." "Maybe it's because he's just plain honest," Winton said. "But you'd think he'd be ashamed," I told him. He just shrugged his shoulders and looked kind of funny at Skinny. I had a kind of a hunch that he liked him and believed in him. Anyway, I remembered those words, "_just plain honest_." CHAPTER XIII TELLS ABOUT THE STRANGE CAMPERS It was nice rowing around there in the dark. It wasn't so very dark, though, because the moon was out and you could see it in the water just as plain as if it had fallen kerflop out of the sky and was laying in the bottom of the lake. Over on shore we could see the camp-fire getting started and black figures going toward it, and the blaze was upside down in the water. "How about camp-fire?" Westy said. "We should worry about camp-fire," I told him; "there's plenty of time. Wait till it gets to blazing up good and high." "It's fine out here," Bert Winton said; "I always take a row before going in to camp-fire." "We should worry about you, too," I heard somebody say, and then a lot of fellows began laughing. By that I knew they had heard everything we said. Winton said, "Funny how clear you can people talk when they're on the water." Pretty soon we were away over at the other side of the lake and it was awfully still, and even our oars seemed to make a lot of noise dripping the water. All of a sudden Westy said, "There's a canoe." We could only just see it as it went gliding by us, but I noticed there were two dark figures in it. Winton said, "Shh, wait till they pass us, then I'll tell you about them." "I bet they're evil cronies," I said; "like they usually have in books," Because you know how it is in books; there are always a couple of bad fellows that won't join the good ones, but go camping right near them and make a lot of trouble for them. Hanged if I see why they don't join in with them and be done with it, hey?