BILLY SIMPSON WON THE RACE WHILE PADDLING WITH ONE HAND.
They came in sight of the float two lengths apart. The distance increased to three lengths. The crowd went wild with excitement. Amid a perfect panic of yells including weird calls of every patrol in camp, the white canoe swept abreast of the float, snapped the cord and danced along to the curving shore beyond the finish.
It was in that moment of tumult and clamor, amid the waving of flags and scarfs, and a medley of patrol calls which made the neighborhood seem like a jungle, that Pee-wee Harris, forgetting himself entirely, hurled piece after piece of peanut brittle after the receding victor, which action he later regretted and dived here and there to recover these tribute missiles. But alas, they were gone forever.
CHAPTER XXXIII—AND SOMETHING BIGGER
But the Mary Temple cup was safe upon its little velvet pedestal.
There was only one name upon the lips of all, now. But he heard the shouts only in a sort of trance. He heard his name called, and it sounded strange to him to hear his name—Billy Simpson—shrieked by the multitude. It sounded like a different name, somehow. He could not face them—no, he could not do that. And no one saw him.
No one saw him as he crept up through the bushes far from the screaming, howling, clamorous, worshipping crowd. No one saw him as he sped around the edge of camp and past Outpost Cabin where his own name echoed against the dead, log walls. His own name! No one saw him as he climbed up through the woods to Cabin Hill. Yes, one person saw him. A tenderfoot scout who thought more of some bobolink or other than of the race, saw him. He was gazing up into the tree, a small lonely figure, when the victor, the hero, sped by. It seemed to him that the fleeing figure spoke to him; anyway, it spoke.
“Tell her—tell her I couldn’t have done it if she hadn’t been watching me.”
The tenderfoot scout did not know whom he was speaking of, so no one was ever told anything. He thought the fleeing figure in the black sweater might be a thief.