“Walter refused?” She was incredulous and happy.
“Absolutely!” cried Richard. “Said he would have to cut that out now. He said a skipper would have to keep himself pretty straight if he wanted to show in a race against men like Fagner and Tyler. Isn’t it glorious?”
“Glorious?” echoed Jerry, her eyes shining. “It’s—it’s uncanny.”
CHAPTER XIV
“JAWN”
It took a long part of the morning for Walter’s “cat” to arrive at Fagner’s dock. The skipper was in Penn Yan, he was told, at the N. Y. C. tracks, unloading his new yacht. So more time elapsed before Walter was able to sail into the Lake “outlet,” tie up, and saunter over to the scene. Willing helpers enough were eager to assist in setting the mast, fastening the stays, adjusting this and that preparatory to dropping her into the Lake. Walter stood by, too shy to let them know that the boat was his own.
Finally, just as the last heave dropped her into the water, where she floated like the proverbial cork, Fagner noticed Walter.
“We’re getting your boat ready for you,” he chaffed. He had not the faintest notion that the boy’s talk at various times was based on anything substantial. He had joined in with Walter’s scheme out of sympathy and good nature. Walter’s whole life and future were an open book to that locality. “Or would you rather have the Moodiks?”
“This ’un suits me,” Walter remarked. “Whe’ ’re the sails?”
“They’ll be along later; ordered new ones from Boston, and they had trouble with a strike down there.”
Except for the sails the yacht was complete. The group on the dock stood off and admired while Fagner tuned up his motor-boat and arranged a tow-line; but meanwhile Walter had hauled George Alexander’s cat-boat alongside and was fastening his own tow-line.