Just then he could hear voices upraised outside; he thought supper must be ready, though there was no summoning horn. One voice shouted, “Come ahead, hurry up.” There was nothing particularly significant about this since they always “hurried up” at meal-time. He thought he might as well go to supper and see Doc afterward. He always dreaded going to meals, for at those clamorous gatherings his loneliness and unattached character were emphasized. When the boys spoke in undertones he always fancied that they were speaking of him. He often construed their casual, bantering talk as having some vague reference to himself. But he rendered himself less conspicuous by going in with the crowd, so for this reason he gave over waiting and started for the “eats shack.” Scarcely had he emerged into the rainy dusk when he saw that it was not the summons to supper that was causing all the commotion. Something unusual was evidently happening. CHAPTER XXIX WHEN IT TURNS RED One would have supposed that Wilfred, discredited and sensitive though he was, would have joined the excited throng which he saw running shoreward from the pavilion and from all the neighboring tents and cabins. For what he saw in the middle of the darkening lake was enough to obliterate animosity. Surely in those terrible moments they would not trouble themselves to look on him askance. But he remained apart as he had always done, an isolated figure on the shore, as clamorous, excited scouts by the dozen crowded on springboard and shore. Out in the middle of the lake something was wrong. In the gathering darkness, Wilfred could see what he thought to be the camp launch, and a voice, made almost inaudible by the adverse wind, was calling. It seemed as if it came from beyond the bordering mountains though he knew it must come from the lake. Everything was hazy and the launch looked like the specter of a launch haunting the troubled waters. Then he noticed something else drifting rapidly nearer by. Dumbfounded, he saw it to be the landing float which must have slipped its moorings. With it were half a dozen rowboats banging against each other, their chains clanking. The mass was being carried headlong across the lake. A quick inquiring glance showed Wilfred that not a single boat was at the shore. He was about two hundred feet alongshore from where the increasing crowd was; the scene was one of the wildest panic. From the excited talk he surmised that Hervey Willetts, the most notorious of the “independents” was about to pay the fatal penalty for taking the launch without permission. “Run along the shore, you’ll find a boat somewhere!” an excited voice called. “Lash a half a dozen planks together; get some rope, some of you fellows—_quick_! Get a couple of oars!” “We can scull to the float.” “Scull _nothing_; look at it, it’s driving toward East Cove. We’ll scull right for the launch!”