At last they cooled down sufficiently to go to bed, but it was a long time before they finally got to sleep. Bert and Dick shook hands before parting to go to their different tents. For a few seconds they looked into each other’s eyes, and the grip of their hands tightened before they finally separated and said good night. For when two good comrades meet danger face to face and win out, a new and never-to-be-forgotten bond is riveted between them that lasts through life.
It was a wildly hilarious group of campers who sat down to a piping hot breakfast the next morning. Some, indeed, had hardly slept at all, so great was their rejoicing at the “Red Scout’s” glorious victory. They had won and the much-vaunted “Gray Ghost” had had to “take their dust.” What if it were their last day in camp? As Jim, who was famous for mixing his figures of speech, said, “The camp, anyway, was breaking up in a blaze of glory.” Every exciting detail of the great struggle was rehearsed and enlarged upon, times without number. They crowded round the splendid car and praised it and patted it as though it were alive and could understand how proud they were of its victory.
And Bert! If he had been anything but the fine, manly fellow he was, he would have been utterly spoiled by the plaudits heaped upon him. He had been their hero before; now he was their idol. His skill, his judgment, his nerve, were dwelt upon to the exclusion of everything else; but he modestly disclaimed any credit and put it all up to the car. “This is the fellow that did it all,” he said, patting the great machine affectionately.
“Yes,” quoted Dick,
“‘This is the steed that saved the day,
By carrying Sheridan into the fight
From Winchester, twenty miles away,’
but all the same,” he went on, “the steed saved the day because Sheridan was on his back, and the ‘Red Scout’ saved the day because Bert Wilson was at the wheel.” And to this the whole camp gave a thundering chorus of assent.
And Bert was at the wheel that afternoon, when, after “three times three” given for the “Red Scout” and its driver, the noble car stood panting, crowded to the guards with as many as could tumble in, ready to lead the way to the station where they were to take the train to the city.
“I tell you, Tom,” he said, as he grasped the wheel and the great car sprang forward, “I never expect to have so much pleasure and excitement in my life as I have had this summer.”
But Bert was mistaken. A broader field and greater triumphs lay before him—exploits that would tax every ounce of brain and muscle; victory snatched from defeat amid the applause of excited thousands. How he met the test and won his fight will be told in the next volume, “Bert Wilson’s Fadeaway Ball.”