Front matter (continued 4)

Kingdon and Midkiff knew what was wrong with the rowing of the crew. Pence set a long, sweeping stroke that was easy for Rex, Midkiff and Phillips to maintain; but at times the shorter-armed Pudge, and even Kirby, clashed oars with the rower before or behind them. Often their spurts, timed by the caustic Hicks, with a watch strapped to his wrist, were spoiled by these fouls.

"Oh, get together! Get together!" the coxswain would implore. "Keep stroke! For the love of harmony, keep stroke!"

The little chap had a megaphone strapped to his face, and he could have been heard, when he was really excited, half across the sound to Manatee Head.

It was expected that Cloudman, who was the greenest of them all, would fail; but the cowboy had taken hold of the work grandly, and, being long-armed and lanky, the stroke Horace Pence set suited him very well.

The first week of August came on, bringing the day selected for the trial match between the Storm Island eight and the Blackport crew. It was a beautiful, calm, hazy day, and the conditions for the race could scarcely have been better.

The Storm Island campers expected to see the Nothing To It sail out to the island, with the shell in tow. Instead, before noon they saw a squadron of sail beating out of the channel in the light wind, followed by the steam-yacht of the Boat Club's commodore, with the boys' shell on deck.

"My aunt!" cried Little Hicks when it was realized that the entire flotilla was coming up the sound. "They're going to make a fine show of us."

"Slaughtering the innocents to make a Blackport holiday," murmured Rex. "Yansey is evidently confident that there's going to be 'Nothing to it!'"

CHAPTER XXXI.

HORACE SHOWS THE RIGHT SPIRIT.

The Blackporters rowed the Storm Island crew a guessed two miles, and beat the latter so badly that the race was somewhat farcical in its last stages.

"We'd better have stood on the bank and watched them pull past us," complained Peewee. "We'd been saved a lot of hard work and worry."

Yansey and his crew had their beaten rivals over on the commodore's yacht to a great spread. It was really very jolly, and the winning crew was no more patronizing than they could help being. Yet when the squadron of the Blackport Boat Club got under way at seven o'clock, it left behind on Storm Island nine of the sorest youths that ever camped out on the Maine coast.

"You fellers couldn't even wheel a baby carriage," charged little Hicks. "And you said you could row!"

"You didn't have to row," flung back Ben Comas. "All you've had to do was shoot off your face."

"We tried hard enough," sighed Pudge.

"Can't blame you, Horrors," Kirby declared.

"I dunno as I want to learn to row," Cloudman remarked.

"If we'd had any sort of training!" Midkiff gloomily grumbled.

"Cheer up, fellows," was Kingdon's laughing adjurement. "The worst is yet to come."

"No it isn't!" exclaimed Horace Pence with angry decision.

"Yes it is," insisted Rex quietly. "We've agreed to enter those races three weeks from to-day. We'll have to meet the Blackport, North Pemberly and Howelson crews. We've agreed to. Don't want 'em to call us quitters, do we?"

"Of course we'll race," said Phillips, his jaw set doggedly.

"It isn't that at all," Pence went on, his black eyes flashing and his dark cheeks flushed. "It isn't that. We'll race, but we're going to do better than we did to-day!"

"I sure do like the sound of your talk just about now," Cloudman drawled. "Seems like you meant it. I'm with you."

"Same here!" cried several of the others.

"What's the use?" demanded Ben Comas. "We won't have a show."

"Of course we can't get the best of those fellows, for they're professionals," Pudge groaned.

"Do you really mean to try it again, Horrors?" murmured Kirby.

The black-eyed fellow had waited impatiently for them to subside. Now he stopped Kirby's further speech with a gesture, exclaiming: "That's enough! I don't want to be jollied. I know I'm the failure, not you fellows."

"My jinks!" squawked Hicks. "You pull the best oar in the boat—bar Kingdon."

"Thanks. You're the cox and you should be able to judge some. Don't matter how good an oar I pull. I can't make the rest of you pull your best, so—I'm a failure."

"As stroke?" grunted Red.

"Exactly," confessed Pence, and none of them—not even Kingdon—knew how it hurt him to make the admission. "I see now that you can't train all crews alike. I've been copying Belding methods."

"Good methods under conditions," murmured Kingdon.

"But they don't fit here," the other said shortly. "There's just as good rowing material in this crew as there was in the freshman eight I was on, and they could have rowed all around us without half trying. I'm a failure as stroke and coach. There's a screw loose somewhere. Just the same I believe we can do a lot better in the big race that is coming off this month."

"What makes you so sure?" growled Ben Comas.

"Because we can all pull a good oar, singly—even Pudge," Pence said. "Cloudman has improved wonderfully. But it needs something besides pulling to win a race. Just what it is, I don't know; but I bet Kingdon knows—or can find out."

"Oh, fudge!" muttered Ben. "Kingdon knows everything!"

"I reckon so," Pence said quickly, with uplifted lip, as he eyed the glum Comas. "Go off somewhere and growl it off alone, Bennie. What does it matter who's captain, if we can only win the race?"

"That's your idea, is it?" Kirby said.

"Look here, Horrors," Kingdon questioned uncertainly, "do you mean you want me——"

"You're the chap to boss the boat," cut in Pence. "You're the fellow to pull stroke."

There was a moment of breathless silence. To the surprise of the Walcott Hall boys, none of the others made either complaint or objection.

"If you say so——" began Rex slowly.

"I've said it," Pence rejoined.

"Anybody object?" questioned Kingdon.

After another period of silence, Phillips chuckled: "It seems to be unanimous. You're elected, King."

"Go to it, Rex," Pence said with heartiness.

"I shall coach this crew my own way, and to the best of my ability," said Rex earnestly. "I may not do a bit better than Horace, but I have a system I want to try. If you back me up——"

"Look there!" cried Hicks suddenly, pointing. "What's that fellow doing over on our boat?"

Kingdon took one look and started off on a fast run along the steep shore.

"It's Joe Bootleg," gasped Pudge. "He's coming ashore from the Spoondrift."

"He's running!" exclaimed Hicks. "He's been up to something."

All had started after Rex, but Harry Kirby was in the lead. "Hey, Kingdon!" he shouted. "Have a care! Look out! He's got it in for you!"

Joe Bootleg had already disappeared along the beach beyond the camp of the Walcott Hall boys.

As Kirby overtook Kingdon, the latter, still running, gave Harry a glance. "What's he been doing aboard that boat?"

"I don't know. Perhaps he fixed it to blow up your gasoline tank?"

"She'd have gone up by this," Kingdon returned as he splashed into the water and clambered over the rail of the moored catboat.

She seemed very easy to climb into, for her rail was as low as though she was heavily laden.

"The rascal!" shouted Rex when he was aboard. He had splashed into a foot of water in the cockpit, and the cabin was all afloat.

"What's he done? What's he done?" clamored the excited crowd from the shore.

"He's pulled the plug, or scuttled her," answered Rex savagely. "Come aboard, John. We'll have to find the hole and stop the leak in a hurry, or she'll rest her old keel on the bottom in short order. If she sinks we'll have a fine time getting her afloat again."

"If we can't help you, we'll go after that crazy chap," Pence shouted. "Come on, Kirby!"

They did not catch Joe Bootleg. The Indian had taken one of the canoes and hidden it farther along the shore of the island. This action had been overlooked by the campers because of the confusion attending the boat race. Joe was far out on the sound, and paddling for Manatee Head in the dusk, when the pursuers caught sight of him.

CHAPTER XXXII.

IN FORM AT LAST.

Kingdon and Midkiff finally found the four holes bored in the bottom of the catboat by the Indian youth. They were able to caulk them well enough so that little more water could seep in.

In the morning Pence sent Kirby and Pudge to Blackport in the remaining canoe, and they brought back a pump, with which the Spoondrift was soon made free of water. In Blackport they learned where Joe Bootleg had abandoned the canoe he had stolen. The Indian had shipped for a summer cruise to the Banks, and he had left the canoe beached under Manatee Head, with a hole in her bottom. Later the canoe was recovered and repaired.

"Good riddance," Ben Comas said. "I didn't mind paying him his wages, but I'd rather do some of his work myself than have him around."

"You're not alone in that feeling, Bennie," drawled Horace, turning away to intercept Kingdon. "Well," he said to the Walcott Hall youth, "I guess I've got the right dope at last."

"About what?"

"That rolling stone that gathered no moss."

"Sayst thou so?" exclaimed Rex. "Prithee, go on, fair sir; tell me it."

"Kirby told me last night. He was a little afraid of the Indian. You couldn't blame him."

"A bad actor, sure," Rex agreed.

"Joe threatened him. The fellow carried a knife. It seems Joe stole away from the canoe that night just as soon as he thought Kirby was asleep; the night the rock fell, you know."

"Go on."

"But Harry wasn't asleep. He timed the fellow, and Joe was gone two hours. When he came back, Harry asked him if he'd been over here to our camp, and the Indian flew into a rage."

"I see."

"Told him if he said a word about it, or even about having been on the island that night, he'd fix him. Nice sort of a bird!"

"Kirby should have told us."

"So I said. But it's done now. There's one thing I haven't told you, Rex."

"What's that?"

"The Indian got back to the canoe long before midnight, and did not leave the spot again, Harry says, till morning. He is sure of this. Four or five hours elapsed, then, before the rock slid down on you fellows. How do you account for that?"

Kingdon slapped Pence on the shoulder. "Plain as a pikestaff! Bootleg tried to pry the rock loose, and failed. He meant to squash our tent flat. He cut the lever and dug the hole under the rock. Then he set the stone for a fulcrum. But he couldn't budge the bowlder. Not even that night when he came over here from Clay Head."

"Then what——?"

"The rain did it. The rain, feeding into that hole, worked all around the bowlder and, 'long toward morning, away she went."

"Lucky you had that hunch to move," said Horace.

"More than luck," Kingdon said gravely. But he made no further explanation.

That day there was no rowing practice, so Kingdon's idea was not divulged until the day following. The only change in the arrangement of the positions of the crew he made at first was to have Pence and Pudge MacComber shift places.

"Oh, cracky!" Kirby muttered to the black-eyed chap. "What a chance! Pudge for stroke!"

Kingdon had no idea of keeping Pudge there permanently. He wanted the fat boy, who was not so ponderously slow now, exercise having reduced his corpulency to a marked degree, where he could watch his stroke. After a time, Kingdon sent him back to his former position and brought Pence forward to his own place at Number Seven, taking the stroke-oar himself.

"Now, fellows, I'll give you my idea," Kingdon said. "Length of stroke doesn't always make for power. The longer the stroke, the longer the recovery. For eight men to row successfully in unison, they should use a stroke that is well within the power of the one of the eight who naturally takes the shortest stroke."

"Pudge!" cried several.

"And that weakens the whole bunch," muttered Kirby, still in doubt.

"I get your point," said Horace Pence. "It's the idea of the chain being only as strong as its weakest link."

"Exactly. Gradually the weakest link must be strengthened."

"You're right," the black-eyed fellow said. "Pay attention, everybody. We've got a skipper who uses his head, and he's got a head to use!"

So they started rowing practice on a much different line for the three final weeks before the big race. Horace Pence's friends were not very enthusiastic at first, having been so badly beaten by the Blackport crew that hope had deserted them.

But something happened to revive their spirits and make them all feel good. They went over to Blackport on Saturday afternoon, and beat Yansey's nine 12 to 4. Cloudman pitched five innings, and did well. Then Horace pitched the last of the game, and Rex allowed him to display his speedy ball to his heart's content.

"There's nothing to it! There's nothing to it!" sang Peewee Hicks, as the Spoondrift sailed out through Blackport Channel that evening. "We're going to walk off with the shell race, just as we did with these chaps who thought they could play ball. There's nothing to it!"

"We're merely beginning to get into form at last, chums," said Rex, his words and his glance including them all.

Kirby whispered to Pence: "Never thought it would make me feel good to have him call me chum."

"It makes me feel proud," Horace whispered back.

It was a well contented party that landed on Storm Island that evening. The two crowds of young fellows were becoming more friendly than even Rex had foreseen. The next day Pence and his mates struck their tents and brought them over to the plateau above the cove where the catboat and shell lay. They combined forces to save work and get more time for practice.

Pudge, his cousin and Kirby, as well as Pence, began to enjoy themselves much better, now that they had an object before them and more work to do. There was less grumbling and scrapping among themselves, and a huge lot of fun with the Walcott Hall fellows.

Kingdon worked them hard, no doubt of that. He whipped them along at both rowing and baseball. During the last week of the former practice, however, he let up a little so that, when the great day came, the Storm Island eight went into the big race as fresh and cheerful as though they had every surety of winning.

To the amazement of their rivals, they did win. It could not be said that Rex Kingdon was the sole cause of their doing so. Every fellow in the boat felt that the fact was somewhat due to his own personal work. But Kingdon had trained them to pull together like a machine, and had developed a stroke that gave speed enough to enable them to beat the Blackport crew by a length.

The other two boats were a long way behind when Storm Island crossed the finishing line. Manatee Sound looked like a yacht-racing day at Newport, only on a smaller scale. Boats of all kinds and descriptions for miles up and down the coast, had come to see the regatta.

"Jawn," Rex Kingdon told Midkiff, as they rested after the race, "we'll never have better fun than we did to-day—not even at the old Hall." Which goes to show that even the self-confident Kingdon could be mistaken, as the reader will agree if he reads the subsequent volume of this series, entitled "Rex Kingdon and His Chums."

"We certainly pulled down the little old cup in this boat race," Midkiff chuckled happily. "That was a prize worth winning."

Rex rolled over and seized Midkiff's arm in a tight grip. His eyes were laughing, but his lips were serious as he said:

"We've gathered another prize, a bigger one, Jawn."

"Huh?" asked Midkiff, puzzled.

"Horace Pence is going to Walcott Hall with us next term. I've got his promise. I've written the Doctor about him. He'll enter with some conditions, of course, but he is going to help Walcott Hall win baseball games. He is the prize I was after."

THE END