Tom Slade Picks a Winner

by Percy Keese Fitzhugh

Wilfred Cowell could swim at a rate of speed that was a marvel. At Bridgeboro he and Arden had planned to visit the thronging beaches at week-ends and pursue their favorite pleasure at these resorts. Then had come Tom Slade with his glowing tales of Temple Camp. And then had come Wilfred’s collapse, the sudden sequel of the treacherous disease from which he had suffered. Arden had sacrificed her young pal for his own supposed welfare and pleasure.

Wilfred had never talked about his swimming to any one save Wig and only briefly with him.

His diffidence and feeling of strangeness at camp had prevented his doing so. It may seem odd, but the sight of all the turmoil at camp, and the swimming and diving each day which amounted to a boisterous carnival, almost struck terror to the sensitive boy who had spent so much of his life alone. Surely, boys with fine bathing suits and such a delightfully yielding springboard painted red and all the superfluous claptrap of their pastime could swim better than he, a lonely country boy, suddenly confronted with all this pomp and circumstance. He was under promise not to go in, but he would probably have hesitated to do so in any case.

As a Raven, he had not thought seriously of being entered for the contest, though he probably would not have refused. But now he was making a fresh start. Allison Berry had proved a greater advertising agent than Wig, and Wilfred was resolved to redeem himself in the eyes of Temple Camp. He did not know anything about fancy diving and such things; he did not know how to participate in those riots of fun and banter which occurred on the lake; and he was timorous about those hearty boaters (good swimmers all of them) who did not leave the camp in darkness as to what they intended to do. Since Wilfred never said he would do a thing that he was not willing and able to do, he assumed that other boys were the same. If the Elks asked him to swim across the lake as fast as he could on August tenth, he would do it. And they did ask him.

“I understand that seven patrols are entered for it so far,” said Connie. “But the only ones I’m afraid of are our own patrols—I mean the ones in this troop. The Rattlesnakes from Philly have a pretty good swimmer—Stevens, his name is. That fellow that wears the red cap, he’s pretty good too; I think he’s in an outfit from Albany, the June-bugs or something like that. The Ravens have got Wig and he’s good. And the Silver Foxes—that’s Blakeley’s patrol—have got Dorry Benton who’s a cracker jack if he shows up. He’s supposed to get home from Europe in two or three days and then he’s coming up. He’s about the best of the lot. If you can beat Dorry, it’s ours. I should worry about these other patrols, I’ve seen them all. Oh, boy, wouldn’t I like to put it over on the Silver Foxes? Why, Blakeley and that bunch of monkeys are building a table for the radio already.”

Connie and Wilfred were sitting on the sill of the cabin door. Connie had never mentioned Wilfred’s inglorious exit from the Raven patrol; he was quiet, tactful, friendly. He seemed to accept Wilfred upon the usual terms, as if nothing peculiar attached to him. And all the other Elks took their cue from Connie.

They seemed different from the Ravens, more simple, less sophisticated. Most of them had been recruited from the poorer families of Bridgeboro. They seemed not quite as versed in scouting as the other two patrols of the troop. It could hardly be said that they looked up to Wilfred, yet they seemed to recognize in him something which they did not have themselves. Connie, alone, was of Wilfred’s own station. It may have been that the Elks took a little pride in having this fine looking boy with his evidence of fine breeding and his quiet humor among them.

Be this as it may, they were a patrol of one idea, and that was to win the swimming contest. If this gentle alien among them could do that they would gladly worship at his shrine. They had not many merit badges in their group and they took a sort of patrol pride in Wilfred’s scarf pin. Little Skinny McCord gazed spellbound at the changing opal, standing at a respectful distance.

“He got it gave to him, he did,” he whispered to Charlie O’Conner. “He got it gave to him by a rich man.”

The advent of Wilfred in this troop of plain, good-hearted boys, was accepted as an event. He would not have found it quite such easy sailing among the Silver Foxes. They made ready at once for the big coup—a master-stroke of “featuring” which would throw them in the limelight and win the smiles of that fairy princess, Mary Temple, and (what was more to the purpose) a sumptuous radio set. Opportunity had knocked on the door of the unassuming Elk Patrol. And Wilfred Cowell accepted his great responsibility.