Page:The Eight-Oared Victors.djvu/127

Rh of hanging in the water the shell seemed to glide through it at a steady rate. There was no jerking progress, but a steady onward movement, the perfection of rowing.

"Get a little more into the finish of the stroke!" called the coach at one point. "You must get the beginning of the stroke with the body only, but finish with the arms and shoulders. Send your elbows past your sides. Drop your shoulders, but keep up your heads and chests."

Thus he corrected fault after fault, until on the return from that row not a lad but felt he had made great improvement. They were all grateful for the change, even Tom, who had been shifted from the post of most honor, next to the stroke. Of course, Boswell, who, like Achilles, sulked in his room, could not be expected to be happy.

"It wasn't a fair thing," he declared to his chum, Elwood Pierce. "I ought to have been kept at bow, or they might have made me stroke."

"That's right, old chap," agreed Elwood. "But what can you expect of such beastly rotters? It wouldn't be that way over in Oxford."

Rumor had it that Pierce had tried to enter Oxford, but had failed miserably. He always declared that the English climate did not agree with him.

The Randall eight was within a few miles of