*CHAPTER XXV.*
*THE EIGHT-OARED SHELL.*
The sun broke gloriously through the clouds, and it became a lovely
morning. The Walcott Hall boys began finally to feel more cheerful.
They spread out their belongings to dry in the sun, and Peewee actually
took spade and pick and went to work on the shallow trench and drains
that should surround every tent, no matter how good the natural drainage
is.
While he was sweating and grunting over his work, he looked off on the
water, and promptly called:
"See the ca-noe! Do you see the ca-noe? What is the ca-noe doing?"
"That Indian and Kirby are just getting back from Blackport," said
Phillips, after glancing in the same direction.
"They must have started mighty early," Midkiff said. "They've had to
beat up the sound against a stiff breeze."
Kingdon said nothing, but he watched the two in the canoe make a
landing. The light craft was heavily laden. He was quite sure it had
made no quick passage from Blackport Channel; and at sunrise the weather
had not cleared.
With an idea in his head that he did not mention to the others, Kingdon
wandered away by himself for a tramp along shore, strolling westerly.
His chums had expressed their wonderment regarding the rolling of the
bowlder, all through breakfast and afterward; but they suspected
nothing. They were quite satisfied that it had been set in motion by
the heavy rain.
Storm Island was several miles long, and it was no inconsiderable walk
to the western point of it. As he came within half a mile or so of the
high clay bank under which he believed he had seen the small boat take
shelter the previous afternoon, he looked sharply as he went along for
signs of a landing on the beach.
He found the place for which he was searching. The canoe had been lifted
out and carried into a narrow, sandy and well-drained gulley. It had
been overturned, and its cargo sheltered beneath it. The marks of two
human beings who had crouched under the overturned boat were likewise
plainly visible.
Presently he went back to his friends, and found that the boys from the
other camp, with the exception of the Indian, had come to see what the
bowlder and debris on the plateau meant. They had spied the heap soon
after the canoe arrived. Horace, of course, was reserved in his
observations, as usual. Ben Comas was silent. Pudge was openly
congratulatory that nobody was hurt. Kirby did the most talking.
"Wonder our fellows here didn't hear it," he remarked.
"It ought to have been heard in Blackport," Kingdon said grimly.
"You chaps must have slept like the dead, over there at the camp," said
Kirby. "I'm sure I should have heard it if I'd been there."
"Perhaps I did hear it," drawled Pence, "but thought it was only Pudge
snoring."
Kingdon continued cheerful and talkative while the visitors remained.
He did not appear to, but he made friendly advances to Kirby.
"You had a bad night, didn't you?" he questioned. "I guess I saw you and
Bootleg making the Clay Head just before the storm burst."
"Wha-at?" cried Kirby. "We didn't either! We stayed at Blackport all
night."
"Where'd you stay?" Kingdon asked curiously, with raised eyebrows.
"On--on the wharf. A feller let us sleep on some bags in a fish-shed.
If you saw anybody land here last evening, it wasn't us."
He was so voluble and eager to deny it that he attracted Horace's
attention. "What's the matter with you, Harry?" the black-eyed fellow
drawled. "Having a fit? I heard you say you slept in the fish-house,
which is believable; for both you and Joe Bootleg seem to carry a rather
fishy odor about you this morning. It wouldn't have been a crime if you
_had_ reached the Clay Head last night, and were afraid to sail the rest
of the way up here." He laughed his unflattering laugh.
Kingdon wondered. He had left the rusted hatchet he had found in the
woods stuck in a rotting log in plain view. Pudge came across it.
"My goodness!" said the fat boy, growing red in the face. "I feared
that had been lost. Do you know, Hicks, I don't remember bringing that
hatchet back after I borrowed it. We found ours the next day."
"Don't ask _me_," Peewee said carelessly. "I don't know a thing about
it."
"I found it," Kingdon put in quietly, watching Pudge now.
"Did you?" asked the plump lad. "Where?"
"Where it was lost," returned the other laughing. "Don't need to worry
about it. But you fellows don't want to cut green wood on the island.
If one of the Manatee wardens should come over here and find out that
you had----"
"Why, I never!" declared Pudge.
Again Horace intervened. "What's all the row?" he queried, strolling up
to the group at the log.
"I found a good sized stick cut, up there in the woods," Kingdon told
him. "This hatchet that Pudge borrowed of us lay beside the raw stump.
That'll never do, you know--cutting well grown saplings is a crime in
the eyes of the lumber company."
"You never said a word about it before, King," Hicks observed. "Thought
we all understood there was to be no green wood cut."
"We do," Horace said, his eyes narrowing.
"I never did it!" Pudge exclaimed again.
"I'll ask Joe. He's the only one that's likely to have used the
hatchet," Horace said grimly. "You know how these Indians look at
things, Kingdon. To such fellows a rule is only made to break."
"I wonder," thought Kingdon, "if that isn't pretty nearly the attitude
of everybody else?"
To tell the truth, he was puzzled. Joe Bootleg, Kirby, Pudge, even
Horace Pence himself, was under suspicion in Rex's mind. As for Ben
Comas, sour as the chap appeared, somehow Kingdon did not consider him
in any way connected with the affairs of the sapling-lever or the
bowlder that had rolled down the hill.
It was much too wet that day to get in any baseball practice, but the
following afternoon the two parties of campers met on the field. Pence
and his followers seemed rather more friendly than before. The two
parties of boys mingled and spent an hour in a lively scrub game.
Kingdon learned on this occasion that Horace was something of a batter.
"Over the fence and out, boy," the backstop said, grinning at Pence
cheerfully. "Some wallop that. We've a real field at the Hall, and
that fly would have gone pretty near to the lake. Old Jerry Lane never
did better when he got a real clout at the sphere, eh, Red?"
"Lane couldn't do as well," Phillips agreed, with honesty, though still
rather niggardly of praise regarding any of Horace Pence's achievements.
"Lane was our 'baby grand,'" laughed Kingdon. "He was some large person.
Only trouble with Jerry was, his wits were in his feet and his feet were
awfully slow. He ran bases like cold molasses. I bet Pudge could beat
him. Made a fair football center, though."
"You fellows at Walcott Hall go in for almost every kind of sport there
is, I guess," observed Horace, almost as though he were interested.
"From tiddledywinks to button-button," Kingdon chuckled. "You should
see our gym. There's few prep. schools can beat it, and some of the
colleges have to lift their bonnets to Walcott Hall. Old Til loves clean
sport himself, and some of the teachers aren't bad at tennis, golf,
tatting, embroidery--even football. We've got a prof. of math, who is a
regular shark at baseball. Used to coach for some southern college, I
believe. Cloud can tell you. Cloud's known Yadkin since he was in
pinafores. Cloud, I mean."
"Look here," drawled Horace Pence, his black eyes twinkling, "don't you
ever study at that school of yours?"
"Study!" exploded Phillips. "Man, they drive you like a dynamo at that
institute of erudition."
"But the dynamo's hooked up to plenty of fun, too," Kingdon hastened to
say, favoring the clumsy Red with a frown. "Of course, we have to keep
up in the lessons, without too many conditions."
"Textbooks make me sick," yawned Horace. "I could almost like the sport
end of it at Belding; but having to get lessons, and face the sour
visage of an unappreciative faculty--not for me!"
"Why waste your time with that fellow, King?" complained Red, as they
walked down to the camp together. "He's neither fish, fowl, nor good
red herring. Thinks he's too old for school, whereas he doesn't know
any more than little Peewee."
Suddenly they both saw something in the cove below that brought a cry of
surprise to their lips. Along beside the _Spoondrift_ another craft was
just drifting in, its snowy sail rumpled on the deck.
"Pirates!" shouted Red to the boys behind them.
"That's the _Nothing To It_," Kingdon added, striking into a trot.
The five Walcott Hall youths came scampering down to the shore just as
Yansey and his friends carried a line aboard the _Spoondrift_. The
Blackport boys hailed the campers vociferously.
"Where's the rest of your band, Kingdon?" Yansey asked, after the
greetings were over. "I see you've got two camps. We didn't know which
one to anchor off of, but this was nearest."
"The other fellows--Pence and his crowd--like that location best," Rex
returned easily. "We eat in two squads, anyway. By and by we'll all go
over there. I want you to know Horace."
"Another of your Walcott Hall crowd?"
"Er--not yet," Kingdon admitted with a quiet smile.
The skipper of the _Nothing To It_ agreed. "We haven't got to hurry.
There's a moon to-night, and we'll sail home by light of her. We're
allowed to stay out late since we've put on long pants."
Midkiff cooked a chowder. Cloudman fried fish and made biscuit. The
Walcott Hall boys made great inroads on their choicest canned goods
store, to balance the spread the Blackport Boat Club boys had previously
given them.
Kingdon found time to sound Yansey regarding the discarded eight-oared
shell at the boat-builder's.
"No, he hasn't sold it for us yet. Not much chance of that till next
spring when the rowing season opens."
"Give you ten dollars for the use of it this summer," Kingdon offered.
"What for?"
"Well, we don't want to eat it."
"You haven't the men to fill it."
"Yes, I have. Fancy I can lick 'em into shape so as to give you
Blackporters a practice race. I've offered ten dollars,----"
"Ten nothing!" cried the skipper of the _Nothing To It_. "If you really
think you can get up a crew----"
"Wait till you see us cutting circles round you," laughed Kingdon.
"I'll never live long enough to see that," said Yansey. "You can have
the old skiff."
"For ten dollars?"
"For ten kicks! We won't take your money. You look like a square chap
to me, Kingdon. You're welcome to the use of our old boat. Perhaps you
_might_ beat some of the other crews in August."
"We're going to break our backs to beat you Blackport fellows, I warn
you," said Rex seriously.
"I admire your nerve!" chuckled Yansey. "But don't expect me to furnish
liniment for your broken backs."
*CHAPTER XXVI.*
*PENCE DEFENDS KIRBY.*
They went over to the other camp immediately after supper. It was still
twilight, and the other campers saw them coming in good season. But the
only one of Horace Pence's comrades that got away was Joe Bootleg. He
did not linger to meet the fellows from Blackport.
"These are the chaps we can get that shell from, Horace," Kingdon
explained, after the brief introductions. "Fact is, they sort of dare
us to get into it and show 'em how much we don't know about rowing."
"Perhaps we can surprise them by showing what we do know about it,"
laughed Pence.
"No wonder you don't wear hats over here on Storm Island," said Yansey.
"None made big enough for your heads."
"Can that fat chap row?" demanded another of the Blackport boys.
"Course I can," spoke up Pudge resentfully. "I'm not so heavy as I
look." If there was one form of exercise the fat youth did not shy at
it was rowing.
"It's lucky you're not as heavy as you look to be below the ears,"
drawled Yansey. "You'll make ballast, all right. Five and three are
eight, and there's little nubbin for cox. Didn't see him at first."
"I suppose not," sneered Hicks, who nearly always took offense when his
physical proportions came into question. "There's a whole lot of things
you Blackporters have never seen."
"I suppose we'll have our eyes opened when you fellows get to rowing,"
laughed the skipper of the _Nothing To It_.
"Quite likely," Phillips chimed in. "Give us two weeks of good weather
and we'll show you something in the line of rowing that'll make you
blink."
He said this chaffingly, although he was enthused with the spirit of
confidence. Even Midkiff showed interest. Cloudman was the only green
hand. He had never given much thought to any sport but baseball.
Before they returned to the cove where the catboats lay, Kingdon said to
Horace Pence: "Come on over with me in the _Spoondrift_ to-morrow, and
we'll get the shell."
"You mean to try it?"
"Try what?" asked Rex.
"To beat those fellows at their own game. All these long-shore chaps can
row."
"It won't hurt us if they beat us," Kingdon returned. "It'll give us
something to do for excitement, anyhow."
"I don't know that I can get our fellows to agree," Horace said slowly.
It was the first speech Kingdon had ever heard him make that did not
reek of self-confidence.
"You've got influence enough for that," Phillips told him. "Get 'em
interested, and we'll keep 'em interested."
"I'll try," Pence promised.
Pence strolled over to the Walcott Hall camp in the morning, soon after
breakfast, and signified his readiness to sail for Blackport.
When the _Spoondrift_ was out of the cove and headed down the sound
under her engine, the breeze being light, Phillips, the third member of
the party, asked:
"All your fellows like the idea of rowing? How about Comas?"
"Didn't have any trouble with Ben, for a wonder," Pence answered with a
lift of his lip. "Ben kind of likes himself in a boat, anyway. But
Harry----"
"That's Kirby?" Kingdon put in carelessly, as Pence hesitated.
"He's always been a shark on boating," the black-eyed chap stated. "I
fairly had to tease him to agree to this scheme. I don't know what's
got into him. Didn't act like himself at all. Almost as sour as Joe
Bootleg."
Pence said this more as a soliloquy than in open answer to Kingdon's
question. As mentioned before, Horace was no great talker.
When they were moored in the basin off the boat-builder's yard before
noon, Rex and Pence went ashore. The two looked over the Boat Club
boys' abandoned shell, and Kingdon noted with glee that Horace betrayed
interest in, as well as familiarity with, shell construction, which
seemed to prove that he had not been foolishly boasting about his
prowess as an oarsman. The boat was rubbed a good deal, and somewhat
battered; but there was nothing serious the matter with her. When she
was lifted into the water she didn't leak enough to keep her "sweet."
"She's an all-right shell," the master boat-builder said. "Only these
rich young fellers over to the Boat Club wanted something fancier. Yes,
Mr. Yansey was down here this morning, and said I was to let you have
her if you showed up.
"By the way," the man pursued, "you're the party that's camping on Storm
Island this summer? Well, you've got canoes over there, haven't you?
Didn't two of you come over here t'other day?"
Pence was the one to answer in the affirmative this time, and Kingdon
saw that his eyes narrowed and he showed sudden curiosity.
"What of it?" Horace interrogated.
"Nothing," returned the boat-builder, "only I saw that canoe run down to
the channel just before the blow came up, and I was a little worried.
They got to the island all safe?"
"Next morning?" Pence said quickly.
"I mean that night. They ran out through the channel about ha'f after
five."
"They made the island all right," Kingdon coolly interposed, and without
looking at Pence. "They landed at Clay Head, and spent the night there."
Horace was a good actor. He controlled his surprise and postponed his
questions. Kingdon spied a light cedar boat with nice lines, and before
he got through he had made a bargain with the boat-builder to hire that
craft as well.
"We've got to have something to try them out in singly," he explained to
Pence. "Canoes are no good for that. Besides, we fellows have felt the
need of a tender to the _Spoondrift_ ever since we reached the island."
When they got under way again the shell was balanced and lashed across
the deck of the catboat, while the rowboat bobbed behind, in tow. Red
was forward, lying half asleep on the deck, when Horace said in a low
tone to Kingdon:
"You knew all the time that Joe and Kirby stayed at Clay Head that
night?"
Kingdon nodded. "Thought I saw them making a landing just before
sunset. Next morning I went over there and found the place where they
spent the night. They must have had a nice dry time of it in that
howling rainstorm."
"I did not know it," Pence said simply. "I believed what Harry said
about their sleeping in the fish shed."
Kingdon made no rejoinder. After looking at him with apprehensive gaze
for a minute, the black-eyed fellow asked: "What are you going to do
about it?"
"Nothing worth publishing in the newspapers."
"You've got it in your head that they had something to do with shooting
that rock down on you fellows?"
"How does it look to you? Somebody had something to do with it, that's
sure. They tried to do it before the rain. I found the lever, and saw
an attempt had been made to pry loose the bowlder. That's why when I
thought I saw those two landing at Clay Head just before nightfall, I
had the fellows move the tent."
"Rest of your crowd wise to it, too?" Pence asked.
"Guess not. They think I had a hunch. Call me a wizard." Kingdon
chuckled. "I'm not spilling anything to them about it--yet."
"Why not?" Horace's eyes were flashing.
"Because I am not sure who did it--who cut the sapling, dug the hole
under the bowlder, and set the other stone there for a fulcrum," Kingdon
told him calmly.
"But you believe it was Joe and Kirby?"
"One of them--or both."
"Not both."
"You ought to know about that better than I," Kingdon returned
significantly.
"I can't be sure about that Indian," Horace admitted.
"Who ever can be sure about one of those fellows? I have a faint
suspicion he's got it in for me. I punched him hard that first night."
"But why should Harry take up with him?" Pence's tone was savage.
"You should know, if Kirby is so thick with the aborigine. Look as
though they might be brothers in the same boat, belong to the same
lodge, as it were. Kirby may be heap big Injun, too," Kingdon laughed
lightly.
"Oh, he's an Indian all right," gloomily agreed Horace Pence, "but not
Joe Bootleg's kind. I never knew Harry to do a really mean thing. He's
too white a fellow, I believe, to lend himself to a job like that."
Kingdon had it on his tongue to suggest that he did not think Pence the
best judge of what was "white" in a chap's character, but he refrained.
"It seems to me," he stated, "that whoever tried to roll the bowlder the
first time couldn't make it. One chap wasn't heavy enough on the end of
the lever; but two----"
"I won't believe it!" cried Horace suddenly. "I've known Harry Kirby
since he was a little shaver."
"Keep your opinion of him, then, till you find out you're wrong,"
advised Kingdon. "The truth is bound to come to the surface. You can't
keep a cork under water. Murder will out, and that came near being
murder if the rock was actually started by human means. Now, let's talk
about the weather. Do you think it's going to rain or snow?"
His seriousness tossed aside, Rex was his usual sunny, light-hearted
self. But Horace remained grim and thoughtful throughout the return
trip.
*CHAPTER XXVII.*
*VISITORS.*
Unless one or the other of the two camping parties on Storm Island
sailed across to a weir for a mess of fish, they seldom saw a stranger
to speak to. Fishermen and others kept away from the island because of
the well-known rules of the Manatee Lumber Company against trespassing.
Had the two camping parties not become friendly to a degree, neither
would have had so enjoyable an outing. Rex Kingdon, with his
never-failing insight and clever ideas, had brought about a situation
better than an "armed neutrality." The boys of the two camps met on
grounds of common interest at two points, baseball and rowing.
Each forenoon they spent an hour or two practicing on the ball field.
Under Kingdon's coaching they began to work together quite smoothly,
although they lacked a complete nine to play against. But Yansey had
threatened to bring over a nine of Blackport boys who could show them
some "real baseball," and the Storm Island lads were hoping he would not
forget about it.
Towards evening of each day, as it grew cooler, they began practicing in
the eight-oared shell. Meantime Kingdon and Pence were getting the
fellows singly into the cedar boat to test their individual rowing.
Not a word had been said about who should be "captain." Pence had once
rowed stroke in a freshman eight at Belding. Frequently the chap in
that place is captain of the crew, but not always.
"You've got a fat chance to be captain," scoffed Harry Kirby, one
evening when he and his three friends were by themselves. Joe Bootleg
did not count, for he kept strictly away from the white boys unless he
was told to do something by Ben, to whom he looked for his wages. "A
fat chance," repeated Kirby in the most irritating tone he could
command. "Kingdon kid hogs everything. He doesn't give anybody else a
bite."
"Talking about biting, you can growl, can't you?" said Horace, placidly.
"Oh," returned the other, "I don't care about myself. I don't care
where I row--or if I row at all. I'm only doing it, anyway, to keep
peace in the family."
"Peace is sometimes hard to come by, isn't it?" murmured Pence, with his
cap over his eyes and an air of exaggerated carelessness that was bound
to irritate a fellow as much worked up as Kirby was just then.
"You can make believe you don't care----"
"Certainly I care! I've gone into this for one thing--just one thing,"
Pence declared with sudden sharpness.
"I'd like to know what it is. We'll bust up in a row with those
fellows. I come near licking that redheaded guy to-day."
"You'd have a nice time doing it, Kirby," put in Ben Comas, delighted to
see his two comrades on the verge of a scrap. "Phillips could eat you
up. I saw him boxing with Kingdon the other morning, and, take it from
me, he has a punch. King had hard work to keep away from it."
"King!" snarled Kirby, like an angry dog. "You've got the disease, too,
Comas!"
"What disease is that?" asked the lazy one, startled.
"Calling that curly-haired pet King. He's a fine king! If it wasn't
for his name, he wouldn't be leading that bunch. He's got 'em under his
thumb, and now he's starting in on you fellows."
"Hear him rave," grunted Pudge MacComber, widely agrin. "Never did hear
Harry take on so."
"The whole thing will end up in a fight," insisted Kirby, subsiding.
"That'll be nice," chuckled Pudge.
"You won't be in it, if you see it coming," drawled Pence. "We may be
sure it suits Kingdon. He says he loves to fuss with us."
"I'd like to give him all he's looking for," mumbled Kirby.
"Don't try it, old chap," advised Pence. "I've had the gloves on with
Rex Kingdon myself. Phillips may have a punch, but Kingdon has a whole
flock of them hidden in his sleeves."
Kirby fell silent, feeling that they were all against him.
Nevertheless, he stopped quarreling about Kingdon--for the time being,
at least.
To the casual observer it would have seemed that Horace Pence worked
with Kingdon in perfect harmony as they began to whip the crew into
shape.
"Horrors knows a thing or two about rowing," Rex said to his friends,
"and there's no reason he shouldn't put it into practice."
"He'll do something to queer the whole business," predicted Midkiff.
"He's too erratic."
"Erratic fiddlesticks!" returned his roommate in Old Hall. "He's got
grit and some foresight. I notice that his judgment in anything but
pitching is fine."
Red laughed. "Don't let him hear you say that. He'd be dead sore. But
he's improving at pitching, even, Rex."
"Seems to be improving in general, if you'll pardon me for saying so,"
Kingdon said. "He's doing his bit. It isn't for Walcott Hall exactly.
So, if we come a cropper over this rowing business, why shed tears?"
Red Phillips' sturdy back and his rowing ability made him the choice of
both Kingdon and Pence for bow oar. Number Two fell to Ben Comas. The
latter stirred himself sufficiently to be valuable as an oarsman because
he chanced to be very fond of the sport. Pudge MacComber fell heir to
Number Three, because it seemed that he balanced the boat better in that
place, Midkiff's bulk occupying the next seat, Number Four.
Cloudman splashed a good deal in the beginning, and the fellows behind
him kicked about it; nevertheless they made him Number Five. "Unless you
want to give him your seat, Midget," Kingdon chuckled, "and try to row
against Kirby, here, at Six."
"If I couldn't do better than Applejack, I'd eat my oar," Peewee
maintained with his usual modesty.
"Just fancy yourself on a wild bronc, little one," Phillips told the
perky coxswain, "and think of what kind of a show you'd make beside
Applejack's performance. He's at home on a bronc."
"And Peewee would be at home in a peanut shell," chuckled Cloudman.
"If I wasn't more at home in this shell than you seem to be, Applejack,"
scoffed Hicks, "I'd write a letter of introduction for myself before I
tried to climb aboard."
Cloudman really intended to learn to row. He was a determined
fellow--nor could he be deterred by trifles from any point he wished to
gain. He splashed less as time passed, and as Number Four, began to pull
a strong oar. He possessed good muscle, did that Western boy!
Kirby was the best of all Pence's band; Rex had seen that from the
start. Short of Horace himself he pulled the strongest oar. They tried
him in almost all the positions in the shell and he made good wherever
he was placed. Kingdon saw, however, that Kirby seemed much more silent
and sullen than he at first had been. He came to the ball-field and to
rowing practice with a somber face; Horace was talkative as compared
with Harry.
At other times Kingdon often saw the latter wandering about alone, or
lying by himself under the trees and taking no part in the general
activities or conversation of his comrades. He seemed to have nothing
to do with Joe Bootleg. Indeed, the Indian was treated like a servant
by the other members of Pence's crowd. Joe kept strictly to himself,
too. He did not even come down to the waterside to watch the rowing
practice.
For a full week Kingdon and Pence were busy getting the boys properly
disposed of in the shell. Then it seemed to come about naturally that
Kingdon was put in as Number Seven and Pence took Number Eight oar.
"Set the pace, Horrors," said Rex. "You've got to stroke us. Let's see
if we can't work up speed enough to make those Blackport fellows hustle
a little, at least."
"Think I'm the best candidate for crew captain?" Pence asked almost in a
whisper. "Really mean it?"
"I'd take it myself in a minute if I didn't think you know more about
the game than I do," answered Kingdon frankly. "For the good of the
crew, old boy!"
Horace Pence stared at him for several seconds. "I'm willing to try it
because you say so, Kingdon," he muttered presently in a queer voice.
"'Nuff said. Now we'll do our prettiest to work up a little surprise
for our Blackport friends."
Following Kingdon's advice, they declined to show off in the shell when
the _Nothing To It_ was loafing about in the sound, and did most of
their rowing toward evening; for at that time it was less likely that
any of the Blackport crowd would be in sight.
When Yansey brought over his nine of ball players one Saturday
afternoon, however, the Storm Island boys were more than ready to play
them.
"Give your eyes a treat," urged Peewee to Kingdon and Pence, before the
game. "Those huskies they've brought from the sawmill and the shipyard
ought to be in the big league. Methinks they've played as far south as
Providence. Look at that feller warming up over there. He ought to be
pitching for McGraw."
"Get a foot warmer," chuckled Rex. "Don't let the size of 'em scare
you, my child. We will protect you."
"How kind of you!" murmured Hicks. "I hope Middy bounces a fast one off
his dome, just the same. He acts like he owned the earth and was just
whitewashing the fence around it."
"Let's take care he doesn't whitewash us," said Kingdon.
The visitors won the toss and chose the field. The Storm Island boys did
get whitewashed the first inning, while the Blackport players began to
hit Midkiff rather freely. Nevertheless, they pushed only one man
around to the scoring station, although it was more by good luck than
good management that the island nine held them down so well.
Kirby started grumbling when the islanders were back under the trees for
the first half of the second inning. "I thought you Walcott Hallers
could play ball," he said. "What kind of a pitcher is that Midkiff,
Kingdon? I call him a frost."
Midkiff was batting at that moment, but Kirby had not tried to keep his
voice down, and John's face seemed to indicate that he had heard. The
situation was tense at the start of the game, and there was danger that
trouble would be hatched in the ranks of the home nine. If Kirby's
critical attitude was going to become general, Rex knew the Blackport
nine would not have much trouble in winning.
*CHAPTER XXVIII.*
*HORACE PROVES HIMSELF.*
Midkiff swung at the first pitched ball, and popped a little fly into
the hands of the third baseman. That surprised individual muffed it,
which enabled Midkiff to reach first. The Blackport fellows laughed.
Kirby sneered at the batter's luck: "He's carrying a rabbit's foot.
Swings like a garden gate, and shuts his eyes. I've seen his sort
before."
Rex felt like punching the fellow, but he wanted to play the game, and
so he ignored Kirby, urging Cloudman to hammer Midkiff along.
Cloudman struck out. In the meantime, however, Midkiff stole second
very neatly.
Pence was the next one to bat. He cast one of his sneering smiles at
his chum, and got into position. Before going out he had whispered a
word or two in Kingdon's ear, and the backstop had nodded.
"Kirby next," Rex reminded the grouchy one mildly.
Horace swung at the first ball, and missed. The visitors had brought an
umpire, and he grinned as he called the strike.
"Oh, Horrors!" groaned Kirby, picking himself up to look for a bat he
liked.
A moment later Horace surprised nearly everybody by laying down a pretty
bunt, and beating the throw to first. At the same time, having caught a
signal from Rex, Midkiff scampered safely to third. This was like real
baseball, and the Blackporters did not laugh.
"Now, Mr. Kirby," said Rex, "you have a lovely opportunity to show us
that your middle name is Home Run. Rise to the occasion, and we'll have
a nice little lead."
Kirby glanced at Midkiff and scowled. Then his gaze sought Horace. He
knew very well the black-eyed chap's style of base-running. Already
Horace was bothering the big pitcher for the visiting nine by taking a
lead toward second. To "play the game," it devolved on Kirby to give
Pence a chance to steal. Instead of that, however, he swung at the
first ball pitched to him, and hit it hard and fair.
"A bird!" yelled Peewee from the coaching line.
"Some crack, but poor baseball," muttered Rex.
Kirby couldn't make the plate, but he reached third, and the Storm
Island nine was one run to the good.
Now Kirby would have been reprimanded by most coachers for failing to
give the runner on first a chance to try a steal, but Kingdon remained
silent.
Hicks chattered like a monkey, telling Kirby he was a wonder or else the
pitcher was easy.
Either Kirby's long slam or the joshing of Peewee disturbed the big
pitcher from Blackport, for he walked Phillips. Then Comas rapped out a
scratch hit, scoring Kirby. Phillips raced onward to third, and made it
by sliding.
Kingdon went to bat, and waited while two strikes were called on him.
On the second one Comas went to second. Rex had demonstrated to Kirby
by example what the batter should do with runners on first and third.
Then he smashed the next ball that came over, hitting for three sacks.
Phillips and Comas cantered in, and the Storm Islanders were four
tallies in the lead.
The streak ended there, however, for Hicks and the next men fanned.
"Nice little bunt, Pence," said Rex to Horace as the nines changed
positions. "It cut the ice, Midkiff was waiting for it."
"Oh, I know a little something about real base ball," returned Pence
somewhat loftily.
"But Kirby wants to be the whole team," laughed Kingdon.
In the next inning, Midkiff held the visitors down to two hits, neither
of which counted. Neither side had scored again when the fifth inning
came round.
At that point, however, Kingdon saw that Midkiff was beginning to show
weariness. This was true also of the Blackport pitcher, and the
captains of both teams decided to make a change. Yansey himself went in
for his club.
Yansey put more on the ball from the start than the deposed pitcher had
possessed, beginning by striking out the home team in one, two, three
order.
"Pence," Kingdon found time to say while the slaughter was proceeding,
"do you think you can hold your own out there on the mound for five
innings?"
"Give me a chance to try," requested the black-eyed chap.
"Will you work with me, and follow my signals?"
"If I cross you on signals, you can drop me."
"Good! No flashy stuff. Use all your speed only when you have to. A
change of pace bothers most batters. I can send Applejack in, but----"
"Try me!" begged Horace, his eyes flashing.
"Be it so," Kingdon agreed with mock solemnity. "This day, then, shalt
thou be tried."
He sent Horace off to one side to warm up with Kirby. The latter
brightened at once.
"Is that yellow-haired chap going to put you where you belong?" Harry
cried. "Well, there's hopes for him yet!"
"But how about me?" drawled Horace.
"Why, Horrors! You know you've got these would-be pitchers distanced.
Just show 'em that fast one of yours, and those Blackport fellows will
shut their eyes."
"Haven't a bit of confidence in me, old man, have you?" chuckled Pence.
"But I'm under Kingdon's orders. Don't expect too much."
"Oh, bother him!" ejaculated Kirby. "Once you're in the box, you can do
as you please."
But Horace had given his word to Rex, and he meant to keep it. For the
first time in his life, he was willing to follow the lead of another
man. A change was coming over him.
By this time Yansey had fanned the third man, and the Storm Island boys
took the field. Horace got into position, and threw a few balls to Rex
to get the range. Then he nodded that he was ready.
The big fellow who had first pitched for the visitors was up. He swung
a stick almost as long as a wagon-tongue, and Kingdon signaled to keep
the ball close. Pence used a shoot, and the big batsman caught the ball
near his knuckles. The ball popped almost directly up into the air, but
was a fair hit. Rex was under it when it returned toward mother earth,
and the first man to face Horace had been far too easy.
"Wasn't that a shame!" chuckled the backstop, tossing the ball to Pence.
Such luck wasn't to continue. Though Horace started by putting a strike
over for the next man, he followed with three balls, seeming unable to
locate the plate.
The batsman grinned. "Oh, you squawpaw!" he called at Horace. "Just
gimme one--only one, so I can lean up against it!"
Rex knew that Horace longed to send in one of his fast ones. He rubbed
his palm in the dirt. A smoker came over. "Strike two!" barked the
umpire, dodging involuntarily.
Kirby was delighted. Only for a moment, however. Horace followed with
another swift one that made Kingdon stretch himself in order to stop it
with one hand. The batter was sent to first.
"There it goes!" ejaculated Kirby wildly. "I knew how it would be. If
Kingdon would give old Horrors his head, he'd win the game for us; but
he puts him in a hole before turning him loose, and then it's too late."
But Pence was not blaming Kingdon. Seeming to read his mind, Rex had
given him a chance to show what he could do with speed. The backstop
was willing to be convinced that Horace's fast one was effective, if the
pitcher could convince him. He had even admitted that it would be very
effective when the time came that Pence could control it finely. Until
that time, however, it could be used with safety only to dazzle batter
and keep him in a state of uncertainty.
Having reached this conclusion, Horace gave close attention to Rex's
signals for the remainder of the inning, and the visitors failed to
score.
"That southpaw looks like a pitcher, Kingdon," said Yansey generously,
as they changed positions. "But I thought for a moment he was going up
in the air."
"My dear fellow," returned Rex, loudly enough for Pence to hear, "he
couldn't be lifted off his feet with a derrick."
Horace grew better with each inning. The Storm Island nine could make
only one run off Yansey, and the visitors crept up until the score was 5
to 4 in favor of Storm Island when the latter came to bat in the ninth.
Yansey held them down to a goose-egg.
"Now go in and do likewise, Horrors," Kingdon urged. "Your control has
improved steadily, and I'm going to let you try speed again. Want to?"
"I'd like to," answered Pence. "But if I get wild----"
"I'll stop you, leave it to me."
In spite of speed, the first batter hit the ball, but he merely popped a
fly into Pudge MacComber's hands, and the fat youth held it. Up came
Yansey, with a quizzical smile. He, at least, had been hitting Pence,
and he still hoped to tie the score, at least.
The first ball that came his way made the skipper of the _Nothing To It_
gasp. He stepped back, gripped his club tighter and--the umpire
declared the second strike!
"Say!" called Yansey. "You want to look out or you'll tear your whole
arm loose at the shoulder and pitch it right along with the ball."
Fully prepared, he was ready to swing at the next one, but he swung too
late, nevertheless. "The pill was in my mitt before you started your
bat, old man," laughed Rex.
"You've been letting him hold that speed back to dazzle us with at the
finish," complained Yansey.
When the third batsman struck out likewise, the Storm Islanders shouted
for Horace Pence. He had indeed demonstrated that he was a real pitcher,
they claimed. Kingdon smiled to himself. He was quite as well satisfied
as anybody.
*CHAPTER XXIX.*
*SOMETHING IN THE OFFING.*
Of course, there were days when the Storm Islander crew could not get
out the eight-oared shell. When the wind came out of the East the sound
was almost sure to be pretty choppy; and, although Kingdon believed a
little rough-water practice would not hurt the boys, a shell cannot be
successfully handled in a sea that is too rough.
Further than that, Horace Pence was captain, and Kingdon never advised
now unless invited to do so. The black-eyed chap, it was true, gave his
full attention to the work when the shell was out, neglecting nothing
that seemed vital to the training of the crew. He believed in them
thoroughly, believed they were going to make a brilliant showing. Pence
was really over-confident regarding their ability to beat the Blackport
crew. Although Rex Kingdon often talked with supreme confidence, his
thought was usually well-blended with caution. He was not at all sure
in this instance that they had a winning crew.
Since that cheerful day when they had whipped the Blackport nine on the
ball field, Pence and his friends believed they could beat Yansey and
his comrades at any game. Yansey's own pet expression, "Nothing to it!"
was forever on the lips of Ben, Pudge and Kirby when they spoke of the
coming rowing contest.
"But you and I have been told, Jawn," Rex drawled, talking the situation
over with the big fellow one day, "that rowing races aren't always won
in the boat."
"Hey?" exclaimed Midkiff. "Who told us that bunk?"
"They're often won at the training table and in the gym.," chuckled Rex,
who dearly loved to get a rise out of his Old Hall room-mate.
"Oh, scissors!" observed Midkiff.
"Those chaps aren't training, you know. Neither are we as we should, for
that matter. But they all dally with the cunning little coffin-nail,
even Pudge. They eat everything and anything--and any-_how_. They lie
around after eating like a boa constrictor assimilating a heifer; and
then they take exercise too violently. Some of them puff, like the
_Spoondrift's_ exhaust, two minutes after they get to work."
"What did you expect when you handed the crew over to Horrors?" sniffed
Midkiff.
"What I expected has nothing to do with what I want," Kingdon responded
with some appearance of gloom. "Don't want it told all along this coast
that a bunch of us Walcott Hall fellows joined a rowing crew that won't
even have a look-in when we go up against these local chaps."
"What you going to do?"
"What would you suggest, Jawn? Come, Old Wise Head, give us a boost."
"Take hold of the crew yourself."
"And oust Horrors?"
"Can't be two captains in one boat."
"No," Kingdon said with seriousness. "Verily I itch for the chance to
whip the crew up. I believe it can be bettered by shifting some of them
about, too. But I fear, Jawn--I fear!"
"Fear what?" grunted his friend.
"Of losing all I've gained."
"What the dickens have you gained?"
"I've gained something with Horrors. Notice the figure he cuts on the
mound now?"
"And is that the price he's paying for his job as captain of the crew?"
demanded Midkiff scornfully.
"Whether he's voluntarily and knowingly paying such price," Kingdon
rejoined evenly, "doesn't really matter, does it, Jawn? I've got him
about where I want him in baseball. Got him interested. I'd hold him
if I can, and the rest of you fellows must help me."
"What for?" snapped Midkiff.
"You know well enough," was the cool response. "We need him."
"At Walcott?"
"What a remarkable guesser you are!"
"You'll never get him! He's one of these swell-heads who think they
know all there is to know, anyhow--and what's the use of proving
themselves either right or wrong by going to school any more?" Midkiff
spoke bitterly. He could not like a fellow of Horace Pence's
caliber--or thought he could not.
"He was like that," agreed Rex.
"I don't see much change in him since the first day we struck this
island. Only he has to be half way decent now, because you let him and
his crowd stop here. Now you'd sacrifice the rowing in an attempt to
win him over for a pitcher for Walcott Hall. Nothing to it, Rex."
"There you go, Jawn," sighed Kingdon. "You've got the habit, too.
Yansey's influence on this bunch is something awful. You're all talking
just as he does."
"Quit fooling," grunted Midkiff. "What are we laying ourselves out on
this rowing business for if nothing's to come of it?"
"Getting good practice, aren't we?" asked Rex. "Only I never did go into
a game before without having a feeling of expectation."
"If you expect to win with Horrors as captain of the crew, you'll get
specks in your eyes."
"Will I? Well, we'll see. You're so helpful, Jawn, when a chap has a
hard nut to crack. Thanks."
"Oh!" cried Midkiff, throwing up both hands. "You always go your own
gait anyway, Rex."
Which was true in this instance. Kingdon had to solve the problem
himself, and he proceeded to go about it by sailing over to Blackport at
the first opportunity and putting it into Yansey's mind to challenge the
Storm Island crew for a trial match the first week in August.
Kingdon kept his own counsel about this, but the next day a motor boat
halted long enough at the island for a note to be passed to Horace
Pence, embodying the challenge and suggesting that the sound, in the
quiet waters off the island, be the scene of the proposed match.
For once, Pence showed a measure of uncertainty. He went off by himself,
evidently to study on the matter. It was almost supper time when he
strolled back by the way of the Walcott Hall camp, and hailed Rex
Kingdon.
"Say, Curly," he said to the backstop, "I've been fishing, and I got a
bite."
"Who's bit you?" asked Kingdon lightly.
"Kirby. And he's always been such a household pet that it's surprised
me, even if it didn't hurt me much," Pence explained with some gloom.
"It's about that rolling stone that came near gathering up all you chaps
as a new species of moss."
"Sayest thou so?" was Kingdon's interested comment. "Let's hear the
worst."
"He does suspect, at least, how that avalanche started; but he refuses
to give me his confidence."
"Yes?" encouraged Rex.
"Owned up to me last night that he and the Indian camped down there at
Clay Head through all that rain."
"We knew that already."
"But Harry hadn't admitted it before. I put it to him straight if he
and Joe left that canoe and came over here during the night."
"Well?"
"Swore he didn't leave the canoe," said Pence, anxiety betrayed in his
voice. "Harry's more than ordinarily truthful--so I've always found
him. Don't you suppose that the bowlder might have been washed out by
the rain, after all?"
"The rain wouldn't have washed the lever out of the woods and down the
hill into the field behind the place where the bowlder lay."
"Hardly!" agreed Pence, startled by this reasoning.
"Kirby says he didn't leave the canoe all night?"
"That's what he says," was the reply.
Kingdon added nothing to what he had already said until finally, with a
sigh dismissing the puzzle for the time being, Pence offered him the
letter he had received from the skipper of the _Nothing To It_. "What
do you think of this?" Horace asked.
Kingdon read the challenge with as much apparent interest as though the
matter was an utter surprise to him. It was plain that Pence was
nervous--a nervousness not attributable to their former topic of
conversation.
"The nerve of them!" said Kingdon. "They've been rowing together all
season, and we're just beginning to get our crowd into shape."
"But we can't refuse," Pence hastened to say.
"No," Rex agreed.
"But--but--Kingdon! Suppose they lick us out of our boots?"
"What's the odds? It'll show the boys just about how bad--or good we
are."
"It will discourage them if we're beaten," Pence said. "Haven't
practiced enough to make sure of giving a good account of ourselves."
"Never know how good we are till we try a race with a real crew, and
Yansey's got the best one along the coast--let him tell it."
"I know. He's an awful blowhard."
"But maybe he _has_ got the best crew," chuckled Rex.
"Yet you say to accept it?"
"I say nothing. You're the skipper. You don't need anybody to decide
for you. If you feel you do, put it to the vote of the crew."
"Oh! Our fellows will be eager for it," sighed Horace.
"Fancy our fellows won't mind a try-out, either," was Kingdon's cheerful
rejoinder.
"Then I might as well say 'Yes,' but between now and then we've got to
do _some_ training."
"We're with you, Horrors," Rex assured him. "We'll win if we can." He
felt in secret more serious doubt of winning than even Pence showed in
his countenance.
*CHAPTER XXX.*
*FACING DEFEAT.*
The fellows in both of the camps on Storm Island were at once excited
when Horace Pence announced the trial rowing match with the Blackport
crew. All were eager but Joe Bootleg, and he did not count.
From the very hour that Kingdon and Midkiff first landed on the island
in their bathing suits, the Indian had grown more sullen than was his
usual condition. His vindictiveness daily increased against the Walcott
Hall boy who had bested him in that fight in the night and the rain.
Whenever he was close enough to Rex to make it count, he glared at the
curly-headed chap with a malevolence that could not be misinterpreted.
In the hatred of Rex he included all the Walcott Hall crowd.
The Indian's smoldering hate had convinced Kingdon after the avalanche
that Joe had a hand in the starting of the bowlder on its downward
course. What puzzled Rex still, as he confessed to Horace Pence, was
the part Harry Kirby had taken in the dastardly attempt upon the lives
of the boys from Walcott Hall.
That the stupid and ignorant Indian had engineered the thing, Rex could
easily believe. There are wicked and savage-natured characters among
these latter day members of an expiring race, as there are bad men who
have white faces. Joe Bootleg undoubtedly had no advantages of
upbringing and instruction to make him better than Nature formed him.
In Harry Kirby's case it was different. Kingdon shrank from believing
that Kirby had aided the Indian in bringing about the thing that might
have been, had it not been for Kingdon's premonition of peril, a
terrible catastrophe.
Had Kingdon secured evidence that pointed to Joe Bootleg alone in this
serious affair, he would have been tempted to see Enos Quibb, the
constable, and have the Indian removed from Storm Island. Failing in
this attempt to injure Kingdon and his friends, the malevolent Indian
might try some other means of "getting square."
Kirby's possible connection with the regrettable affair, and the surety
that to attract the attention of the authorities would arouse the
Manatee Lumber Company and cause questioning regarding the two camps
established on Storm Island, deterred Kingdon from taking this sane and
sensible course.
He was always on the lookout for Joe Bootleg, and he continually warned
his friends to be watchful of the Indian youth. Besides, Pence, having
become suspicious, was keeping Joe well within view. The latter
undoubtedly felt that he was watched and, his first attempt being so
signally a failure, it was likely he would hesitate about making
another. But his look was threatening, just the same, whenever his path
and Rex Kingdon's crossed.
Being a healthy and hearty youth, with nothing particular on his
conscience, Rex had usually slept as soundly as any of his chums. Now
his rest was sometimes broken. He got up occasionally and went out of
the tent for a look around in the night. When Midkiff or any of the
others growled about being disturbed by this, Rex laughed it off.
The feeling persisted that peril threatened. When asleep it took hold
upon his subconsciousness, and awoke him. He felt that the Indian might
be prowling about. He knew that the fellow slept alone in the cook tent
at the other camp, and could slip away without arousing Pence or his
companions.
Sometimes Rex did a little prowling of his own on these midnight
ventures. He roamed as far as the other camp on more than one occasion,
and was always reassured by hearing the heavy breathing of the Indian
lad within the tent.
"Getting just as nervous as an old maid in a haunted house," Rex told
himself on one of these occasions. "If I was sleeping in a folding bed,
I'd look under it after I let it down ev'ry night to see if there was a
burglar underneath."
In the day time they were all so busy now, and there was so much fun and
sport afoot, that Joe Bootleg and his intentions did not trouble
anybody, least of all Kingdon. He thought the fellow had no chance to
do anything desperate by daylight.
Rex did not allow his crowd to neglect practice on the diamond because
of the added zest given to the rowing by Yansey's challenge; nor did
Pence seek to dodge his usual work on the mound. He was no slacker.
Once his hand and heart was given to a thing, he kept at it.
The eight-oared boat was out every pleasant day for two or three periods
of practice. Ben and Pudge, of all the crew most sluggish by nature,
worked as well as the others. Like Kirby, they proposed to back up
Horace Pence and show the Walcott Hall chaps that there was loyalty
elsewhere than in the ranks of the prep. school pupils.
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."