Page:Left to Themselves (1891).djvu/50

 cious! what ails the Victors? Pull, you sluggards, pull, I say! Those boys are gaining on you every second with that stroke. It must be nearly forty." Louder and louder rang the clamor from all sides as the stake-boat was left behind by the belated Victors, not after all so much in arrear of the Ossokosees. Every body knew that the most remarkable "finish" ever to be dreamed of for Ossokosee Lake was begun. The carriages rolled quicker and quicker back to the goal, and began to pack together in the open meadow, abreast of the judge's barge. Shouting boys and men ran frantically along the road and side-paths, waving hats. From the knots of on-lookers the crowded Victors' club-house, the private boats moored by the ledges, fluttered handkerchiefs, veils, and shawls in the hands of standing spectators; and every thing increased in intensity, of course, as the two glittering objects flashed forward nearer, nearer, until the bending backs of the six rowers in each could be seen, crimson and yellow—and the panic-struck yellow sweeping onward last!

"O-h-h-h! Victors! Victors!" rang the echoes on the left, where most of the village