llers had all the luck to-day. Just wait, that's all!"

And so good fortune saved the day for Brad and his crew, when all
seemed lost.

CHAPTER X

FRED'S HOME-COMING

"We win! We win!"

The shouts of the fellows who wielded the oars in the leading boat came
floating back to those who were still scrambling around in the cranky
outlaw craft.

Buck put his hands to his mouth, in order to make his voice carry the
better, and yelled disdainfully after them:

"Yes, you win, but only through a foul! Run into us, and broke one of
our outriggers to flinders! But just wait till we get a new one made,
we'll beat you to a frazzle! Wait!"

"It wasn't so, was it, Brad?" demanded Corney Shays indignantly; "we
never touched his boat, did we?"

"Well, I like his nerve!" cried Sid Wells, for all of them were taking
things easy, now that the race was over, and the victory won. "Why,
hang it, I don't believe we were within thirty feet of their old boat
any time."

"And you're right, Sid," added Brad. "I ought to know, because I was in
a position to see everything. When that outrigger smashed they were a
quarter of a length ahead. Anybody with half an eye can see that it was
the second oar that got in trouble. And boys, believe me, that
outrigger was away up opposite our stem, far out of reach of our oars,
end on end. It's too silly for anything!"

"But I think, from all I know of the fellow, that it's just like Buck
to say a thing like that?" suggested Fred.

"You're right there, Fred," declared Dick Hendricks; "he never yet lost
a game but what, quick as a flash, he made it a point to claim that it
was a foul, and the beat an unfair one. Isn't that so, fellows, all you
who've known Buck since he was a kid, and always a fighting bully?"

"You never said truer words, Dick," declared Sid. "And I ought to know,
because I've had a dozen fights with Buck in as many years. Fact is,
they say we went at each other before we were able to walk, and that he
pulled the only tuft of yellow hair out that I owned about then. He
used to joke me, and boast that he had that yellow lock at home, tied
with a string, just like an Indian would an enemy's scalplock. Oh!
we've been at it, hammer and tongs, ever since. And just as you say,
Dick, he never yet lost a fight or a race or a game but what he set up
a howl that the other fellow cheated, or took an unfair advantage of
him."

"But by this time the people of Riverport ought to be