"
"But don't you let any of the Preston High School fellows know
how crippled you found us," begged Dave Darrin.
"What would you care, if I did?" laughed Mr. Tyndall. "You fellows
won the race, didn't you? And I'll wager that the Preston boys
are feeling a whole lot worse than you are. Don't come! Good
night."
"Tyndall is a brick to let us off," sighed Tom gratefully, as
he sank down once more.
Later on Dick & Co. emerged from the tent, started a fire, and
had supper, though they did not pay great attention to the meal.
"I wouldn't want to race every day," grunted Reade, as he squatted
near the fire after supper.
"If we did," Dick retorted, "we'd speedily get over these aches
and this stiffness."
For an hour or so the boys remained about the fire. Dan Dalzell
was the first to slip away to his blankets. Hazelton followed.
Then the movement became general. Soon all were sound asleep.
Nor did any sounds reach or disturb them for hours. Not one of
the sleepers stirred enough to know that the sky gradually became
overcast and that there was a distant rumbling of thunder.
Hardly had the campfire burned down into the general blackness
of the night when an automobile runabout, moving slowly and silently,
stole along the roadway.
In it sat the son of Squire Ripley. Fred, having brooded for
hours over the failure of his scheme to make Dick & Co. lose the
canoe race, had at last decided to pay a stealthy, nocturnal visit
to the camp of the boys he disliked, with the express purpose
of doing whatever mischief his hands might find to do.
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