"Go ahead! Make some sort of a talk," urged Rob, helping Tubby on to the platform from which the prizes had been handed out.
"Ladies and gentlemen," puffed the stout youth, "we want to thank you for your congratulations and thank the club for the fine cup. Er—er—er—we thank you."
And having made what was perhaps quite as good a speech as some of his elders', Tubby stepped down amid loud and prolonged cheering.
Up in the dressing room Jack and his cronies, changing into other, garments, heard the sounds of applause.
"It's high time something was done," said Bill, as he gazed from a window at several of the yacht club attendants bailing out the unlucky hydroplane. "Those young beggars will be owning the town next."
CHAPTER XIV
THE EAGLES IN CAMP
The next few days were full of excitement and preparation for the Boy Scouts. Their headquarters resounded all day to the tramp of feet, and the Manual of Instructions was consulted day and night. The official tents had arrived, and every boy in the Patrol was eager for the time to arrive to put them up. So much so that two or three confessed that they could hardly sleep at night in their impatience for the hour when the embarkation for Topsail Island was to take place.
Besides the tents, there was much other equipment to be overhauled and set in order, for, before their departure, the boys were to be reviewed by their scout master and a field secretary from New York. There were haversack straps to be replaced, laces mended, axes sharpened, "Billys" polished and made to shine like new tin, and a hundred and one things to be done. At last, however—although it seemed that it would never come—the eventful Monday arrived, as eventful days of all kinds have a habit of doing; and the Eagle Patrol, spick and span and shining from tan boots to campaign hats, fell in line behind the band. Proudly they paraded up the street, with their green and black Eagle Patrol sign fluttering gallantly in the van.