CHAPTER XIV
A DESPERATE RACE
"Well, boys, take your places," called the starting-judge to the three crews.
The lads all scrambled to their seats on the rival bobs, to which they had been assigned. Roger found himself placed second from Adrian, and though this gave him a fine view of the road stretching before him, he would gladly have changed his position for one farther back. It looked a little too much like taking a ride on the front end of a comet.
It did not take long for the three cargoes of human freight to be loaded. Adrian braced his feet against the cleats he had nailed on the first bob and grasped the steering-wheel firmly. Tom Baker did the same at his rear end, and, between them, came the eleven sturdy youngsters, all from Cardiff, save Roger, though he considered himself at least a temporary resident of that village now.
On the other two bobs the arrangements were just the same, save that there was only one steersman on each, and twelve boys in all instead of thirteen. The significance of the so-called unlucky number was noted by some of the Lafayette crew.
"Ain't you fellers Jonah enough without goin' out of your way to look for a hoodoo?" asked Jim Smather as he glanced at Adrian and laughed.
"This will be the luckiest thirteen you ever saw," rejoined the Cardiff captain, and that was the only prediction of victory he allowed himself.
"I s'pose ye all know th' conditions of th' race well 'nuff by this time," remarked the chief starter, Abe Crownheart. "Ye'll all git shoved at th' same time, 'n' th' bob that gits t' th' bottom a' th' hill fust wins, no matter how it gits thar, pervided it ain't upside down or downside up."