The Eight-Oared Victors/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
"SENOR BOSWELL"
"Shoulders back a little more! Heads up! Don't feather quite so high. That's all right to do when there are little choppy waves, that would cause splashing, but in calm water the lower you feather the less you have to raise the spoon of the oar. Of course don't do any 'riffling.' That holds back the boat. When I see you in an eight, with a coxswain, so you don't have to think about steering, I can tell better how you will do."
This was Mr. Pierson giving some coaching advice to the four boys, who were out in the shell. He was following them in the launch owned by his friend, at whose cottage he was visiting.
"I'm wondering if I'll have wind enough for a four-mile race, pulling even thirty to the minute?" said Sid.
"And we may have to hit it up to thirty-two or three," put in Tom.
"Don't worry about those things now," advised the Cornell graduate. "They will work themselves out when you get in training. Of course you're not training now, and that makes a difference. My chief anxiety at present is to get you in the way of taking the proper stroke, to teach you how to sit, how to slide in the moving seats, how to bring your whole weight where it will do the most good, and how to depend on the toe stretchers. Your wind will take care of itself when you get down to hard practice. If it doesn't—well, you can't row in an eight, that's all."
The old graduate glanced sharply at the lads, and, noting a look of anxiety on their faces, he hastened to add:
"But I'm sure it will come out all right. Don't think about it. Now then, hit up the stroke a little."
And so he accompanied them over the course, giving them advice almost invaluable, which they could have obtained in no other way. The boys appreciated it deeply.
Camp and cottage life on Crest Island was endless delight to the boys, even with the hard practice they put in occasionally. I say "occasionally" advisedly, for they did not forget, nor did Mr. Lighton or Mr. Pierson want them to forget, that they were on their vacations. Truth to tell, the girls took much of the time of our heroes. And this was as it should be. We can never be young but once, if I may be pardoned that bit of philosophy in a story book—a bit that is not original by any means.
"Well, thank our lucky stars, we don't have to grind away in the boat to-day!" exclaimed Sid one morning, as he got up ahead of the others, for it was his return to prepare breakfast.
"That's right," called Tom, in a sleepy voice from his cot, as he turned over luxuriously amid the scanty coverings, for the night had been warm. "I vote we get the launch in running order, if that's possible, and take the girls off for a picnic."
"Second the motion," exclaimed Sid, "with the amendment that the girls provide, and put up, the lunch."
"We'll pay for it, if they put it up," said Frank.
"That's better," remarked Phil. "I'll tip Sis off, and I guess they'll do it."
Behold then, a little later, the eight young persons, lively and gay, in the wheezy and uncertain launch, voyaging over the lake toward a distant dell of which they knew, on the mainland, where they proposed to picnic for the day.
They ate the lunch which the girls had put up in dainty fashion, sitting on a broad, flat rock near the edge of the lake, with the wind rustling in the trees overhead, and the birds flitting here and there.
"Isn't it glorious here?" mused Sid.
"Gorgeous!" declared Madge. "It's just a perfect day."
"'O, perfect day!'" began Phil.
"Cut out the poetry," interrupted Tom. "There's a little snake crawling toward you, old man."
"Oh!" screamed four shrill voices, and there was a hasty scramble, until the snake was discovered to be only a tiny lizard, which the girls declared to be "just as bad."
Then came saunterings two-by-two off in woodland glades until it was time to think regretfully of returning to the island, for the shadows were lengthening.
It was just as they were about to start off in the little gasoline launch, which, strange to say, had been behaving wonderfully well that day, that they saw Mendez, the Mexican, rowing toward them in a small boat. He seemed in much of a hurry.
"Senors and senoritas!" he hailed them. "Wait a moment, I pray of you."
"Gracious—I hope nothing has happened at home!" exclaimed Madge Tyler, for her mother was not at the cottage.
"Perhaps it's a telegram for some of us," suggested Ruth. "Oh, dear, I do hope I don't have to go home."
They all regarded the approaching Mexican curiously.
"Pardon," he began with a smile that showed all his white teeth, "but I seek Senor Boswell. Is he with you?"
"With us? No," answered Tom. "He doesn't train in with our crowd."
"Most likely he's having tea on the lawn, and talking about 'beastly rotters,'" suggested Sid.
"Oh, Sid!" exclaimed Ruth. "He isn't such a bad sort."
"Oh, do you know him?" asked Tom, quickly.
"He called one evening," explained Madge, while just the faintest suggestion of a blush suffused her pretty face. "He and Mr. Pierce."
"They did!" exclaimed Phil, looking keenly at his sister.
"Hush!" she exclaimed. "Silly boy. Don't make a scene!"
"Senor Boswell—is he not here?" went on the Mexican, and there was anxiety in his voice. "I was inform that he come off on a boat, and in this direction. I see your launch moored here, and I am of the belief, perhaps, that he may be here. Is it not?" and again he smiled.
"No, he isn't here, and we haven't seen him," said Tom.
"Pardon, senors and senoritas," said the Mexican, bowing as well as he could in his small boat. "I shall look farther. I have the honor to bid you good afternoon," and he rowed away, up the lake.
"What do you suppose he wanted of Boswell in such a hurry?" asked Sid in a low voice of Tom, as they were getting in the launch.
"Give it up," was the answer, but Tom was doing some hard thinking just about that time.