NATURE HAS A DISMAL STREAK
"Come on, Prescott!"
"Or else sink!"
"Don't come back to Gridley!"
The cries from shore, as the Gridley boosters noted the effects
of the fine Preston work, were not encouraging.
"Preston High School wins!"
Indeed, it looked as though Hartwell's craft must be the winner.
Shorter and shorter became the distance to the finish line.
True, Big Chief Dick was bringing his prow close up to the stern
of the "Pathfinder" once more, but Preston evidently had a little
reserve steam left as yet.
"Go it, Hartwell! Go it! You win! Hurrah!"
Suddenly over the water traveled Dick Prescott's command:
"Now, then, Gridley! Break your backs!"
This time there was no counting, nor was there any need of any.
From Dave back to Dick all six bent their full strength and wind
to the task of making the "Scalp-hunter" dart over the water.
It was a grueling, killing pace that Dick had set for his crew,
but it did not need to last long. The finish line was close at
hand.
Hartwell saw the "Scalp-hunter's prow steal up on a level with
the centre of his own canoe.
"Go it, fellows---one last, big spurt!" he yelled.
A sudden yell from shore told another story. The war canoe's
nose was now six feet further along than the bow of the Preston
canoe.
"Come on, Dick! Come on! Come on!"
"Speed! The last swift dash!" yelled Dick Prescott. "Bend to
it!"
Hartwell tried to call to his crew, but could not make himself
heard. The yelling from the shore, and from the boats nearby
drowned out all other sounds.
The two canoes seemed to be rivaling express trains in their speed.
Then the cheers of one faction drowned the groans of the other.
Gridley High School had shot across the finish line by a length
and a half lead over Preston High School.
Just as the "Pathfinder" left the line astern there came from
the Preston craft a sound like the report of a pistol.
One of the Preston braves had snapped his paddle off just above
the blade.
As the "Scalp-hunter" swung about, Dick saw that broken-off blade
floating on the water.
"I'm glad that paddle didn't snap until you had crossed the line,"
Dick panted. "If it had, the real result would have been in doubt."
"Your crew won, Prescott!" called Bob Hart well in a husky voice.
"Congratulations!"
"Thank you," returned Dick. "You're surely a generous enemy."
"Rivals, this afternoon, but enemies never!" protested young Hartwell.
Now a blast from the whistle of the launch recalled the two canoes.
Standing in the bow of the launch, Referee Tyndall announced
so that those on shore might hear plainly:
"Gridley wins by a length and a half!" From the shore came a
wild cheer. There was also a frenzied waving of handkerchiefs
and of parasols. Though the Gridley boosters might be few in
number, they were great in enthusiasm.
As the "Pathfinder" started in for the landing float a crowd made
a rush to meet the canoes. It was not, however, the Preston craft,
that the crowd wanted, for this was a Gridley crowd.
Noting the fact with his keen eyes, Dick gave the word for easy
paddling. Then he swung the war canoe about, heading toward camp.
That proved not at all to the crowd's liking.
"Come back, Prescott! This way, Gridley! We want you!"
"Why don't you land, Dick?" queried Tom Reade.
"What! Land at the mercy of that crowd!" exclaimed Prescott.
"That is a Gridley crowd. They're so pleased over our winning
that what they'd do to us might be worse than what they'd have
done if we had lost."
"Where are you going?" asked Dave, somewhat disappointed.
"Camp is good enough for us, I guess. It's a safe place, anyway,"
Prescott replied.
A few minutes later the "Scalp-hunter" touched lightly on the
beach in front of camp.
Towser greeted them with a joyous bark.
"So you've been watching the race instead of the camp, have you?"
demanded Tom, eyeing the dog in mock reproach.
"Oh, but I'm tired!" muttered Darrin, after they had beached the
canoe. "This green grass looks inviting."
He threw himself down at full length on the grass.
"Up, for yours," commanded Dick, grasping him by one arm and pulling
Dave to his feet. "Don't you know that your blood is almost at
fever heat after the strain of the race? Do you want to get a
chill that will keep the whole camp up to-night?"
"I want to lie down," muttered Darrin. "And I want to sleep."
"Then get off your racing clothes, put on your other clothes,
then roll yourself well in your blankets and lie down in the
tent," Dick ordered. "That's what I'm going to do."
Now that the strain was over every member of Dick & Co. found
himself so weary that the putting on of ordinary clothes was a
process which proceeded slowly. After a while, however, all six
had rolled themselves in their blankets and lay on the leaf-piled
floor of the tent.
All but Dick and Harry were asleep, presently, when an automobile
stopped near the camp.
"Anyone at home?" called Referee Tyndall, poking his head in past
the flap of the tent and viewing the recumbent lads. "All here?
That's good. I'm a committee of one, sent over here by the Gridley
folks at the hotel. They're ordering a supper and they want you
boys to come over promptly. You're to be the guests of honor."
"Will you be good enough to present the Gridley people with our
best thanks," returned Dick promptly, rising to greet the referee,
"and ask them very kindly to excuse us? Assure them, please,
that we're in strict training, with more races to come, and that
banquets would perhaps spoil us for the next race."
"I'm afraid I'll have difficulty in getting that message through,"
protested Mr. Tyndall. "Your Gridley friends are bound to have
you over at the hotel."
"They can't get us there with anything less than the state militia,"
declared Dave, who had awakened. "We can fight and whip any smaller
body of armed men that tries to drag us away from our rest.
Our friends are good to us but can't they understand that we ache?"
"You _do_ look rather played out," assented Mr. Tyndall, after surveying
the various wrapped bundles of high school boy humanity. "But
can't you raise enough energy to come over in an hour?"
"If the Gridley people are really our friends," protested Tom
Reade, opening his eyes, "they'll let us sleep through until to-morrow
morning. We nearly killed our tender young selves in that last
big spurt, and now we must rest our bones and aching muscles."
"But what can I tell the folks at the hotel?" begged Mr. Tyndall.
"Tell 'em that we appreciate their kindness," laughed Dick.
"All right. I'll tell them---something," murmured Mr. Tyndall,
as he turned away.
"Up, all of you fellows!" commanded Dick Prescott. "This doesn't
look very gracious on our part, when an entertainment has been
arranged for us. We'll go, and attend to our aches to-morrow."
But when the referee of the afternoon noted how stiffly they
all moved he found himself filled with compassion.
"Don't you try to come over, boys," he urged. "You're too stiff
and sore to-night. Some people, myself included, don't realize
that fifteen-year-old boys haven't the bodily stamina of men of
twenty-five. You did a splendid bit of work this afternoon,
and now you're entitled to your rest."
"We'll get over there, somehow," Dick promised.
"No; you won't. Don't you try it. The Gridley visitors would
be brutes to try to drag you out to-night. I shan't let you go,
and I shall tell the home folks that you're enjoying a well-won
rest."
"But don't you let any of the Preston High School fellows know
how crippled you found us," begged Dave Darrin.
"What would you care, if I did?" laughed Mr. Tyndall. "You fellows
won the race, didn't you? And I'll wager that the Preston boys
are feeling a whole lot worse than you are. Don't come! Good
night."
"Tyndall is a brick to let us off," sighed Tom gratefully, as
he sank down once more.
Later on Dick & Co. emerged from the tent, started a fire, and
had supper, though they did not pay great attention to the meal.
"I wouldn't want to race every day," grunted Reade, as he squatted
near the fire after supper.
"If we did," Dick retorted, "we'd speedily get over these aches
and this stiffness."
For an hour or so the boys remained about the fire. Dan Dalzell
was the first to slip away to his blankets. Hazelton followed.
Then the movement became general. Soon all were sound asleep.
Nor did any sounds reach or disturb them for hours. Not one of
the sleepers stirred enough to know that the sky gradually became
overcast and that there was a distant rumbling of thunder.
Hardly had the campfire burned down into the general blackness
of the night when an automobile runabout, moving slowly and silently,
stole along the roadway.
In it sat the son of Squire Ripley. Fred, having brooded for
hours over the failure of his scheme to make Dick & Co. lose the
canoe race, had at last decided to pay a stealthy, nocturnal visit
to the camp of the boys he disliked, with the express purpose
of doing whatever mischief his hands might find to do.
His father's family car and automobile runabout were both at the
hotel garage, and at his disposal. Soon Fred Ripley was speeding
away over the country road in the automobile runabout.
As he neared the camp he extinguished the running lights, then
went on slowly so as to make no noise. At last he stopped the
car.
Gr-r-r-r! came out of the darkness. Faithful Towser was still
at his post. He came forward slowly, suspiciously out of the
darkness. He may have recognized his enemy, for Towser came close
to the car, showing his teeth in an ugly fashion.
Fred lost no time in starting his car forward. "I wish that pup
would have the nerve to get in front of the car," he muttered
as he drove slowly away from the camp. "What fun it would be
to run over the brute! I don't dare to get out of the car while
he's on guard. I forgot about him for the time being, though
goodness knows I've cause to remember him."
Towser uttered one or two farewell growls. Two hundred yards
further on Fred let out the speed in earnest, at the same time
switching on the electric running lights.
"I'll come back late to-night," Fred reflected. "I'll leave the
machine a little way down the road, and come up here on foot.
In the meantime I'll think of some scheme to get square with
Dick Prescott and his crowd. I'll hunt up a good stout club,
too, and then if that confounded dog is troublesome I'll settle
him."
For an hour or more Fred ran the car at random over one country
road after another.
"I wonder if that pup ever goes to sleep," he muttered. "I'd
really like to know. If I'm going back that way to-night I'd
better be turning about, for there is a bad storm coming."
Turning the car, he drove swiftly back again. In about twenty
minutes he reached a part of the road directly above the camp.
Overhead the lightning was flashing brightly. Heavy thunder followed
each flash. Large drops of rain were falling, but Fred, bent
on his evil errand, did not mind. At any rate he was not afraid
of lightning. Aided by the flashes he searched along the side
of the road until he found a branch of a tree that he shaped into
a club with his knife.
"I won't wake Prescott's muckers," he reflected, "and I want to
be sure to attract the dog's notice if he is on guard."
A broad, white streak of lightning showed the tent from the road
as Ripley, armed with the club, drew nearer to it.
Fred halted. "They're all asleep, the muckers!" he muttered.
"I'm glad of that. Where is that dog? Why doesn't he come around?
I'm ready for him now."
Fred stole stealthily along, keeping a sharp lookout for the bull-dog.
Suddenly the sky was rent by a vivid flash of lightning so glaring
that the lawyer's son covered his eyes with his hands.
Bang! Crash! Almost instantly the thunder followed the flash.
"It's time to be getting out of here if I don't want to get drowned
on the way back to the hotel," Ripley decided. "I'll have to
postpone getting square with Prescott. Besides, the storm will
waken those fellows and I don't want to be caught here."
There came another flash, that descended near the water. The
crashing noise of the thunder came at the same instant.
Fred, facing the tent, saw the bolt strike the ridge pole. Evidently
the current ran down one of the poles, for he saw the bluish white
electric fluid running over the ground, coming from inside the
tent. The tent sagged, then fell.
"Gracious!" shivered this evil traveler of the night. "It will
be a wonder if that bolt didn't stretch them all out. I wonder
if it killed Dick Prescott and his crowd?"
Uncontrollable curiosity seized upon Fred. Turning about he ran
toward the tent. Violently he tugged at the canvas. As he lifted
it another sharp flash showed him the six Gridley High School
boys lying motionless in a row.
"The lightning did finish them!" gasped young Ripley, overcome
with fright and awe.