Jack won the race for motor-boats against a considerable fleet, and was the most popular boy in camp, not only on this account, but because of his timely action at the moment of danger whereby a catastrophe was averted.
"That's only another time when Jack Sheldon has shown his nerve," declared Harry warmly. "Why, the very first time I met him he saved a mighty bad situation by his coolness, and he has been doing those things ever since. Talk about nerve! Why, he is full of it!"
"Somehow he never seems to lose his head when it is most required," added Percival, "although to look at him you would not suppose that he had such a command over himself. It's when you get to know him that you find these things out."
"Why, he would as soon jump into a flying machine as get in a motor-boat," said Billy, "provided there was something to be done. He is a bird as well as a fish, and just as good at either."
The sports were closed by a tub race, every one being desirous of seeing Billy Manners in another of these amusing contests.
There were a dozen or more boys in the race, all prepared for a spill in the water, which seemed to be the inevitable end of such affairs.
Billy had a bathing suit of the Hilltop colors, and said as he got into his tub:
"This is the great race of the submersibles. Mine is the I.O.U.—-99, the fastest tub on the river. If she were fast I couldn't go—-fast to the bank, I mean."
"She'll be fast on the bottom, at any rate, Billy," said Harry.
Jack, Percival, and a number of the boys who did not usually take part in such sports, went into this for the sake of making more fun, but the visitors were not asked to enter, as they had not brought their bathing suits, and could not very well get along without them.