With a quickness and ease that seemed absurd, he reached past and outstretched the other swimmer. The exhausted boy, with a courage greater than his strength, was glad enough to turn and seek shelter on the improvised raft which was now moving through the water under the difficult propulsion of several loose swung oars. From this they called to the mysterious swimmer to beware of his peril but he heeded them not, except to widen the distance between them and this lumbering rescue craft. Soon the widening distance and the falling darkness made it impossible for those upon the raft to see him at all. Thus he disappeared before the straining vision of those followers who saw him last, and the boy who had won the Mary Temple contest sat panting on the makeshift raft as the fleeting specter dissolved in the night and was seen no more. And still the voice far out called, “_Heeelp!_” and the mountain across the lake mocked its beseeching summons in a gruesome undertone. So, Wandering Willie, alone and unseen as usual, sped headlong in his triumphant race at last. No one “rooted” for him, no one cheered him. But in the wet grass on shore far back where he had started, a sparkling gem, companion of his; loneliness and cheery reminder of his former exploit, blazed with fiery radiance in the black, tempestuous night. CHAPTER XXX JAWS UNSEEN Darkness had fallen when Wilfred reached the submerged rock. There was no voice now, and only the sound of the beating water answered his own call. The launch was not to be seen but the end of its long flagpole projected a few inches out of the lake marking its watery grave. Wilfred clutched the flagpole and tried to get a foothold on the sunken launch. One foot rested on a narrow ridge; he thought it was the coaming. Then the pole broke, his foot slipped, and he fell heavily into the cockpit of the launch. If he had been as familiar with the launch as other boys at camp, he might have realized where he had fallen. But he gave no thought to that. His groping hand encountered something hard and he grasped it in an effort to extricate himself and get into unobstructed water. The thing he had grasped moved and instantly he felt a sensation of crushing in his arm, then a tearing of the flesh and excruciating pain. He had turned the fly-wheel of the engine and as his hand slipped around with it his forearm became wedged between the moving wheel and the engine bed. The rim of the heavy iron wheel was equipped with gear teeth to mesh with those of a magneto and these sawed into his arm like the teeth of a circular saw.