“If you straighten up much more,” said Billy, leaning over to light fresh Greek fire, “you will certainly hit the decorations, and something will bust.”
“I don’t care!” and Winona laughed excitedly. “It’s my first chance at being famous, and you can’t think how nice it is! Listen to that!”
The applause along the banks was certainly continuous enough to make someone older and staider than Winona happy. The canoes were making the circuit of the upper part of the lake now. In the centre was the royal float, where the king and queen of the carnival sat.
When the procession had gone down one side of the lake and up the other it would make a circle about this royal float, and the prizes would be awarded.
They were almost through with this, only a little way from the royal float, when a small green canoe full of sightseers whirled against them, sent by some sudden twist of wind or water. And—neither Winona nor Billy could ever understand how it happened—the shock of the blow, or perhaps some mischievous person in the other boat, parted the ropes that held Winona’s canoe lightly to the canoes before and behind it, and sent them far to one side of the lake, out of the radius of the lights. The wind, naturally, took this particular time to blow hard. The decorations made the canoe top-heavy and hard to guide, and they dared not paddle fast for fear of upsetting. They could see from their outer darkness the canoes they had been between being hastily tied together.
Winona paddled frantically. “Do you think we can get back in time to be judged?” she panted.
“We’ll try,” said Billy, working his paddle more slowly, but with greater effect than Winona’s.
“No—oh, Billy, Billy! There goes the signal—they’ve given the launch prize, and they are to give the float and rowboat prizes right afterwards, and then the canoes! There goes the gun again. Oh, dear!”
Winona had really been working harder than she should have over her canoe decorations, and helping with the float besides, as well as doing her routine camp-work. She had been “all keyed up” by the evening’s excitement, and her hopes of a prize, and this sudden downfall of her hopes was too much for her self-control. Billy saw two large tears roll down her cheeks from under her mask.
“Poor Winnie! It certainly is a shame!” he said.