THE FINISH OF A RACE.
So it was; certain of the cadets, being piqued at the evident
superiority which that B. J. Mallory (his usual title by this time) had
displayed in the water, had requested their captain to take him down.
The "captain" had good-naturedly declared that he was willing to try;
and the shout that attracted Bull's attention was caused by the plebe's
ready assent to the proposition for an impromptu race.
"Fischer ought to be ashamed of himself, to have anything to do with
him!" was Bull Harris' angry verdict. "I almost hope the plebe beats
him."
"I don't!" vowed Murray, emphatically. "Let's hurry up, and see it."
The latter speaker suited the action to the word; Bull followed,
growling surlily.
"Look at that gang of plebes!" he muttered. "They're the ones who helped
Mallory take away the fellow we were hazing; they think they're right in
it, now."
"Yes," chimed in Baby. "And see that fellow, Texas, making a fool of
himself."
"That fellow Texas" was "making a fool of himself" by dancing about in
wild excitement, and raising a series of cowboy whoops in behalf of his
friend, and of plebes in general.
"There they are, ready to go!" cried Murray, betraying some excitement.
"I wish the confounded plebe'd never come up again!" growled Bull, in
return, striving hard to appear indifferent.
"I bet Fischer'll do him!" exclaimed the Baby. "He swims like a fish.
Say, they're going to race to that tree way down the river. Golly, but
that's a long swim!"
"Long nothing!" sneered Vance. "I could swim that a dozen times. But,
say, they'll finish in the rain; look at that thunderstorm coming!"
In response to this last remark, the crowd cast their eyes in the
direction indicated. They found that the prediction seemed likely to be
fulfilled. To the north, up the Hudson, dense, black clouds already
obscured the sky, and a strong, fresh breeze, that smelled of rain, was
springing up from thence, and making the swimmers shiver apprehensively.
The preparation for the race went on, however; nobody cared for the
storm.
"Gee whiz!" cried the Baby, in excitement. "Won't it be exciting! I
don't mind the rain. I'm going to run down along the shore, and watch
it! Hooray!"
"Rats!" growled Bull, angrily. "I don't care about any old race. I'm
going to keep dry, let me tell you!"
Even the damper of his idol's displeasure could not change Master
Edwards' mind, however; he and nearly the whole crowd with him made a
dash down the shore for a vantage point to see the finish.
"There! They're off!"
The cry came a moment later, as the two lightly-clad figures stepped to
the mark from which they were to start.
They were about of one size, magnificently proportioned, both of them,
and the race bid fair to be a close one.
"Ready?" called the starter, in a voice that rang down the shore.
"Yes," responded Mark, and at the same moment a heavy cloud swept under
the sun, and the air grew dark and chilly. The wind increased to a
gale, blowing the spray before it; and then----
"Go!" called the starter.
The two dived as one figure; both took the water clean and low, with no
perceptible splash; two heads appeared a moment later, forging ahead
side by side; a cheer from the cadets arose, that drowned, for a moment,
the roars of the storm; and the race was on.
It is remarkable how closely nature follows a rule in her most perfect
work; here were two figures, built by her a thousand miles apart, racing
there, and each striving with might and main, yet the sum total of the
energy that each was able to expend so nearly alike that yard by yard
they struggled on, without an inch of difference between them.
"Fischer! Fischer!" rose the shouts of the cadets.
"Mallory! Mallory!" roared the excited plebes, backed up by an
occasional "Wow!" in the stentorian tones of the mighty Texan, who, by
this time, was on the verge of epilepsy.
Onward went the two heads, still side by side, seeming to creep through
the water at a snail's pace to the excited partisans on the shore. But
it was no snail's pace to the two in the water; each was struggling in
grim earnestness, putting into every stroke all the power that was in
him. Neither looked at the other; but each could tell, from the cries of
the cadets, that his opponent was pressing him closely.
Nearer and nearer they came to the far distant goal; higher and higher
rose the shouts:
"Fischer! Fischer!" "Mallory! Mallory!" "He's got him!" "No." "Hooray!"
"Gee! but it is exciting," screamed Baby. "Go it, Fischer! Do him!"
"And I wish that confounded 'beast' was in Hades!" snarled Bull, whose
hatred of Mark was deeper, and more malignant than that of his friend.
"I believe I could kill him!"
During all this excitement the storm had been sweeping rapidly up, its
majesty unnoticed in the excitement of the race. Far up the Hudson could
be seen a driving cloud of rain; and the wind had risen to a hurricane,
while the air grew dark and chill.
The race was at its most exciting stage--the finish, and the cadets were
dancing about, half in a frenzy, yelling incoherently, at the two still
struggling lads, when some one, nobody knew just who, chanced to glance
for one brief instant up the river. A moment later a cry was heard that
brought the race to a startling and unexpected close.
"Look! look! The sailboat!"
The cry sounded even above the roar of the storm and the shouts of the
crowd. The cadets turned in alarm and gazed up the river. What they saw
made them forget that such a thing as a race ever existed.
Right in the teeth of the wind, in the center of the river, was a small
catboat, driven downstream, before the gale, with the speed of a
locomotive. In the boat was one person, and the person was a girl. She
sat in the stern, waving her hands in helpless terror, and even as the
spectators stared, the boat gibed with terrific violence, and a volume
of water poured in over the gunwale.
The crowd was thrown into confusion; a babel of excited voices arose,
and the race was forgotten in an instant.
The racers were not slow to notice it; both of them turned to gaze
behind them, and to take in the situation.
"Help! Help!" called a faint voice from the distant sailboat.
Help! Who was there to help? There was not a boat in sight; the cadets
were running up and down in confusion, hunting for one in vain. They
were like a nest of frightened ants, without a leader, skurrying this
way and that, and only contributing to the general alarm. The girl
herself could do nothing, and so it seemed as if help were far away,
indeed.
There was one person in the crowd, however, who kept his head in the
midst of all that confusion. And the person was Mark. Exhausted though
he was by his desperate swim, he did not hesitate an instant. Before the
amazed cadet captain at his side could half comprehend his intention, he
turned quickly in the water, and, with one powerful stroke, shot away
toward the center of the stream.
The cadets on the shore scarcely knew whether to cry out in horror, or
to cheer the act they saw. They caught one more glimpse of the catboat
as it raced ahead before the gale; they saw the gallant plebe struggling
in the water.
And then the storm struck them in its fury. A blinding sheet of driving
rain, that darkened the air and drove against the river, and rose again
in clouds of spray; a gale that lashed the water into fury; and darkness
that shut out the river, and the boat, and the swimmer, and left nothing
but a humbled group of shivering cadets.