“You don’t expect to enter for any of the prizes next summer, do you?”
“Of course I do,” replied Tom, “and so do my cousins. We have sent to New London for a rowing machine, and intend to keep up our practice all winter.”
“You might as well make kindling wood of that rowing machine when it comes to hand, for it will not do you any good as far as winning a prize from Joe Wayring is concerned,” said Scott. “You can’t race with him.”
“I’ll see how that is,” answered Tom, who was thinking about one thing while Scott was thinking about another. “I was under the impression that when our new club was organized, it was the sentiment of the members that we were to challenge their best men for every thing. Before we can do that, it will be necessary to have a series of trial races among ourselves in order to determine who stand the best chance of winning, and I calculate to be one of the select few.”
“I believe some of the fellows did speak about that, but it was all talk,” said Captain Noble. “You see, Tom, you and I have been ruled out of every thing by the referee’s decision on the day of the meet, and you don’t suppose that our friends here are going to take part in sports that we can’t have a hand in, do you? Haven’t we promised to stand by one another?”
“Oh,” said Tom, “I didn’t know what Scott meant, but I understand the matter now. The others won’t compete because you and I can’t. I am glad to hear it.”
“Of course we are not barred out of any thing except the sports that take place during the canoe meet,” added Prime. “We can play ball or lawn tennis or polo with them. We can send a team to beat them at target shooting, and we can enter our sail-boats for prizes in the regatta; but I, for one, don’t care to. I’ve had quite enough of that crowd, and think we can see all the fun we want among ourselves.”
“I think so, too,” said Tom. “I don’t care for their old canoe club, but I should really like to see the Toxophilites go to pieces. I’d see Joe Wayring happy before he should come into this club with my vote.”
If Tom Bigden could have stepped across the street and up the stairs that led to the neatly furnished armory and drill-room in which the Toxophilites were at that moment sitting down to an oyster supper that some of the new members had provided for them, he would, perhaps, have been very much disappointed to discover that the organization he hated so cordially because he could not get into it, was not only in no danger of falling to pieces, but that it was stronger than it had ever been before. The vacancies occasioned by the resignation of Frank Noble and his friends, had been promptly filled by good fellows, who had waited long and patiently for an opportunity to send in their names. More than that (and this was something that made Tom and his cousins very angry when they found it out), the constitution had been amended so that the membership could be increased to a hundred. The Toxophilites were determined that the Mount Airy Scouts (that was the name of the new club), should not beat them if they could help it; but still they did not take in every one who applied for admission, as the Scouts did.
During the winter Tom Bigden and his cousins, who grew more vindictive and unreasonable in their hatred as time progressed, waged a secret but incessant warfare upon Joe Wayring and his two chums. They coaxed Mars from the post-office to the drug-store, and sent him home with a tin can tied to his tail. They practiced with their long bows at Roy Sheldon’s fan-tail and tumbler pigeons as often as the birds ventured over to their side of the lake. They went across on their skates one night, and overturned the Young Republic, which Joe had hauled out on the beach and housed for the winter; and they even thought seriously of setting fire to his boat-house, believing that the blame would be laid upon Matt Coyle, who was known to be trapping somewhere in the mountains. Joe knew who it was that insulted Mars and shot at the pigeons and disturbed his sail-boat; but when he saw by the marks on the door of the boat-house that somebody had been trying to pull out the staple that held the hasp, he told his chums that he had wronged Tom and his cousins by his suspicions, and that the squatter was the culprit after all. Beyond a doubt Matt wanted to regain possession of the canvas canoe; and in order to save his property, Joe shouldered it one morning and took it up to his room.