“Doc brought him around,” he said, “he got him breathing, then it was easy. We can’t find Artie.”
Maybe it was funny, but just then I didn’t seem to be thinking about Artie. I felt my head and found I had a big bump on it. “I should worry about that,” I said. “Where’s Wig?”
Then I got up and went around the cabin to the forward deck and there were all the fellows and Wig sitting up and Doc Carson holding him and moving him, so as to keep him breathing—scout fashion.
“All righto, kid,” Doc said, kind of pleasant, “you’re a brick.”
I always thought that I was as big as he was, but he called me kid, and I didn’t care. Anyway, I couldn’t see him very good, I admit that. Because—oh, well, maybe you can understand.
“Artie’s missing,” he said. “You didn’t see anything of him in there?”
“I couldn’t see at all, hardly,” I told him.
Then Wig turned his head and looked at me and he was all white and weak looking, especially when he smiled. And he had the remains of my Silver Fox scarf, all torn, around his neck.
But I just couldn’t speak to him. I don’t know what made me do it, but I went up to him and he looked at the bump on my forehead and said, “Hurt?”
“You should worry about that,” I told him. Then I kind of fixed the Silver Fox scarf better, so that it was around his neck and I tied it in the Silver Fox knot. “Your fellows won’t mind if you wear it a little while,” I said, and then I unfastened his own scarf, yellow and brown, and tied it around my neck. “There’s no fellow can get this away from me to-night,” I said, “I’m going to wear the Raven scarf—I am.”
Then, all of a sudden, I noticed that Doc had gone away and I was holding his head up alone. So I let it down on the cushion very easy and I saw we were all alone. Maybe you won’t understand and it’s hard to tell you. But I didn’t say anything; I just stayed there and rubbed his forehead.
“We told her,” he said, kind of as if he was weak and tired.
“I ain’t thinking about that,” I said, “I’m only thinking about how you did it. I—I don’t want the signalling badge in my patrol now, honest I don’t, Wig. I want it to stay where it belongs. And I want there to be only just the one in the troop. I got mad first. That’s because I’m always getting mad, I guess. But there will never be any signalling badge in my patrol, Wig. That’s going to be the rule.”