For a time it seemed that the race would come to an ignominious end then and there, for the other canoes, or such of them as were paddled by two or more fellows, followed so closely that at the end of the first hundred yards they were on both sides of the contestants and even in front of them!

“Get out of the way, can’t you?” bawled Gary. “Give me room!”

Poke, a length and more behind, was not bothered by the convoy, and chuckled at Gary’s dilemma. But Joe Cosgrove came to the rescue. Joe was sculling in a tub.

“Keep back there!” he shouted. “Keep back of the race or I’ll call it off!”

“If they don’t get back I’ll claim a foul!” shouted Gary, encouraged by the referee’s support.

“So will I!” announced Poke. “I’ll claim two fouls!”

But the referee’s command had the desired effect and Gary’s blue canoe swept out of the press, followed by its green competitor. Joe followed close behind Poke and the rest of the craft came bobbing along back of Joe in merry, laughing confusion. The Mi-Ka-Noo had been lucky enough to secure a position well in the lead of the followers from where during the first stage of the race both canoes were in plain sight.

“Poke’s just simply going to pieces,” mourned Jeffrey. “Look at him! He can’t keep her nose straight at all!”

“He can’t paddle, and he knows it,” answered Gil. “What I’m wondering is what’s his idea? I’ll bet anything he never thought of winning this race by paddling.”

“Maybe he’s got a motor hidden in his canoe,” suggested Jim with a laugh.

“If he has he’d better start it going,” said Jeffrey. “He had to stop paddling then and straighten his canoe out. Why doesn’t he remember what I told him?”

“Is he much behind?” asked Hope anxiously, craning forward.

“About three or four lengths,” answered Jim. “Sit still or you’ll have us overboard!”

“He’s just doing that to fool him,” said Hope. “You wait!”

But if Poke was playing fox he was overdoing it, for now Gary was increasing his lead with every stroke of his paddle. The blue canoe was going finely, Gary’s bare arms working the paddle with the power and regularity of a piece of machinery. He was at the end of the first loop of the course now and the starting-point was already hidden from sight by the trees which grew to the water’s edge on both sides. The sound of the accompanying boats grew less and less, showing that Poke, keeping them back, was rapidly losing. But it was not until the stream turned to the right again on the beginning of the second loop that Gary allowed himself to turn and look behind him. When he did so he smiled. Not a canoe was in sight on so much of the winding stream as lay within his vision. In another moment, easing a little from the pace he had been setting, he was around the point, keeping as close to the bank as the channel would allow. He was beginning to be aware of aching muscles in arms and legs and back, and so he shifted his paddle to the right for a few minutes. The river still turned so that he could see only a hundred feet or so ahead of him at a time, but presently the bridge at Birch Island crept into sight down the stream; first the tip end of it on the Crofton side of the river, then the second stone pier and the edge of the island and then the whole bridge. There were spectators on it. They were waving to a youth on the bank who was in the act of dropping a green canoe into the water. The green canoe, which had a strange likeness to the one which Poke Endicott was in, disappeared under the further arch of the bridge and went out of sight. The fellows on the bridge disappeared, too, running to the other side to watch it. But by the time Gary neared the bridge they were back again, shouting to him and cheering loudly. Gary experienced a glow of pleasure at the discovery of such a warm sentiment in his favor. As he neared the faces leaning over the parapet he was puzzled, however, to account for the expressions on them, and for the burst of laughter that greeted him. There was something ironic in that laughter, and he realized dimly that the shouts of encouragement were not altogether sincere.

“Go it, Gary! Eat ’em up! Paddle hard!”

“Dig, Bull! You’ll get him yet! That’s the boy!”

The shouting died away as he swept his canoe out from under the old stone arch and left the bridge and the island behind. Ahead was the boat-house and the float and the end of the race—and victory! And ahead, too, was a green canoe, a green canoe with a boy in the stern whose back looked marvelously like Poke Endicott’s! Of course it couldn’t be Poke, for Poke was yards and yards behind. Gary turned and looked. Just beyond the bridge came the pursuit. He could see the boats under the arches. Which was Poke’s he couldn’t tell, but Poke was there somewhere, vanquished and discomfited. Of course, only—who was the boy ahead? And why were the watchers on the float waving to him and shouting? Now he had stopped paddling and they were helping him out and slapping him on the back and cheering. Of course it wasn’t Poke; that was impossible; but it looked—

It was Poke!

The fellow had turned and Gary had seen his face. For a moment Gary stopped paddling and stared open-mouthed as though at an apparition. What did it mean? Poke had not passed him on the way up. Or—was it possible that he had passed and that he hadn’t seen him? That was an awful thought, for it suggested that he was losing his senses! Nonsense! It was some trick, some—

Then Gary saw it all! Poke had carried across the point!

Gary realized that the current was carrying him down-stream and dug his paddle again. After all, it was all right, for plenty of fellows could testify to having seen Poke put his canoe back into the river at Birch Island. Why, Gary had seen that himself! And others must have seen him leave the water on the other side. Poke had fooled him, and he supposed a lot of the fellows would think it a good joke and try to jolly him about it, but he had won the race fairly and squarely, and he could afford to let them laugh. He went on to the float leisurely. The other canoes were almost up to him now. The crowd at the landing watched him approach and cheered him a little for consolation. At the edge of the float stood Poke, bearing his honors as modestly as might be. He leaned down and held Gary’s canoe for him.

“Well paddled, Bull,” he said heartily. “But what was the trouble? Did you strike a snag or run aground?”

“You think you’re smart, don’t you?” replied Gary indignantly. “Gee, you couldn’t do a thing, Poke, without trying to make a silly farce of it! You make me tired!”

“Farce!” repeated Poke in amazement. “Oh, now, I say, Bull, don’t be grouchy because I beat you. Shake hands and let’s forget it. It isn’t my fault if I can paddle faster than you can, is it now?”

“Paddle!” fumed Gary, climbing onto the float. “Run, you mean! You cheated!”

Poke shook his head and viewed sorrowfully the fellows who had huddled around at the first sounds of the altercation. “I thought you were a good loser, Bull,” he sighed.

“Loser! I am when I lose. But I haven’t lost. You carried across the point to Birch Island. Why, dozens of fellows saw you!”

“Oh, cut it out, Bull,” said one of the audience. “Don’t get sore about it. He beat you fair and square—”

“Of course I did,” agreed Poke soothingly.

Gary sputtered with indignation. “Fair and square! Why—why, he took his canoe out of the water and ran across the point with it, I tell you!”

“What! Oh, get out, Gary!”

“You’re sore, Bull!”

“You didn’t, did you, Poke?”

“Sure I did. It was quicker that way. I wonder you didn’t think of it, Bull.”

“What did I tell you?” demanded Gary in triumph as the other canoes and boats began to unload their passengers. “He knew he couldn’t win fairly and so—”

“Now you hold on a minute, Bull,” commanded Poke smilingly. He pushed his way toward the other end of the float. “Jeff, where are you? Who’s seen Punk Gibbs?” Punk answered from nearby and Jeffrey hobbled through the crowd. “Now, then,” resumed Poke. “Bull says I didn’t win the race fairly. What do you fellows say? You were there when we made the agreement.”

Jeffrey hesitated. “Well,” he said, “you know you carried your canoe across the land, Poke.”

“Of course. What of it? What were the terms of the challenge?”

“You were to start together at the old bridge,” spoke up Gibbs, “and the one who got here first was to have his shoes blacked by the other fellow. That’s the agreement, because I took notice that you didn’t say anything about canoes.”

“Is that the way you remember it, Jeff?” asked Poke.

“Yes, it is. But it hadn’t occurred to me—”

“It was understood that we were to race in canoes,” exclaimed Gary hotly. “If you’d meant a running race—”

“You may have understood it that way,” said Poke, “but I certainly didn’t.” He looked at his shoes. “Got your blacking handy, Bull?”

“No, and don’t you think for a minute that I’m going to black your shoes for you! You didn’t race fair, and every one knows it! I won that race—”

But the sentiment of the crowd was against Gary. It was too good a joke to be spoiled by quibbles.

“Cut it out, Bull!”

“Of course he beat you! He didn’t say anything about staying in the canoes!”

“Go on and get your blacking, Bull!”

“Every one over to Mem!”

And the crowd, jostling and laughing, swept Gary and Poke with it up the bank, Gary asking excitedly where Joe Cosgrove was.

“Wait till you hear what the referee says!” he demanded. “He hasn’t given his decision yet! Where is he? Any one seen him?”

But Joe was half-way to the links by that time, and when, hours later, Gary ran him down, he was suffering from a strange lapse of memory.

“Race? Oh, I’ve forgotten all about the race, Bull. What of it?”

“Well, didn’t I win?” demanded Gary. “Poke carried his canoe half the way.”

“That’s a very serious accusation to make,” said Joe gravely. “Can you substantiate it, Bull?”

“Of course I can! Dozens of fellows saw him do it! Why, you must have seen him yourself!”

“N-no, I don’t think I could swear that Poke carried his canoe. I did see him haul it up on the bank once, but there’s no rule to keep a chap from taking a rest if he wants to. All I know is that he arrived at the boat-house first, and that gives him the race, Bull.”

“But he cheated, I tell you! Don’t you understand that?”

“I tell you what you do, Bull,” said Joe finally. “You bring some good, reliable witnesses to me to prove that Poke carried his canoe instead of paddled it and I’ll—I’ll hear ’em.”

But Gary had cooled down by the next day and the witnesses never testified. I don’t think Gary ever saw the humor of that memorable aquatic contest, but he got so after awhile that he could grin when he was teased about it, and that wasn’t so bad for Gary. But he never blackened Poke’s shoes. And I, for one, don’t blame him!

The school enjoyed the event for days afterward and some of the Juniors got together and presented Poke with a loving-cup—which had all the ear-marks of a tin gallon measure—suitably inscribed in black paint. In the inscription Poke was referred to as the “Champion Dry-Ground Canoist of the World.”

“But do you mean to tell me,” asked Jeffrey after the race that forenoon, “that you went down this morning at half-past six or some such unearthly time and carried that canoe through the woods for practice?”

“Why not?” asked Poke. “You see, I wasn’t certain it could be done, on account of the bushes and things.”

“Nice time to find out about it,” laughed Jim. “Suppose you had found that it couldn’t be done?”

“Then I’d had to follow my original plan, which was to use two canoes.”

“Two canoes? How could you have done that?”

“Why, I’d have started in one, left it on the bank, hot-footed it through the woods and picked up another which would have been waiting for me. But I didn’t quite like to do that. It didn’t seem quite fair, you see. Of course there was nothing in the agreement prohibiting the use of two canoes, or twenty, but—well, there’s the spirit of the law to consider as well as the letter.” And Poke looked as virtuous as a saint.

“You’re a silly chump,” observed Gil with conviction. “Why did you let Jeff here wear himself out trying to teach you to handle a paddle if you didn’t mean to use it?”

Poke grinned. “Because Jeff was troubled about me and I knew he’d feel a lot better if he thought he was teaching me how to win the race. I didn’t want to cause him any uneasiness, Gil.”

“You and your uneasiness!” scoffed Gil. “If I were Jeff I’d punch your head for you!”

“I’ll do worse than that some day,” laughed Jeffrey. “I’ll take him out in a canoe and leave him there helpless!”

Poke laughed. “It was funny, though, fellows,” he said, “to see the look on Bull’s face when he saw me on the float. He was so flabbergasted that he sat with his paddle in the air and let the canoe drift down-stream with him! I’ll bet that for a minute he thought it was my ghost he saw!”

Hope, I think, was a little disappointed in the outcome of the race. She had wanted Poke to prove a hero and instead of that he had only proved a practical joker. And Hope, while her sense of humor was extremely well developed, failed to appreciate the joke as much as the boys did. She confided to Poke some days later that she wished he would learn to paddle perfectly jimmy and then beat “that Gary boy” in a real race. And Poke gravely consented to think the matter over.

For awhile speculation was rife as to the duration of Gary’s term of probation, but after Cosgrove had settled into the position of right guard and it was observed that that side of the line appeared as strong as ever the school became less concerned with Gary’s fortunes. Cosgrove, although he had never played the position before, soon became a proficient right guard, and Curtis, accustomed to the other side of the line, took very kindly to his change. Crofton met and defeated three adversaries and then ran into a snag in the shape of Chester Polytechnic. “Poly” swept the Academy team off its feet and won the game in a romp. But “Poly” had a way of doing that, and Crofton was not disheartened. The game proved that the weakest place in the line was at left tackle, where Marshall, willing and hard-working, hadn’t the stamina for the position. And yet Marshall was the best material in sight and Johnny decided to keep him, trusting that in the Hawthorne game Sargent, on one side, and Gil Benton, on the other, would help him out. After the Polytechnic game came a battle with Cupples Academy, and Crofton crawled out victor by a single goal from field. With two contests remaining before the Hawthorne game the season settled into the home-stretch. Graduates ran out to Crofton for a day or two at a time and looked the team over and gave advice and sometimes took a hand in the coaching, and ran back to college or business quite satisfied with their devotion to alma mater. But the man behind the team was Johnny, and Johnny pursued the even tenor of his way, undisturbed. Rumors of exceptional ability on the part of the Hawthorne eleven might cause uneasiness to others, but Johnny paid them no heed. He had heard that sort of thing many, many times before.

Meanwhile Jim was getting on with rapid strides, and there came a day when the name of Hazard was on every tongue. For on that day Jim broke through Curtis, blocked a kick, captured the ball and sped forty yards for a touchdown. As the first team’s best that afternoon was a field goal, Jim’s feat brought a victory to the second, and he went off the field a hero in the eyes of ten panting, happy players. But brilliant tricks of that sort are not the common lot of tackles and Jim’s best work was of the sort that doesn’t show much. By now he had learned how to handle Cosgrove, while Curtis and he battled day after day with honors fairly even. But while Jim was making fine progress on the gridiron he was scarcely holding his own in class. A boy must be peculiarly constituted to work heart and soul for the success of his team and yet not show a falling off at recitations. And Jim, since it was his first attempt at serving two masters, was beginning to find himself at outs with his instructors. Oddly enough it was with Latin that he had the most trouble those days and it was Mr. Hanks who first scared him.

“It won’t do, Hazard,” said the instructor one day. “You’ll have to give more time to your Latin. Don’t let me find you unprepared again this month, please.”

That night Jim settled down in the quiet and seclusion of his own room and dug hard. And the next day, and the next after that, Mr. Hanks viewed him kindly. But in specializing on Latin Jim had neglected his other studies and he heard from that. Two weeks before the final game Jim was looking worried and had become so irritable that Hope declared she was certain he was about to be ill. And unfortunately his troubled condition of mind reflected itself in his playing and on the second team it was whispered around that Jim was getting “fine.” And then came the game with Fosterville School, one crisp Saturday afternoon in the first of November. And when it was over, with the score 12 to 5 in favor of the enemy, the future looked pretty dark for Crofton. For Marshall had been dragged out of a play limp and white, his usefulness to the team a thing of the past. The doctor declared it only a severe wrench of the left shoulder but Marshall took it badly and Johnny knew that even if Marshall pulled around in a week the accident had taken every bit of fight out of him. And so it was that the second lost another lineman to the first team, for by the middle of the following week, after trying out Parker and Hazard for the position, the much coveted, but unhoped for, honor fell to Jim.