The Eight-Oared Victors/Chapter 26
CHAPTER XXVI
"ROW HARD"
The four chums watched Boswell go down the steps and get into a waiting auto, the maid, meanwhile, regarding them half curiously, for she knew them well, from frequent visits.
"Some class to him," remarked Sid.
"Yes, he's finding his way here all right," added Tom.
"Well, it's a free country," added Phil. "He came to see Ruth, if I'm any judge."
"And got turned down," added Frank.
"I wonder if the girls are really out?" ventured Tom.
"I'll see If the young ladies are in," remarked the maid. She did not have to ask which young ladies were meant.
She returned shortly to say that, while it was almost too late for visitors. Miss Philock had consented that the four chums could see their friends for ten minutes.
"Say, what's gotten into the old Ogress—she's so pleasant to us?" Sid wanted to know.
"Probably this is the calm before the storm," suggested Phil. "We may be turned down after this, the same as Boswell was."
"I wonder what he wanted?" mused Tom.
"Oh, probably to ask the best way to darn socks without tying a string around the hole," suggested Frank, with delicate sarcasm.
"Here come the girls!" exclaimed Tom, and the murmur of voices bore out his remark.
While the conversation that followed was probably of intense and absorbing personal interest to those who took part in it, there was not enough of general Interest to warrant me setting it down here. Sufficient to say that all sorts of matters, from the coming regatta to the opening of the football season, were discussed, and commented upon. Needless to say the Fairview girls, with commendable loyalty, declared that their college was going to be the champions of the gridiron and river.
Tom found chance for a quiet word with Ruth just before the ringing of a warning bell announced that visiting hours were nearly over. She explained that it was a surprise to her when Boswell called, and she and her chums decided not to meet him.
"I haven't found out anything more about your pin," Tom said. "That is, I haven't located it." for he did not want to go into details about the missing pawnbroker and Mendez. Nothing more had been heard of either.
"Too bad," Ruth declared. "I suppose, though, I might as well keep quiet about the loss of it until some one of my folks notice that it's gone," she said. "It will be time enough then to confess, though I suppose I'll be in for a wigging from grandmother for keeping still about it so long."
"Yes, it can't do any harm to keep quiet now," decided Tom, "and something may turn up at any minute."
"Then you really have some hope, Tom?"
"Yes—a little," he admitted. "But I can't talk about it, Ruth. It involves others."
"Oh, tell me Tom! I'll keep it a secret!" she pleaded.
"No, really I can't," he said, and though she made it rather hard for him, he kept to his resolve.
"It is time your friends left, young ladies!" announced the rather rasping voice of Miss Philock, a little later. "I have been lenient with you to the extent of ten minutes, but now I must insist."
"Thank you for your kindness," exclaimed Phil, with a low bow. "We greatly appreciate it."
"I am glad that you do," declared the preceptress, not allowing a smile to change the hard contour of her face. Poor Miss Philock! Doubtless she did not have a happy time of it, and her responsibilities must have weighed on her. It is not an easy task to be the dragon, guarding a number of pretty girls, when two colleges for young men are not far off. And Miss Philock did her duty, however unpleasant it was.
Tom was awakened that night, shortly after one o'clock. At least he judged it to be about that hour, for he dimly recalled hearing a distant clock booming out twelve; then he had fallen into a doze, and it could not have been over an hour later when a noise and movement in the main apartment, out of which all their rooms opened, roused him.
"Wonder who that is?" he thought, sleepily. "Maybe we did a little too much to-day, and some of the boys can't rest. I'll take a look."
He raised himself upon his elbow, but, though he had a partial view of the sitting room from that position, he could see no one. The scuffling of feet on the carpet, however, and the faint rattle of paper, told that someone was up and about.
Softly Tom put his legs over the edge of the bed, so that it would not creak, for, somehow, he had a faint suspicion that perhaps the person in the other room might not be one of his chums, and, in that case, he wanted to be prepared.
Gently he stepped out until he stood in the door of his own room, and had a view of the main apartment. Then he saw a white-robed figure standing looking out of the window that gave a view of the campus, over which a faint moon was then shining.
"That looks like Sid," thought Tom. "I wonder if he's getting spoony—or loony or moony? Maybe he couldn't sleep and got up to change the current of his thoughts. Well, shall I go out and keep him company, or"
Tom reconsidered the matter a moment.
"No," he thought, "if I go out there, and we get to chinning, even in whispers, it will rouse Frank and Phil, and then we'll all be wide awake. And the land knows we need all the sleep we can get. I can find my way to dreamland without being sung to, anyhow."
For a moment he watched the figure by the window. It was Sid, Tom felt sure of that, though night-garments, be they pajamas or the more prosaic shirts, do not make for identifying individuals. There is little of character to them.
Then the figure by the window turned partly toward Tom, but, as the face was in the shadow, the watching lad could not see it plainly. The figure approached the table, on which was a litter of paper, where the lads had been doing some studying earlier in the evening.
"By Jove!" thought Tom. "Old Sid is writing poetry—or he has been courting the muse! This is rich! He can't sleep and he gets up in the night to jot down a verse or two. That's it! And about a girl, too, I'll wager! Oh, Sid!" and he chuckled silently. "I'll rig you for this in the morning! Loony, spoony, moony Sid! This is rich!" and Tom doubled up with silent mirth.
The figure continued to approach the table, and from the other rooms the deep, regular breathing told of sound sleepers. Then the figure began fumbhng with papers and Tom saw a pencil taken up.
"How the mischief can he see to write in the dark?" the watcher wondered.
But that was evidently not the intention. For, after hesitating a few seconds over the table, the white-clad figure turned and went out of the door into the hall.
"Well, what do you make of that?" Tom asked himself. "He has got 'em bad! Sneaking out to some other room to write his slushy poetry. He's the limit! Wait until we get at him in the daylight—there won't be any loony-moon then. But I should think he'd want to put on a bath robe. It isn't the warmest night of Summer," added Tom to himself, being aware of a distinctly chilly feeling about his legs.
"Wait!" he counseled with himself. "I'll find out about this. I'll just follow him and give him a scare. I'll catch him with the goods."
Pausing to make sure that none of the others were awake, and waiting to give Sid a chance to get a little way down the corridor, Tom slipped out of the door, his feet encased in a pair of bath slippers, that lent themselves better to soft movement than not, for they avoided the scuffling that always goes with bare soles.
Tom reached the corridor, and, looking down it, saw at the farther end the white-robed figure.
"He made good time all right," Tom mused. "Where can he be going to though, in that rig? Oh, probably to the reading room," and Tom recalled the large room at the end of the hall, a sort of library fitted up for the use of the dwellers of the dormitory—a room seldom used by the way, for the lads preferred the seclusion of their own apartments.
"Maybe he's looking for a rhyming dictionary," thought Tom. "That's it. I'm on to his game now."
Tom thought he understood it all. Sid, who used to care nothing for the girls—indeed having a veritable aversion for them—had, of late, been quite different, as Tom and all the others saw and knew. There was one in particular—and it would not be fair for me to mention her name—one in particular about whom Sid, if he did not talk, thought much.
"And he's going to finish out some poem he began, and got stuck with," decided Tom. "Probably he knows we'd rig him if we saw him writing that Valentine stuff.
"A rhyming dictionary though. I don't see what he needs of that. Love, dove, above—you true—eyes of blue. Heart—part—die, sigh—moon—soon—spoon—no, not that. But hair—fair—ever there—thine—mine—valentine. There you are, done without the aid of a net, and with nothing concealed up my sleeve," mused Tom, shivering slightly as a chilling breeze from the corridor not only crept up his arm, but over other parts of his anatomy.
The figure ahead of him glided on, and Tom followed. Then, instead of turning into the library, it mounted a flight of stairs that led to the rooms above, where other students slept.
"For cats' sake!" thought Tom. "What is Sid up to anyhow?" Is he going to snare someone else in on this game? Or is he playing some trick? The bell in the tower! Jove, if he dares to ring that at this hour!"
For, when the new dormitory had been built, a bell had been hung in an ornate corner tower, though it pealed forth but seldom, being more of an ornament. Still it could be rung if desired.
"That's what old Sid is up to!" decided Tom. "He must be going daffy. He's sure to be caught, for Simond has a room up there, and he's a light sleeper." Simond being one of the new teachers, who had been assigned to this dormitory as a sort of moral-policeman. He was, however, a well-liked instructor.
"I wonder how it would be for me to tip Sid off not to do it?" thought Tom. "If he does jingle the chimes they'll say we all had a hand in it, and it will be bad for the bunch. I guess I'll call him off. No use going too far for a joke."
Tom was about to sprint forward, when, to his surprise, the figure turned and entered one of the student's rooms, the door opening noiselessly and closing again as silently.
"Well, what do you know about that?" asked Tom of himself. "Who rooms there, I wonder? And what is Sid going in there for? Can it be that he isn't up to dashing off a fervid love poem himself, and has to get someone else, under the cover of night, to do it for him?"
Tom came to a halt, some distance from the door that had opened and closed, and remained gazing down the corridor. He seldom came up here, and did not know which students occupied the different rooms. And, as the corridor was long, and as Tom was looking down it on an angle, he could not be exactly sure which door had opened, they being all alike, and many without numbers.
"I'll just stay here and wait," he decided. "He can't stay in there very long," and then Tom began to wish he had slipped on his bath robe, for he was getting more and more chilly each minute.
"Hang It all! Why doesn't he come out?" he asked himself half a dozen times. "I'm not going to stay here all night."
But even at that, while calling himself all sorts of a foolish person, Tom remained.
"It's too good a joke to pass up!" he decided. "I'll surprise Sid when he comes out. Poetry! Bah! We'll write a love verse for him!"
Several minutes passed. Tom moved about, and began to do some exercises with his arms, to bring up his circulation. He was striking out vigorously, feeling in quite a glow, when his elbow, as he drew back his arm, came in sharp contact with the door behind him. Unaware of it, he had been standing in front of some portal while he waited.
"Oh, for cats' sake!" thought Tom, in grim despair as the sound boomed out with startling distinctness in that dim and silent corridor. "Now I have gone and done it. I guess I'd better pass up Sid and his poem, and get back to my little bed. I wonder if I can make it before someone sticks out his noddle, and wants to know what I'm doing here?"
With this thought in mind he started to glide away, but he was too late. The door he had banged with his elbow suddenly opened, and a voice demanded in peremptory tones:
"Well, what is it?"
"Great Scott!" gasped Tom. "It's Simond!" for the countenance of the instructor was thrust from the half-opened portal.
"Well?" went on the rather grim voice, as Tom hesitated. "You knocked."
"It—it was an accident," stammered Tom.
"Oh. Then you don't want me?"
"No, sir."
"Is anything the matter?"
"No, Mr. Simond."
"Then what are you doing up on this floor? You're Parsons, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you room on the floor below?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then what are you doing up here at this hour of the night; knocking at my door?"
"I—er—it was an accident, you see. I was—I was exercising."
"Exercising?" There was a note of incredulity in the voice.
"Yes, exercising."
"What for?" Cold sarcasm now took the place of surpise.
"To keep warm."
"Look here, Parsons!" exclaimed the instructor. "You may think this is a joke, but"
"No, sir; It's no joke. I was exercising to keep warm. Arm exercising you know, and my elbow banged your door—I didn't know I was so close."
"I see. Well, are you warm now?"
"Oh, yes, sir." Indeed Tom was in a veritable rosy glow.
"But what was the necessity of getting cold?" went on Mr. Simond, and Tom became aware that others were listening to the talk, for he could hear doors down the hall cautiously opened, and faint snickers of laughter here and there.
Tom was in a quandary. He did not want to tell the real object of coming up stairs as he had, for it would only make trouble for Sid.
And yet if he kept silent he would be put down for having tried to play some prank on his own account. Still if Sid had "gotten away" with whatever he had attempted, and it seemed so, for no sound came from the neighborhood of the room he had entered—in that case Tom could not bring him into the game.
"I guess I've got to take my medicine," thought Tom.
"Well?" demanded Mr. Simond in a cold voice.
"I—I just came up here for a—for a walk, explained Tom. "I—er—I couldn't sleep, and"
"I see. You thought if you came and waked me up that you could sleep; is that it?"
"Oh, not at all, Mr. Simond." He could be funny when he wanted to, thought shivering Tom. "I—er—I was just going back to bed," he explained lamely, for that was true enough.
"Very well, then you'd better go now," concluded Mr. Simond. "And don't knock on any more doors, or I shall have to look further into the matter. Good-night!"
"Good-night!" gasped Tom, surprised to be let off thus easily. "It was all a mistake, I assure you," he added, as he glided away.
"Well, don't repeat the mistake," was the grim injunction of the instructor, as he closed his door, and Tom vowed that he would not—at least that night.
"I'm a chump!" he told himself as he hurried back to his room. "I might better have let Sid grind out his mushy poetry in peace, and gotten my sleep. Now I may be in for a lecture tomorrow."
As he entered the room he saw, grouped in the middle of the apartment, his three chums. The sight of Sid, with Phil and Frank, caused Tom to halt.
"Where in thunder have you been?" demanded Phil. "We were just going to get up a searching party for you."
"That's right," came from Sid. "What do you mean by chasing out at this hour?"
"What do you mean, I guess it is!" exclaimed Tom. "I've been chasing you, Sid."
"Chasing me? What rot is that?"
"It's all right. I woke up when I heard you moving about in here, followed you out to the corridor. You were going to write a poem, you know."
"Say, am I crazy or is he?" demanded Sid, appealing to the others. "Writing poetry?"
"Yes; weren't you?" asked Tom, beginning to think he had more of a mystery on his hands than he had at first suspected.
"Worse and more of it," murmured Frank.
"Do you mean to tell me?" demanded Tom, "that you didn't sneak out of here a while ago, and go to one of the rooms on the next floor?" and he looked defiantly at Sid.
"I certainly won't tell, or admit, anything of the kind, because it isn't so," replied Sid. "Admitting that I had, will you kindly explain how I could be here when you came in; in that case?"
"That's so," admitted Tom, scratching his head in perplexity. "Unless," he added as an afterthought, "unless you came down the back stairs, when I was chinning with Simond."
"Chinning with Simond?" demanded Phil. "Do you mean to say you were caught by him?"
"Yes. I banged on his door."
"Banged on his door?"
"Yes, by accident. You see I was exercising to keep warm."
The three paused and looked at each other. Clearly they did not understand.
"Look here, Tom," began Frank in a gentle, soothing voice. "How long have you been this way? Did it come on suddenly, or are you subject to these fits? Have you seen a doctor? Don't you think we'd better wire your folks? Maybe If you lie down it will wear off. Isn't it sad, and him so young, too!" and he sighed in mock distress.
"Look here, you chump!" cried Tom indignantly. "You think I'm stalling; don't you? But I'm not. Here's how it happened," and he told of the circumstances, and of his suspicions against Sid.
"And while I was waiting for him—as I thought—to come out of that room upstairs," he went on, "I got chilly. So I exercised. My elbow banged on Simond's door, and he opened the oak. Then I had to explain."
"That's a rich one!" declared Phil.
"He must have thought you were crazy!" said Frank.
"Exercising at that hour of the night!" exclaimed Sid. "This is too good to keep!" and he laughed outright.
"Not so loud," cautioned Phil, "or we'll rouse the place. Anything else, Tom?"
"Isn't that enough? But say, Sid, are you sure you weren't out?"
"Of course I am. Ask Phil and Frank. They woke me up in bed."
"That's right!" chorused the two.
"I heard a noise," explained Phil, "and woke up. I was just in time to see you going out of the room, Tom, and"
"That was when I was after Sid," Tom explained.
"You mean you thought it was me," put in Sid.
"Well, have it that way if you like. But if it wasn't you I chased, who was it?" demanded Tom, after the manner of one propounding a difficult riddle.
"That's up to you to find out," spoke the Big Californian. "Are you sure you did see and follow someone, Tom?"
"Of course I am. Do you think I'm crazy?"
"I don't know," was Frank's simple remark.
"There's something wrong," went on Sid, "but we can't get to the bottom of it now. If there was someone in our room we want to know it."
"Well, there was," declared Tom, positively, "I know it!"
"Anyhow, I saw you going out," resumed Phil. "I wondered what was up, but I thought maybe you felt sick, and was going to the medicine cabinet at the end of the corridor. So I went back to bed, and when you didn't return in ten minutes I roused Sid and Frank."
"And you found Sid in bed?" demanded Tom.
"Sleeping like a babe—the result of an innocent conscience. Was it not?" asked Sid, with an air of virtue.
"Yes, little one," came from Phil, with a bow.
"Then we all speculated on what could be the matter with you," added Frank.
"And we were about to organize a relief expedition, with six months' supply of rations, and start out," was Sid's contribution.
"When in you came prancing as though you had been out for a constitutional," concluded Phil.
"Telling us that you had been exercising," commented Sid, sarcastically. "Talk about following me in a suspicious manner, I rather think the dancing slipper is on the other boot, my friend."
"Well, this gets me!" confessed Tom, blankly.
"Then it's the second time you've been gotten at this night," declared Frank. "For Simond had you first."
"Oh, he was decent about it," Tom said. "I don't believe anything will come of It. I'm going to get to bed. It's as cold as Greenland here," and he made a dive for his room.
"What time is it, anyhow?" asked Sid with a yawn. "Did we take the toothpick out of the alarm clock, I wonder?"
The three of them glanced toward the table where the timepiece was wont to tick. It was the cutsom to wind and set it before going to bed, the last one to retire being charged with the duty of removing the toothpick, which was used to silence the ticking that annoyed the chums when they were studying.
"Why—why—it's gone—gone!" gasped Tom, halting on his way to his room.
"That's right!" chorused the others.
"Tom Parsons, is this your joke?" demanded Sid, sternly.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean did you take that clock away for a joke, and then, when you got caught, made up that fake story about chasing me?"
"I—did—not!" exclaimed Tom in such a manner that they could not help believing him.
"Then where is it?" demanded Frank. There was silence for several seconds, while the white-clad figures regarded one another. Then Tom burst out with:
"I have it!"
"I thought you did," said Sid significantly.
"No, you gump! I mean I have the solution. It was that chap who was in here, and whom I took for you, Sid. He has our clock. I'll get it back!"
Tom was about to rush out into the corridor, when Frank laid a restraining hand on his sholder.
"Hold on, son," he began mildly. "There's been enough running around for one night. It won't be healthy, for one thing, to do any more, for it is beastly cold. And, for another, there is no use in running our heads into a noose. Simond was decent, you say, Tom, and there's no sense in putting it on him—rubbing it in, so to speak. We'll just lay low until morning and then we'll get our clock. You say you know where it is?"
"Well, I saw the fellow that was in here enter some room on the floor above. I couldn't pick it out exactly, but I can come pretty near it."
"That'll be all right. Who do you think it was?"
"Dutch Housenlager!" declared Tom.
"He doesn't room up there," retorted Phil.
"Well, he may have slipped in some room up there to throw me off," said Tom.
"More likely it was Jerry Jackson," was Frank's opinion. "He was poking fun at the clock yesterday."
"As long as he doesn't poke anything more than fun at it, all right," said Phil. "We're the only ones licensed to use toothpicks and battle-axes on it."
"Poor old clock," sighed Sid. "It does get abused, but still it is a faithful friend. Remember the time that duffer—what was his name—took out some of the wheels to make some machine he was crazy over? Remember that?"
"I should say so!" exclaimed Tom. "But this chap wasn't satisfied with a single wheel—he wanted the whole works. I wonder who it could be?"
"I shouldn't wonder but what the Snail had a hand in this," opined Phil. "He's so fond of roaming about nights."
"He stays over in the North dormitory now," declared Frank. "Besides, he wouldn't get in here at this hour of the morning—at least I think It must be near morning. The doors are locked after hours, you know. No, it was someone from here all right, who took that clock."
"And the nerve of 'em!" exclaimed Phil.
"And to think Tom took that lad—whoever he was—for me," put in Sid. "Did he really look like me?"
"He sure did."
"Maybe it was Bean Perkins," suggested Frank.
"No, Bean wouldn't do a trick like that. He couldn't keep quiet enough," declared Tom. "He'd want to give a class yell or sing a song in the middle of it, and that would give it away. Say, but I have a scheme though."
"Out with it, and then let's get to bed," yawned Frank.
"We won't say anything about this," spoke Tom, "and"
"Not say anything about it!" cried Sid. "Well, I guess we will! Think we're going to let our clock disappear, and keep mum over it? I guess not!"
"I didn't mean that," explained Tom. "I meant that we'd not come out boldly, and admit that we didn't know enough to keep our clock from being taken. But to-morrow—at chapel—or whenever we can, we'll just sneak up back of Dutch, the Jersey twins, or whoever else we suspect, and say 'clock' to them. That will make the guilty one start, and we'll have our man."
"I see—a sort of detective stunt," remarked Frank.
"Sort of," admitted Tom.
"How would it do to make a noise like a tick," suggested Phil.
"Say, I'm not joking," exclaimed Tom.
"Neither am I," asserted Phil. "But let's be real mysterious about it, and we'll get the guilty one so much more easily."
"Oh, don't be silly!" snapped Tom, who, truth to tell, was getting a bit short-tempered.
"I'm not!"
"Yes, you are!"
"Say, let's all get back to bed, and fight this out in the morning," suggested Frank, and they took his advice, though it was but a troubled sleep that any of the four got the rest of that night.
Talking it over by daylight they decided that Tom's plan might not be so bad. Accordingly, they put it into practice.
"Clock!" suddenly exclaimed Sid, as he slid up behind Dutch Housenlager after chapel. "Tick-tock!"
"Tag. You're it!" quickly responded Dutch, "What's the signal?"
"You're not guilty, I see," spoke Sid, with a sigh.
"Of course not. What's the answer?"
"Someone took our clock last night."
"Oh, that battered chronometer? Say, do you know what I thought?"
"Couldn't guess it."
"That you were trying to initiate me into a new secret society, and that you were practicing the password—tick-tock!"
"Nothing doing. Say, Dutch, if you hear of anyone who has it, tip me off, will you?"
"I sure will," and then, to show how much in earnest he was, Dutch tripped Sid up and deposited him on the grass of the campus.
Nor was Tom, or his other two chums any more successful. Each time they tried the surprise plan on any suspect they received an answer that told they were on the wrong track.
And then, most unexpectedly, the clock came back, as it had done once before. Wallops, the messenger, brought it.
"I found it down in the furnace room," he explained. "It was on top of one of the boilers."
"Well, for the love of tripe!" cried Tom. "How in the world did it get there?"
"Our unknown visitor put it there," declared Frank. "Maybe he thought we were on his track, and he took this method of getting rid of the damaging evidence."
And they had to let it go at that—at least for the time being, for all their inquiries came to naught.
"Everyone who wants to try for the varsity eight come down to the river this afternoon," was the notice Captain Simpson posted on the bulletin board the next day. He and the coach had had a conference, and it was decided to try and definitely settle on the crew for the first boat. Then the second choice could be made, and some practice races arranged.
In order to be absolutely fair, Mr. Lighton and Mr. Pierson shifted about those who had been rowing together. I mean Tom and the seven lads with whom he was more closely associated than with any others—Sid, Phil, Bricktop Molloy, Frank, Holly Cross, Dutch, and Kindlings. Jerry was kept as coxswain in the new boat, but Tom, Phil, Holly and Dutch were sent out in the old one, with Bean Perkins for steersman, while four lads who had not been given much practice were imported into the new shell with Frank, Sid, Kindlings and Bricktop Molloy.
"Now, boys, see what you can do!" urged the coach.
It was the first time the new shell had been tried, and it was found fully up to expectations. But it was a little differently made from the old one, and this made the lads a bit awkward in it. However, they rowed fairly well, though in a short trial race the old shell came out ahead.
"We'll do some more shifting," decided Mr. Lighton, and he and Mr. Pierson tried different combinations, but still separating the eight lads who had rowed together from the start.
This was kept up for some days, the lads all, meanwhile, being on training. But when a week had passed, and the old and new boats had seasawed back and forth, first one winning and then the other, Mr. Lighton shook his head in doubt.
"Something is wrong," he said. "We'll never be able to pick a varsity crew of either of them. We need a consistent winner."
"That is right," agreed Mr. Pierson. "Why not try the same eight you had at first—the four lads whom I coached this Summer, and their four intimate friends? I fancy they would do better together in the new boat."
"We'll try it," assented the coach.
The result was an improvement at once. Even with the awkwardness of the new shell as a handicap, Tom and his seven friends at once opened water between their craft and the other one. And it was not surprising when you consider that they had had considerable practice together, and had played baseball and football through several college seasons.
"I think that's the varsity crew all right," declared Mr. Pierson, after watching the test.
"I agree with you—unless something unforseen occurs," said Mr. Lighton. "Now we must give some attention to the others in the fours, singles and doubles."
Practice in these craft had been going steadily on, and in time the crews that were to try to make Randall the champion were picked, subject, of course, to change, a number of substitutes being arranged for.
Word came that the Boxer Hall and Fairvlew varsity crews in the different shells were doing hard work. They had the advantage of not having to pick new and somewhat green crews. But the spirit of Randall was not affected by this.
"Now, boys!" exclaimed Mr. Lighton one afternoon, when the two eights had gone out for a practice race. "I want you to do your best. Row hard! Try to imagine you're in a race. Row hard, everybody!"
"There may be a race if those fellows will consent to a brush with us," said Bricktop to Frank, as he looked down the river and saw the Boxer Hall eight approaching. "I wonder if we can chance it—to see which of our boats would win."
"I guess so," assented Frank.
"Silence in the boat!" cried Coxswain Jackson. "Save your breath to row with!"
"Sure he's getting to be a regular fussing martinet!" declared Bricktop, with a smile.
"Silence in the boat!" commanded Jerry again, and he meant it. Meanwhile the Boxer Hall eight came sweeping on. Would she give Randall an impromptu race?