WHEN IT TURNS RED
One would have supposed that Wilfred, discredited and sensitive though
he was, would have joined the excited throng which he saw running
shoreward from the pavilion and from all the neighboring tents and
cabins. For what he saw in the middle of the darkening lake was enough
to obliterate animosity. Surely in those terrible moments they would not
trouble themselves to look on him askance. But he remained apart as he
had always done, an isolated figure on the shore, as clamorous, excited
scouts by the dozen crowded on springboard and shore.
Out in the middle of the lake something was wrong. In the gathering
darkness, Wilfred could see what he thought to be the camp launch, and a
voice, made almost inaudible by the adverse wind, was calling. It seemed
as if it came from beyond the bordering mountains though he knew it must
come from the lake. Everything was hazy and the launch looked like the
specter of a launch haunting the troubled waters.
Then he noticed something else drifting rapidly nearer by. Dumbfounded,
he saw it to be the landing float which must have slipped its moorings.
With it were half a dozen rowboats banging against each other, their
chains clanking. The mass was being carried headlong across the lake. A
quick inquiring glance showed Wilfred that not a single boat was at the
shore.
He was about two hundred feet alongshore from where the increasing crowd
was; the scene was one of the wildest panic. From the excited talk he
surmised that Hervey Willetts, the most notorious of the “independents”
was about to pay the fatal penalty for taking the launch without
permission.
“Run along the shore, you’ll find a boat somewhere!” an excited voice
called.
“Lash a half a dozen planks together; get some rope, some of you
fellows—_quick_! Get a couple of oars!”
“We can scull to the float.”
“Scull _nothing_; look at it, it’s driving toward East Cove. We’ll scull
right for the launch!”
“Here, you kids, don’t try to run around to the cove, you’ll never make
it. Get more rope and pull that other plank loose—hurry up! The wind
will help us.”
Far across the water in the deepening, misty twilight, arose the voice,
robbed of its purport by the adverse wind. And close at hand, among the
frantic group, a clear cut, commanding voice.
“Slip the rope under that next plank—that’s right—now tie it—quick—and
lash it to this one—_so_! Now pull the whole business around.”
Amid all this excitement the lone figure that stood apart beheld a
striking spectacle. A form, black and ghostly, stood barely outlined at
the end of the diving-board.
“Don’t try that,” an authoritative voice called. But it was too late.
The figure went splashing into the angry water. Little did Wilfred dream
that this was the boy who had won the radio set in the Mary Temple
swimming contest. The voice out on the lake, strained in its frantic
last appeal, could be heard now.
“_Heeeelp! Heeeelp!_”
Removed from the throng, unseen, Wilfred Cowell kneeled, tore his
shoe-laces out one after another and pushed off his shoes. He cast off
his wet overcoat, his jacket, and wrenched away his scarf and collar. He
did not know whether the pin that went with them was filled with new and
lurid radiance, but may we not believe that it was? He stepped into the
water and was soon beyond his depth.
[Illustration: WILFRED TORE HIS SHOE-LACES OUT AND PUSHED OFF HIS
SHOES.]
Swiftly, steadily, evenly, he swam. With each long stroke he moved as if
from the impetus of some enormous spiral spring. Some one in the crowd
espied him and a hundred eyes were riveted upon that head that moved
along, widening the distance between it and the shore with a rapidity
that seemed miraculous. Who was it, they wondered? He seemed to glide
rather than swim.
Out, out, out, he moved toward the shadowy mass in the middle of the
lake, rapidly, steadily, easily. Straight as an arrow he sped, and
neither wind nor choppy water deterred nor swerved him. In the gathering
shadows they could see one arm moving at intervals above the churning
surface, appearing and disappearing with the cold precision of
machinery.
They watched this moving head, marveling, as the distance between it and
the shore widened. Nothing like this had ever been seen at Temple Camp
before. The boisterous waves of the great salt ocean had supported this
invincible form and carried those tireless, agile limbs up upon their
white crests. But nothing like this, nothing approaching to it, had ever
been seen at Temple Camp before. This wind-tossed lake, uttering its
threat of death to that bewildered, frantic throng, was like a plaything
in his hands. No fitful gust seemed to affect his steady fleetness.
With a quickness and ease that seemed absurd, he reached past and
outstretched the other swimmer. The exhausted boy, with a courage
greater than his strength, was glad enough to turn and seek shelter on
the improvised raft which was now moving through the water under the
difficult propulsion of several loose swung oars. From this they called
to the mysterious swimmer to beware of his peril but he heeded them not,
except to widen the distance between them and this lumbering rescue
craft.
Soon the widening distance and the falling darkness made it impossible
for those upon the raft to see him at all. Thus he disappeared before
the straining vision of those followers who saw him last, and the boy
who had won the Mary Temple contest sat panting on the makeshift raft as
the fleeting specter dissolved in the night and was seen no more.
And still the voice far out called, “_Heeelp!_” and the mountain across
the lake mocked its beseeching summons in a gruesome undertone.
So, Wandering Willie, alone and unseen as usual, sped headlong in his
triumphant race at last. No one “rooted” for him, no one cheered him.
But in the wet grass on shore far back where he had started, a sparkling
gem, companion of his; loneliness and cheery reminder of his former
exploit, blazed with fiery radiance in the black, tempestuous night.