The two canoes glided forward abreast. It was a good start. A chorus of
cheers went up from the crowd near the float and was taken up by the
groups which dotted the shore for the distance of half way round the
lake.
The inner side of the course was lined with canoes and rowboats, and
even Pee-wee’s ship, the _Hop-toad_, had been dislodged and floated to
the cord line and anchored. A group of scouts upon it cheered themselves
hoarse. Goldenrod Cove was filled with canoes. But the preferable stand
was at the float where the race began and would end. Here a great throng
waited, and on its outskirts scouts sprawled upon the grass, perched
upon the roofs of shacks, and crowded on the diving-board till it almost
broke with their weight. Here the judges waited. Here the string was
stretched low across the course to be snapped asunder by the gliding bow
of the victor. Across the course, at intervals, scout officials rested
on their oars and waited, watchful for violations of the rules.
The green canoe of the red-headed scout crept ahead a yard--two
yards--three yards. Connie strained every muscle and, in his
apprehension as the distance between the canoes widened, he fell to
using shorter strokes. The shorter stroke seems to keep time with the
beating heart; it looks like speed and feels like speed; it is
_hustling_. It is hard for the amateur to believe that calmness and the
long, mechanically steady stroke, are the only things to depend on.
“Make your stroke longer, not shorter whatever you do,” said Simpson.
“I’ll take care of it,” said Connie, breathing heavily.
Simpson caught the rebuke and sat silent, watching apprehensively.
Connie seemed to think that his speed would be proportioned to his
frantic exertion and he was surprised to see the distance between the
two canoes widening. His spectacular efforts were received with applause
for _action_ is what the multitude likes, and that strengthened Connie’s
confidence in his method, which was no method at all. He gained a little
(for a spurt will always accomplish that) but he lost in fatigue what he
gained in distance.
“Don’t look at him,” Simpson pled anxiously. “It would be better if you
were rowing, then you couldn’t see him. Bend way forward, reach out your
lower hand--”
“Who’s doing this?” Connie panted. “Don’t--don’t--don’t--don’t
you--you--know what you’re--you’re here for?”
The look of hurt pride on Simpson’s face turned to one of grim disgust
and accusation. He saw the green canoe a couple of lengths ahead, and
saw flags waving, heard the deafening cheers all about him. He was not
shy or fearful now.
“Can’t you guess what I’m here for?” he said, between his teeth. “_It’s
so that the kid’s troop will win._ It’s because I _knew_ you’d go to
pieces. Don’t look at the crowd, you fool! Bend forward--far--”
“I--I can’t,” Connie panted, releasing one hand long enough to press his
side. The fatal kink had come, as it is pretty sure to do in erratic
striving combined with frantic fear and excitement.
“Shall I take it?” he heard.
“_You?_” he said, surprised. “You can’t--anyway--it--it--wouldn’t be a
race--they’d--they’d--”
In a sudden, abandoned frenzy of striving, Connie brought his canoe
within a length of the other. In its way it was a feat, but it spent his
last ounce of energy and left his side hurting as if he had been
stabbed. Encouraged by the cheering he drove his paddle into the water
with a vertical force that eased his panic fears, but had no effect upon
his progress. The canoe seemed to halt and jerk like a balky horse.
Now he heard the deafening cheers as in a kind of trance.
“Walk away from him, Red!”
“You’re losing him! Keep it up!”
“Step on it, Red!”
“Give her the gas!”
“Let her out, Red!”
“_Oh boy_, watch him step!”
“All over but the shouting!”
Not quite, oh crowd. As Connie Bennett’s hand left the paddle to press
his agonized side, he felt another gently take it from him. What next
happened he felt rather than saw. He heard deafening cheers interspersed
with cries of “_No fair!_” And then derisive shouts and cat calls. He
felt the right side of the canoe dip until his trembling hand which
grasped the gunwale felt the cooling touch of the water.
He was conscious of a form crawling past him. He heard a voice, hoarse
and tense it seemed, urging him to move forward. It all happened as in a
vision. The shouting, the cries of surprise and derision, sounded far
away, like echoes.
He was better now, but his heart was thumping; he had almost fainted. He
saw a rowboat with an official pennant very near. He saw canoes across
the course line. He saw Billy Simpson in the stern of the canoe; not
sitting, not kneeling, but sort of crouching. He looked strange,
different....
“You can’t do that,” the man in the rowboat said.
“Let’s finish anyway,” said Simpson; “I’ll take a handicap that will
shut their mouths. After that if they want to call it off, let them do
it.”
He had already grasped the paddle in a strange fashion; his left arm
seemed to be wound around it and his elbow acted as a sort of brace. The
other hand he held above his head, grasping his hat (the ordinary scout
hat) so that all might see. The shorter reach which this one handed
paddling enforced was made up by the lightning movement of his body back
and forth in the canoe. For a moment the crowd laughed in derision. But
as the white canoe of the Bridgeboro Troop shot forward, those who
hooted paused in gaping amazement.
Now his bow was close upon his rival’s stern. Now it was abreast of the
red-headed figure. Now past it, and clear of the green bow.
The red-headed scout was too proud to complain of a one-armed rival. And
his troop comrades could not see him sheltered by any rule or custom in
the face of such a phenomenal display.
Steadily, steadily, the white canoe glided forward. The reach of the
red-headed paddler was extended. But he could not vie with that human
shuttle which worked with the monotonous steadiness of machinery. He
seemed disconcerted by the mere dull regularity of that relentless
engine just ahead of him.
[Illustration: BILLY SIMPSON WON THE RACE WHILE PADDLING WITH ONE HAND.]
They came in sight of the float two lengths apart. The distance
increased to three lengths. The crowd went wild with excitement. Amid a
perfect panic of yells including weird calls of every patrol in camp,
the white canoe swept abreast of the float, snapped the cord and danced
along to the curving shore beyond the finish.
It was in that moment of tumult and clamor, amid the waving of flags and
scarfs, and a medley of patrol calls which made the neighborhood seem
like a jungle, that Pee-wee Harris, forgetting himself entirely, hurled
piece after piece of peanut brittle after the receding victor, which
action he later regretted and dived here and there to recover these
tribute missiles. But alas, they were gone forever.