“So am I,” said Loren. “He prized that canoe very highly. I believe he would rather have lost his handsome breech-loader. I tell you we made a mistake in having any thing to do with George Prime. Wayring and his crowd are much the better lot of fellows.”
These remarks settled one thing to Tom Bigden’s satisfaction. Ever since his interview with the squatter he had been asking himself whether or not he ought to take his cousins into his confidence, and now he knew that he had better not. He was afraid, as well as ashamed, to show them how far his unreasonable enmity toward Joe Wayring had led him, and so he said nothing.
Great was the indignation among some of the Mount Airy people when it became known that Matt Coyle had turned up again when he was least expected, and that he had walked off with a hundred and fifty dollars worth of property that did not belong to him. But Mount Airy, as we have seen, was like other places in that it numbered among its inhabitants certain evil-minded and envious persons, who were never so happy as when they were listening to the story of some one’s bad luck. George Prime and the boys who made their head-quarters in his father’s store were delighted to hear that the squatter had begun operations against Joe and his chums, and hoped he would “keep it up” until he had stolen or destroyed every thing they possessed. They declared that they were sorry for Tom and his cousins, but when they came to say that much to them by word of mouth, as they did the next afternoon when Tom, Ralph and Loren dropped into the drug-store on their way to the post-office, they did it in such a way that Tom became disgusted, and left without buying the cigar he had intended to ask for.
“The more I see of those fellows, the less I like them,” said Tom; and then he was about to open his battery of abuse upon Prime and his friends, when he discovered several of the Toxophilites coming down the side-walk. “I’ll tell you what’s a fact, boys,” Tom added in a lower tone. “It’s a lucky thing for us that we didn’t buy those cigars. Here comes Miss Arden with a whole crowd of girls, and there isn’t a street or alley that we could slink into if we had a weed in our hands.”
The boys lifted their hats as the girls came up, and passed on rejoicing over their escape. If they had been caught in the act of smoking they might have said good-by to all their hopes of getting into the archery club. A little further on they stopped in front of the window of a jewelry store, where some of the prizes that were to be distributed at the canoe meet had been placed for exhibition. Their three companions of the previous day were there, and their attention was concentrated upon a beautiful blue silk flag, trimmed with gold fringe and bearing in its center the monogram of the Mount Airy canoe club, which occupied a conspicuous position among the prizes.
“That’s some of Miss Arden’s handiwork,” said Joe Wayring, after he had cordially greeted Tom and his cousins. “It is to go to the first one who walks the greasy pole.”
“Great Moses!” ejaculated Tom. “To what base uses—”
“That’s just what I said,” interrupted Arthur Hastings. “I told her, too, that it wouldn’t make half the fun the greasy pig did, and you ought to have seen her stick up her nose. Another thing, now that I think of it: Unless the wind is just right, the flag will wallop itself over and around the pole until it is all covered with grease.”
“And the boy who is lucky enough to capture it will have to take it into the water with him, and there is her elegant prize ruined at the start,” chimed in Joe Wayring.
“Don’t you think Miss Arden had wit enough to provide for that?” exclaimed Mr. Yale, the jeweler, who happened to overhear this remark. “Do you see that little flag beside the blue one? Well, that is intended to represent the prize. If you are fortunate enough to capture that, you can fly the blue pennant at your masthead.”