Chapter XXIX: The Race

The canoe race, which was the first of the events, was also the best--as well as the last. Never was there wilder excitement on Pee-wee's island than when the green and red canoes glided northward, approaching the turning point.

The red canoe skilfully paddled by the Edgemere champion, Willie Dawdle, was some yards ahead and gaining rapidly and the girls from Edgemere High School could not contain themselves for joy. Among the Alligator Patrol, too, the excitement ran high and shout upon shout for Bridgeboro arose as Wingate Chase spurted to get the inner turn about the island. He gained fast now and as the distance between the two canoes shortened the air was rent with deafening yells for Bridgeboro.

The two contestants were abreast when suddenly amid the uproar could be heard a voice, a voice singularly matter-of-fact and sensible, uttering words which if not of excitement seemed at least pertinent to the occasion, "How are they going to go around that blamed thing when it's sailing up the river?"

Alas, it was too true. The most unusual development which could possibly complicate an athletic event had occurred; the turning point had deserted the race and was sailing majestically up the river. It had already sailed a hundred feet or so before the watchers on the mainland discovered the fact.

As for the striving contestants they were too intent upon the race to perceive the strange turn of affairs until the wild mirth upon the "mainland" apprised them of it. They must have looked funny enough from the shore frantically pursuing the fugitive turning post, and the unhallowed joy of the spectators was only increased by Pee-wee's heroic efforts in the emergency as with a long pole he strove to stay the progress of the recreant island. Failing in these herculean efforts, he still tried to save the day by shouting to the racers.

"_Keep up_! _Keep up_!" he yelled. "You can go around it. You're going faster than the island is. _Don't give up_! It makes it all the more exciting. It's like--like--like--kind of--like running up an escalator! Don't stop! Keep it up, it's an escalator race!"

It certainly made it "all the more exciting." As for the inhabitants of the island, they were carried away in more than one sense. Townsend lay flat upon the ground in a spasm of silent laughter. Several others of the new Alligator Patrol sat on the edge of the stern and rock-bound coast, their legs dangling in the water, and seemed in danger of falling in, so gymnastic was their merriment. As for the occupants of the grandstand, they probably thought (if they were able to think at all) that ten cents was a small price to pay for such an exciting race.

Only one occupant of the fleeing island was up and about and fully conscious. With his companions lying flat or doubled up and screaming so that the woods along shore echoed with their insane mirth, our hero stood amid the chaos, shouting to the racers at the top of his voice. They were almost abreast of him now, and laughing themselves, for the race had become a farce.

"Come on! Keep it up!" he shouted. "You can go around it while it's sailing just as good as if it were standing still! The race kind of stretches out like an elastic--it's an extensible race. Keep it up! Keep it up!"

"Don't," moaned Townsend from his place on the ground. "This is too much----"

"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 shore 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 shore.

"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 heard up beyond Collison's bend.

And still Townsend Ripley lay prone 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 shore 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.