They did, and on Saturday afternoon “The Wreck of the Hesperus” rolled away from West Hall amidst the loud cheers of a hastily assembled audience. Wattles watched the departure with very evident disapproval and anxiety. In his opinion “The Wreck” was not a seemly conveyance for the son and heir of Mr. Sanford Deane to be observed in. And, besides, the contraption appeared to be on the verge of dissolution. No anxiety troubled the occupants of the ancient and dilapidated Ford, however, as it fled down the driveway and lurched, with a convulsive shudder, into Oak Street. The driver and owner, one Augustus Meggs, otherwise Gussie, was employed at a local garage as a mechanic. Gussie was about twenty, was long and angular, had a freckled face and remarkably prominent ears and chewed gum as a life work. He was always willing to tell how he had bought the car for eighty-two dollars three years before and had “remodeled her, by crickey” with such odds and ends as were to be found from time to time around the garage. Tom referred to Gussie as the “Skipper” and conversed in nautical terms with him all the way to the Lake. Gussie didn’t understand him much of the time, and was fully aware that his employer was having fun with him, but he didn’t mind. He had held out for three dollars and got it, and for three dollars any one could make fun of Gussie as much as he pleased. Secretly Gussie was of the opinion that the joke, if there was one, was on the passengers! They made Double Lake without misadventure, the skipper of “The Wreck” taking things sort of easy after it had been explained to him that the boy who had been carried to the car was so brittle that he would fall to pieces if bounced around too hard. In fact, the skipper drove so cautiously that by the time the old Ford wheezed down to the boathouse landing the junior crews were already up at the start. It was a warm but blowy afternoon, and the blue waters of the lake were tipped with whitecaps. About fifty Wyndham youths, congregated around the boathouse, were cheering themselves red in the face, and after finding Billy Desmond and assuring him of their support, Clif and Tom returned to “The Wreck of the Hesperus” and bade the skipper warp his craft closer to the cheering section. Its arrival there met with loud acclaim, even the crews being for the moment forgotten by the cheerers. Gussie received the applause modestly, found a fresh piece of gum in a pocket of his flannel shirt and substituted it for the wad which had done such good service on the trip out, placed a stone under one of the back wheels――the brakes didn’t work very well, he explained――and joined the crowd. And just then the report of a pistol half a mile distant came faintly, and the cheering section broke into a confused medley of incoherent entreaties: “Come on, Wyndham!... Row, you dumb-bells!... Hooray! Hooray!... Hit it up! Hit it up!... Wyndham! Wyndham!... Come on! Come o-o-o-on!”