Page:The Eight-Oared Victors.djvu/322

306 circles, whirlpools and a smother of foam! A stroke that told!

"Row! Row! " screamed Jerry.

Daring another glance, Frank, at stroke, saw the Fairview boat seemingly at a standstill. But it was not so. It was that Randall had shot up to her.

From the shores, from the boathouse, from the other craft, came a riot of sound—shouts, yells, the tooting of horns, the clatter of rattles.

There was a veritable flower garden of waving colors. The shrill voices of the girls mingled with the hoarser shouts of the men and boys. Whistles blew, and dogs barked to add to the din.

"Row! Row!" Jerry fairly screamed.

"Pick it up, boys!" pleaded the Fairview coxswain. He had not thought that his rivals had this spurt in them.

"Can't you do it? Can't you get up to them?" begged Pinky Davenport, of his Boxer lads, and there were unashamed tears in his eyes as he made his last appeal. But Boxer was "all in."

"Now boys, now!" shouted Jerry. "It's your last chance! A hundred yards more—only three hundred feet! Row! Row! We must win."

"Don't let 'em pass us!" came from the Fairview coxswain. "A few strokes—only a few more!"

The boats were even! Pandemonium had now