Miss Arden was right when she told her friends that she was sure that the gallant fellows who belonged to the canoe club would work harder for her flag than they would for a greasy pig. Every one of the boys who stopped in front of Mr. Yale’s window that afternoon to look at the prizes, told himself that if he did not win that flag it would be because some lucky member walked off with it before he had a chance to try for it.
During the next two weeks little or nothing happened in or about Mount Airy that is worthy of note. A deputy sheriff and constable went down to Sherwin’s Pond to arrest Matt Coyle, and, after a three days’ search returned empty-handed. They found the place where the squatter had built his shanty, but it was gone when they got there, and so were Matt and his family. The authorities at Indian Lake were requested to keep a look-out for him, but Matt was too old a criminal to be easily caught. He and his boys offered themselves as guides to the guests of the hotels, but when they were told that they were not wanted, they set themselves to work to carry out the programme of which Matt had spoken to Tom Bigden on the day he stole Joe Wayring’s canoe—that is, to break up the business of guiding in the region about Indian Lake, and to make the people who came there for recreation so sick of the woods that they would never come there again. Whether or not they succeeded in their object shall be told further on.
Tom Bigden and his cousins never knew how near they came to being black-balled when their names were brought before the canoe club at its next meeting. Prime and his friends were suspicious of Tom. The latter kept away from the drug-store altogether; he and his cousins were often seen in Joe Wayring’s company, and Prime said that looked as though Tom wasn’t in earnest when he promised to assist in carrying out the arrangements that had been made for defeating Joe and Arthur at the coming canoe meet.
“I’ll vote for him,” said Prime, after Noble, Scott, and one or two others had labored with him for a long time, “but if he plays us false, as I really think he means to do, he can just hang up his fiddle, so far as the Toxophilites are concerned. I’ll take pains to let Miss Arden and the rest of the girls know that he and his cousins smoke and play billiards and cards on the sly, and they’ll make dough of his cake in short order.”
“The agony is over at last,” said Tom, after Joe Wayring and his inseparable companions Arthur and Roy, who came over in the Young Republic the next morning to announce the result of the ballot, had gone home again. “Bear in mind, now, that we are to stick to our original programme and win if we can. If we find that we have no show, and that the prizes must go to Wayring and his friends, or to Prime and his followers, we’ll stand by Wayring every time. We’ll teach that drug-store crowd that the next time they make up a slate they had better put our names on it if they expect us to help them.”
It never occurred to Tom and his cousins that possibly Joe Wayring, and all the other boys who believed that friendly trials of strength and skill, like those that were to come off during the canoe meet, should be fairly conducted, would not thank them for their interference. Joe had warned all his friends that there were boys in the club who had been “booked” to win by fair means or foul (of course he did not tell them where he got his information), and they made some pretty shrewd guesses as to who those boys were. Being forewarned they were forearmed, and they did not want any help. Tom found it out on the day the races came off.
CHAPTER XI.
THE CANOE MEET.
THE first thing the members of the canoe club did when they sprang out of bed on the morning of the second day of August, was to run to the window, draw aside the curtain and take a look at the sky and the lake. The one was cloudless, and the surface of the other was rippled by a little breeze which promised, by the time the sun was an hour high, to freshen into a capital sailing wind. For all the members of the club were not so deeply interested in the paddle, portage and hurry-skurry races as Joe Wayring and Tom Bigden were. A few of them were expert sailors, and anxious to show the spectators (there would be more strangers among them this year than ever before), how skillfully they could manage their cranky little boats when they were under canvas.
The young athletes were all in excellent training, and there was not one among them who did not expect to win a prize of more or less value during the day. Some of the canoeists had discovered a couple of Yale college students among the guests at the Mount Airy House, and after a little urging they had consented to assume the management of affairs, one as judge and the other as referee. They knew all about the rules of boating, and Joe Wayring told himself, that Prime and his friends would have to be smarter than he thought they were if they could play any tricks under the watchful eyes of those two college men without being caught in the act.
At an early hour Mr. Wayring’s spacious boat-house, which was to be used as head-quarters and had been handsomely decorated for the occasion, was thrown open, and shortly afterward the members of the club began to arrive. They drew their canoes upon the beach at the side of the boat-house and disappeared in the dressing-room, where they remained until the warning blast of a bugle notified them that it was time to begin operations. Now and then one of them would take a cautious peep out at the back door and turn around to inform his companions that all New London had come up to attend the meet; and although they knew that there were a good many people assembled to witness the sports, they were all surprised, and not a few of them were made nervous by the scene that was presented to their gaze when they sprang off the wharf, and ran to push their canoes into the water. Mr. Wayring’s grounds were crowded with gayly dressed spectators, who where lounging on the grass or sitting comfortably under the tents that had been provided for them, and the lake was covered with sail and row boats, all of which were flying as many flags as they could find places for.