CHAPTER XXXIII

VICTORY AND THEN----

The precipice was not a bad place from which to view the finish. It was not close enough to the excitement for most scouts, but it afforded a good gallery seat. Danville was glad that no one came up there. He had a big piece of charred wood with which he intended to mark the name of the winner in big letters on the signal canvas as soon as the race was over. Then he and Skinny would shout and draw attention to it. He hoped for Skinny's sake that the name would be Hollis.

The race, as you will see by the map, began at the northwestern end of the lake, followed a southeasterly course and ended where the shells passed an anchored skiff in which were spectators, who had a good view of the approaching shells. The lake was dotted with boats and canoes and it required a constant zigzagging about of the camp launch to keep them off the course. It was a gala scene.

After a while the launch chugged away along the course and there were fifteen or twenty minutes of tense waiting. Soon its shrill whistle could be heard and Skinny was trembling with excitement as it reappeared with its _clear the way_ pennant flying and its whistle calling a warning to keep the course clear.

Then they came in sight, the three shells, red and shining in the bright sunlight. They seemed to be abreast, throwing out three white V's of light spray as on, on, on they came. Every nerve in Skinny's little body was on edge as he stood near the brow of the precipice trying to identify the salmon colored pennant of the Elks. Then he saw it--yes, he saw it. It was one of the two shells that glided abreast; the other had fallen behind. He could see the form of the rower bent forward and back, the long oars feathering, the slender shell moving nearer, nearer, under the impetus of that steady, increasing leverage.

The third shell, manned by Ellis Carway, seemed now quite out of the running. Its heroic Eagle was doing ragged and erratic work, never getting the full benefit of his strokes. In that short course he could never make up what he had lost. But the other two seemed evenly matched. Suddenly Howell Cross's shell, with the blue pennant of his patrol, shot ahead. Skinny trembled, his eyes stared, he quivered with excitement.

He might have saved his fears. Howell had his spurt, and having spent his reserve energy, could only maintain his former speed. The time for a spurt is at the end and Holly Hollis knew this. Easily he shot ahead in an excess of effort that would surely carry him past the skiff. He would not have to pause for breath till he could pause for good. Now he was half a length ahead. Now a full length. And then amid a wild chorus of cheers and the waving of hundreds of flags, he swept forward past the skiff. The Eagle of the Elk Patrol had won them the cup and the trip to the Grand Canyon, and the glory of being the banner patrol of Temple Camp. Skinny's patrol.

Then something happened which caused Danville Bently to run along the cliff excitedly trying to make out just what the trouble was. There was a sudden change in the tone of the shouting below. He came to a point where he could descend with caution and as he did so, he perceived the dreadful thing that had happened. Hollis had evidently turned his victorious shell quickly so that the tremendous force of its impetus would not carry it against the steep shore (see map) and it had swept into the marsh and capsized. And there he was quite out of reach of it, sinking in the treacherous rank growth. Danville made out that he had tried to swim only to be caught in the mire. From where Danville was descending cautiously the victim looked like only half a boy, the upper half. He seemed standing up right in the swamp.

"Do your feet touch?" Danville heard some one call.

"Help, help!" was the frantic answer.

It had always been said that there was death in this marsh. There was a story of a duck hunter who had been swallowed up in it. If Hollis had not tried to swim and remained by his inverted shell, he would have suffered nothing worse than an inglorious climax to his spectacular triumph. But he had somehow got to the very center of the horrible place where no boat could penetrate. The excitement on the neighboring shore was frenzied. Some one tried to pole a boat into the marsh; it got stuck in the thickening growth and could not be moved either way. And meanwhile, Hollis' frantic cry for help rose as he sank lower, lower....

Then suddenly a great white thing seemed to fill the sky. It tumbled, shook, like some airplane run amuck. And with a loud sound of splitting wood it settled flat upon the enveloping marsh. They saw, but they hardly knew what they were witnessing. They stared aghast. Then as they saw a little living form reach out from the safe area of canvas that lay flat upon that frightful consuming mud a cheer went up--and another, and another, until the heavens seemed rent with a swelling chorus of mad acclaim. But it was not for the victorious Eagle they were screaming their lungs out as their fears subsided. It was just for the little outcast scout who, in such a sublime frenzy as only his trembling body could experience, had torn and wrenched the signal easel from its lodgment and crashed down with this spreading parachute to the rescue of the boy who had brought glory to the Elk Patrol.