“I hope he doesn’t get away this time,” thought Dick.  “If Garwood remains at large much longer he’ll fix up a bang-bang that will carry him clean into the next world!”

While those having the injured man in charge waited they explored the boathouse.  Of the explosive materials not a particle was found.  Evidently it had all gone up in smoke.  But, in a far corner, the searchers discovered a package of gauze, and another of salve, with which poor Garwood had evidently attended to the burns resulting from former explosions.  Later it was found that both packages came from a drugstore some twenty miles away, where the poor fellow had also bought his explosive materials from time to time.  He must have walked the long distance at night when other people were abed, for the druggist stated that his customer came in, on each visit, as soon as the store was opened in the morning.

Blankets and a few groceries, found in the loft, explained the demented man’s manner of housekeeping during the last few days.

It was half an hour ere a physician finally arrived in a touring car.

“The man doesn’t appear to be badly hurt,” declared the medical man.  “It won’t take us five minutes to get him into town and in the hospital, so I believe we had better start to revive him after we get him there.”

Two strong men were found who were willing to sit in the tonneau, holding Amos Garwood’s insensible body between them.

As the car started away a subdued cheer arose.  The mystery and the vanishing of Amos Garwood were at an end at last.  Those who had feared having a demented man at large in the community breathed more easily.

From the day of the race the summer vacation for the late Grammar School boys began in earnest.  A few days later Dick and his swimming squad met a similar organization from the South Grammar, and a match was held on the river.  As Prescott’s squad again won, Central Grammar was now undisputed Grammar School champion on the water as well as in baseball.

Colonel Garwood tried to pay the offered reward to the members of Dick & Co., but the parents of the boys refused to entertain the idea.

Amos Garwood, not seriously injured in body, was soon well enough to be taken back to the sanitarium.  Here his malady was found not to be severe.  A year later he was discharged, fully cured of his delusions, and able once more to take his place as a useful member of society.

There does not remain a great deal more to be told.

Many of the boys who have appeared in these pages went no further in school life, but stepped out into the working world, there to fit themselves for the men’s places in life.

The more fortunate ones, however, went to High School.  All the members of Dick & Co. were thus favored in being able to go forward into the fields of higher education.  We shall speedily meet with these manly American boys again, for their further doings will be described in the High School Boys’ Series.