Pee-Wee Harris Adrift Part 21

"It isn't enough!" Pee-wee shouted. "The race is better because it's longer--it stretches out--it's an extensible race--I invented it----"

"What on earth is the cause of it?" laughed one of the girls.

"Extra--extra--ex--ex--ex--extra high tide caused by the r--r--rain,"

shrieked Townsend, hardly able to get the words out. "This is the cli--cli--climax of Eas--Eas--Easter vac--c--c--c--c--_cation_!"

Amid screams and catcalls from the sh.o.r.e an official launch came chugging up the course. By that time the two canoeists had given themselves up to laughter and sat shaking as their canoes drifted.

Only the island continued merrily upon the flood tide.

"Called off?" somebody called from the sh.o.r.e.

"Certainly it's called off," said the official in the launch. "This was supposed to be a race, not a game of tag."

"_Come on_! _Come on_!" screamed Pee-wee from the departing isle.

"Hurrah for Bridgeboro High! Come on, you can go around us! If a man can--listen, I've got a dandy argument--if a man can shoot a bird on the wing a race like that is just as good--you can encircle an island on the wing too! _Come on_! _Come on_! It's a new kind of a race! A lot of girls paid ten cents to see it! Come on, go around us!"

"Oh, _gracious, goodness_, we've had our money's worth," moaned one of the girls; "we're not complaining."

"It's like a movie play," screamed another.

"It's a very move--m--moving drama," stammered Townsend.

"And all for ten cents," said one of the girls.

"They're not coming!" Pee-wee shouted. "We won the race! We weren't in it but we won it anyway. That feller in the launch is crazy! It was a chase and a race all in one--it was a chase race--I invented it and he went and spoiled it all."

Time and tide wait for no man. Up the swelling river, out of the voice range of the hooting throng, farther and still farther from the madding crowd, sailed Turning Post Island, alias Merry-go-round Island, alias Isle of Desserts, alias Alligator Isle, alias The Earthly Paradise.

Other motor-boats, manned by astonished officials and bearing committees, chugged up to where the island had been and a flotilla of rowboats and canoes hovered thereabouts while their occupants inspected curiously the place where the official turning point with its crowded grandstand had been. But the official turning point had vanished, though the voice of our hero could still be beard up beyond Collison's bend.

And still Townsend Ripley lay p.r.o.ne and laughed and laughed and laughed.

"Your money will be refunded, of course," he managed to say to the several occupants of the grandstand. "You see we had a heavy rain all night and----"

"Oh, don't _speak_ of returning our money," one of the girls laughed.

"We really ought to pay you _more_."

"We can't take any more," Pee-wee shouted. "You--you get the ride for nothing--it's thrown in--because I said free transportation and a scout has to keep his word. Even if we float miles and miles we can't take another cent----"

"We may be rovers but we're not profiteers," moaned Townsend.

"If--if we don't drift to sh.o.r.e by supper time," said Pee-wee, "you get your dinner too just like when an ocean steamer is delayed in a fog; they give you your dinner, so don't you worry because you're with scouts and when it gets to be six o'clock I'll make a hunter's stew."

At this there was a sudden noise as of horror and anguish and before our voyagers realized what was happening, Townsend Ripley had rolled off the island into the water.

CHAPTER x.x.x

ABSENCE MAKES THE ISLAND QUIET

"It's all right," Townsend sputtered as he crawled ash.o.r.e. "I was just thinking of something sad; I feel better now. It was one of the finest races that I never saw."

"It would have been a good race," said Pee-wee with a frown indicative of withering scorn, "only they had to go and break it up. _Just because we moved_--do you call that an argument? _We_ ought to get the silver cup, that's what _I_ think. They could have--have--headed us off, couldn't they? The rule said they had to go around this flag, it didn't say anything about where the flag would be. That's a teckinality. Anyway, I'm glad we're rid of them."

"We seem to be making port," said Townsend. "I don't know just where we are. I think if we were to cut up through these woods--You girls want to get to the Edgemere trolley, I suppose?"

"That's the idea," said one of them.

"Well, then, let's see," Townsend ruminated.

"I'll take you to the trolley," Pee-wee shouted, as the island gave evidence of an intention to bunk into the east bank of the river.

"Because I know how to find my way in the woods--scouts have to know all those things--I can tell by moss and hop-toads and things, which is east and west. I'll take you to the trolley. If we should get lost in the woods I know how to cook bark so you can eat it, only scouts don't get lost. So do you want me to take you to the trolley?"

Brownie was about to whisper his disapproval of this to Townsend but Townsend cut him short. "Let him do it," he said; "if he stays here he'll make a hunter's stew. We can put one over on him by cooking supper while he's gone. Safety first. If he goes ash.o.r.e they may get lost, if he stays here we're _all_ lost."

"True," said Billy.

"Absolutely correct," said Brownie.

"That's what you call an argument," said Roly Poly.

"It's a teckinality," said Nuts.

"Discoverer," said Townsend, "the patrol thinks that you are the proper one to escort our guests to the Edgemere trolley."

"Isn't that perfectly _lovely_!" said one of the girls.

"If the woods should wander away while you're in them," said Townsend, "send up a smoke signal and we'll come and rescue you. Don't hurry back, Discoverer; remember, these girls come first of all. We'll tie the island to a tree and have a game of mumbly peg. You'll find us here when you get back."

"Well," said Townsend, after he had securely fastened the island to sh.o.r.e by a piece of rope, "let's make hay while the sun s.h.i.+nes and get supper. In an hour or so it may be too late. After all our adventures I feel that another hunter's stew----"

"If the island saw another hunter's stew it would run away," said Brownie.

"We've had quite a week of it, hey?" said Billy.

"Yes, I don't think I've ever been around so much in a week before,"

said Townsend; "I feel like a pinwheel."

"Or a top," said Brownie.

"Something like that," said Townsend. "Well, Joe, what do you think of us?" he added, sprawling on the ground as was his wont. The others began preparations for supper.

"How about some spaghetti?" Roly Poly asked. "Could you eat some spaghetti?"

"I might if I were coaxed," said Townsend. "How about you, Joe?"