high time for Dock to do some rowing. Jack had not been unaware of his rival’s difficulty, and deciding that the best way to win the race would be to make a spurt and tire him out before the finish, he “hit up a faster clip,” the broad blades of the oars dipping into the water, coming out and going in again with scarcely a ripple.
“There he goes! There he goes!” cried Sam. “That’s the ticket, Jack!”
“Go on! Go on!” yelled Nat.
“Get right after him, Dock,” advised Pud.
“You can beat him! Do it!” cried Glen.
But it was easier said than done. Jack was rowing his best, and when our hero did that it was “going some,” as Sam used to say. He had opened up quite a stretch of water between his boat and Dock’s, and the bully, with a quick glance over his shoulder, seeing this, resolved to close it up and then pass his rival. There was less than a quarter of a mile to the finish, and he must needs row hard if he was to win.
Dock bent to the task. He was a powerfully built lad, and had he been in good condition there is no question but what he could have beaten Jack. But cigarette-smoking, an occasional bottle of beer, late hours and too much rich food had made him fat, and anything but an ideal athlete.
Still he had plenty of “row” left in him yet, as he demonstrated a few seconds later, when by increasing not only the number of his strokes per minute, but also putting more power into them, he crept up on Jack, until he was even with him.
Jack rowed the same rate he had settled on to pull until he was within a short distance of the finish. He was saving himself for a spurt.
Suddenly Dock’s boat crept a little past Jack’s.
“There he goes! There he goes!” cried Pud, capering about on the bank in delight. “What did I tell you?”
“He’ll win easy,” was Glen’s opinion.
“It isn’t over yet,” remarked Nat quietly, but he glanced anxiously at Sam, who shook his head in a reassuring manner.
Dock began to increase his lead. Jack looked over his shoulder for one glance at his rival’s boat. The two were now rowing well and swiftly.
“Go on, Jack! Go on! Go on!” begged Bony, cracking his eight fingers and two thumbs in rapid succession, like a battery of popguns. “Don’t let him beat you!”
Dock was now a boat’s length ahead, and rowing well, but a critical observer could notice that his breathing distressed him.
“Now’s your chance, Jack!” yelled Sam.
But Jack did not need any one to tell him. Another glance over his shoulder at his rival showed him that the time had come to make the spurt. He leaned forward, took a firmer grip on the ash handles, and then gave such an exhibition of rowing as was seldom seen at Washington Hall.
Dock saw his enemy coming, and tried to stave off defeat, but it was no use. He was completely fagged out. Jack went right past him, “as if Dock was standing still,” was the way Sam expressed it.
“Go on! Go on!” screamed Pud. “You’ve got to row, Dock!”
But Dock could not imitate the pace that Jack had set. He tried, but the effort was saddening. He splashed, and the oars all but slipped from his hands. His heart was fluttering like that of a wounded bird.
“You’ve got him! You’ve got him, Jack!” yelled Nat; and, sure enough, Jack Ranger had.
On and on he rowed, increasing every second the open water between his boat and his rival’s, until he shot past the Point, a winner by several lengths.
“That’s the way to do it!”
“I knew he’d win!”
“Three cheers for Jack Ranger!”
These, and other cries of victory, greeted our hero’s ears as he allowed his oars to rest on the water flat, while he recovered his wind after the heart-breaking finish.
“Well, Dock could beat him if he was in training,” said Pud doggedly.
“That’s what he could,” echoed Glen.
“Not in a thousand years!” was Nat’s positive assertion.
The boys crowded to the float that marked the finish of the course. Jack reached it first, and stepped out of his shell, being greeted by his friends. Then Dock rowed slowly up. His distress showed plainly in his puffy, white face.
He got out clumsily, and staggered as he clambered upon the float.
“Hard luck, old man,” said Jack good-humoredly.
“I don’t want your sympathy!” snapped Dock. “I’ll row you again, and I’ll beat you!”
Jack had held out his hand, but the bully ignored it. He turned aside, and whether the float tilted, or whether Snaith tottered because of a cramp in his leg, was never known, but he staggered for a moment, tried unsuccessfully to recover his balance, and then plunged into the lake at one of the deepest spots, right off the float.
CHAPTER II
THE NEW BOY
“There goes Dock!”
“Pull him out!”
“Yes, before he gets under the float!”
“He can’t swim! He’s too exhausted!”
These were some of the expressions the excited lads shouted as they surged forward to look at the spot where Dock had disappeared. A string of bubbles and some swirling eddies were all that marked the place.
The float began to tilt with the weight of so many boys on one edge.
“Stand back!” cried Jack Ranger. “Stand back, or we’ll all be in the lake!”
They heeded his words, and moved toward the middle of the platform.
“Some one ought to go in after him,” said Pud Armstrong, his teeth fairly chattering from fright and nervousness. “I – I can’t swim.”
“Look out!” cried Jack. “I’m going in!”
He began pulling off the sweater which some of the lads had helped put on him, when he stepped from the shell all perspiration.
He poised for an instant on the edge of the float, looking down into the dark waters, beneath which Dock had disappeared, and then dived in.
“Get one of the boats out. Maybe he won’t come up near the float,” ordered Sam Chalmers, and several lads hurriedly shoved out into the lake a broad barge, which could safely be used by Jack in getting Dock out of the water, if he was fortunate enough to find the youth.
“Queer he doesn’t come up,” spoke Glen in a whisper.
“Who – Dock or Jack?” asked Bony, cracking his finger knuckles in double relays.
“Dock.”
“He’s too exhausted,” replied Bony. “Can’t swim. But Jack’ll get him.”
How long it seemed since Jack had dived down! The swirl he made had subsided, and the water was almost calm again. Anxiously the lads on the float and shore watched to see him reappear. Would he come up alone, or would he bring Dock with him?
“Maybe Jack hit his head on something,” suggested Nat.
“Jack knows how to dive, and it’s deep here,” said Sam. “I guess he’ll come up all right, but – ”
He did not finish the sentence. At that moment there was a disturbance beneath the surface of the lake. A head bobbed up.
“There’s Jack!” cried Bony delightedly.
A white arm shot up and began sweeping the water.
“He’s got him!” yelled Nat. “He’s got Dock!”
Sure enough, Jack had come to the surface, encircling in his left arm the unconscious form of Dock Snaith, while with