"Well, it does concern me, because I don't want any love-sick invalids in that boat." Thus spake the practical William Bender, Esq., Captain of the H. U. Crew. He had just come into Hollis Holworthy's room and sat down for a few minutes' private conversation with that gentleman. By a simple method of his, he had come to the point of the interview in the opening question, "Look here, Hol, is Charlie Rivers in love?" Holworthy, somewhat startled, had replied that his chum's affairs were not his, and intimated that he could not see how they belonged to Bender either. Hence the above remark.

"I don't want you to think," he continued, "that I am merely inquisitive and impertinent; but you see I am responsible for the condition of the men, and if anything of that sort is going on I ought to know it. Last year I had one man in the boat who was engaged, and two who wanted to be, and I never knew anything about it until after the race. Jim Lovell, who had precious little money himself, was engaged, to a girl without a cent, and all the spring he was thinking about the price of beef when he ought to have been watching the man in front of him and improving his recover. As for Randal and Bowers they had no right to be in the boat. They were all out of condition, and I don't see now how we won. Even at New London, just before the race, those two men were moping like a pair of sick pointers. They were off their feed and so blue that they made every body else so. I was scared to death, thought they were over-trained, and laid them off several times though they needed all the practice they could get. I let them fill themselves up with Bass, nearly a pint a day. Nothing did any good, and I never knew what to make of it until last summer when the engagements of both were announced. Bah! no wonder the starboard side was weak."

"Well, I have heard you rowing men growl about almost everything," laughed Holworthy, "but this is a new complaint. So Dan Cupid played the mischief with the Harvard crew, did he? I shouldn't think the little winged god would make such a heavy passenger in the boat. Think how much harder his victims must pull when their fair ladies' eyes are upon them. Why, it is quite like wearing a silken scarf at a tournament."

"Wearing grandmother's ducks. That is just all they know about such things, the chaps who write novels. No amount of ladies' eyes or wearing apparel ever pulled Sir Launcelot through a mill, if he wasn't properly trained for it."

"You have no poetry in your soul, you old monk; your heart is as hard as your muscles," replied Hollis, smiling. "Wait until you get an arrow yourself, and see what a spirit it will put in you. Why, you will conquer anything."

"That is all nonsense," declared Bender. "Every man on that crew will pull his best, anyway, don't you be afraid about that; but his best won't amount to much if he spends all his time worrying about some pink and white girl. I think I know the symptoms of the disease now, and what is more I think Charlie Rivers has it. Thank goodness he sticks to his beef yet, and seems to pull as strong an oar as ever; but there is something wrong. He used to be the jolliest old cock in college, and bright and quick as a steel trap. Now he hardly talks at all at the training table, and when he does make a joke it is usually stupid. You're his room-mate and best friend, and you must know what is up. Of course I don't ask you to betray any confidence, and if he has been spilling over to you, you are quite right in telling me that it is none of my business. But if you have diagnosed his case for yourself, I wish you would tell me frankly what you think about it."

"If Charlie is in love he has never told me so," Holworthy answered rather evasively. "I do know, however, that he has had a great many things to depress him. His father died last winter, you remember, and of course that was enough to make him blue. Then he has very little money, and is uncertain about getting any sort of a good job when he graduates, and he is worrying over that. He will probably brace up after a while. I hope you won't fire him off the crew, for it would break his heart."

"Well, you know, Holly, it would break mine too," said Bender. "Charlie has always played in awfully hard luck, and he certainly deserves another chance to win his oar, and a red one at that; but, of course, I can't keep him in the boat out of personal friendship and admiration, if he is not fit to row. I don't think there is any danger of that yet, however. He is still the prettiest oar I have ever seen, and surely no one could work more conscientiously."

"He is a great deal too conscientious. It would do him good to break training once in a while," asserted Hollis. "You ought to let a man in his condition smoke, anyway."

"I don't know about that," objected the Tory oarsman. "I hope you will do your best to cheer him up, though; and, especially, if you find out that any girl has got him on a string, talk him out of it and clear his mind."

"Oh, thou untamed Hercules," replied Holworthy, laughing at this last simple request. "I suppose you think you could snap such a string as you can an oar. When Omphale ties you up in her yarn, you won't find it so easy to break."

"Well, I hope old Rivers is not snarled up in any such tackle," said Bender, as he rose to go. "After all, though, I believe I would rather have him in the middle of the boat than any other man in the University,—even if he were in love with twenty girls." And with this acknowledgment in spite of such Mohammedan possibilities, Billy Bender went off to the river.

As Bender had said, Charles Rivers had been "playing in hard luck." Though a splendid oarsman he had never won a race. In his Freshman year he had been taken out of his class crew to be a substitute for the University eight. The next year he rowed No. 4 on the 'Varsity; but Yale won. He filled the same place all through his Junior year, until a week before the race, when he sprained his heel and had to sit in the referee's launch and watch his comrades get their revenge on the Blue. This year was his last, and he had begun training, even with the new men, before Christmas.

Few people realize through what a man must go who tries for a university crew. Even those who have been to the rowing colleges cannot fully appreciate it unless they have themselves trained with the big crew, or been closely associated with some man who has done so. True, it is only to lead a very regular abstemious life, and to do a good deal of healthful, though hard work. It may seem easy to do this for seven months—perhaps it is so for those superior to the little vices that make life pleasant for us weaker ones. But you, my friend, who like a good dinner and a cigar, and the merry company of your fellow-men, you try it,—particularly if you are living in the midst of men who are enjoying their youth to its utmost. Leave them before ten o'clock and go to bed just as Tom is preparing to make a Welsh rarebit, and Dick is brewing a punch, and Harry has got out his banjo. Gaze day after day on your favorite pipes that look beseechingly at you from the mantel-piece. Run five miles every day, and row ten or fifteen while the coach and coxswain take turns at telling you how utterly useless you are; then try to study all the evening for an examination. Watch your friends starting off without you on moonlight sleigh rides, and theatre sprees, and yachting and coaching parties. Go to a dinner and refuse everything indigestibly tempting that is put under your nose, look on the wine when it is red and don't drink it, and smell the other men's cigars. For six or seven months out of the nine of a college year he must do all this who would be one of the 'Varsity Eight; and at the end of the seven months he may be appointed substitute, or thrown off altogether for a better man. No doubt it is quite wrong to consider such a proper mode of life as a sacrifice; nevertheless it is a great one to most of the young men who go through it, and particularly to such a one as Rivers. Yet this sacrifice he had made all through his college course.

But hard as the training is to a man in the full flush of health and spirits, it is ten times harder to one who is troubled and depressed. When in such a condition the incessant and monotonous exercise is apt to wear on his nerves, and make him more despondent. If used to tobacco he wofully misses the great comforter. So poor Charlie found it, for in this, his Senior year, one thing happened after another to grieve and worry him. In the winter his father died, and Rivers keenly felt the loss, for his father had been his best friend. Added to his natural grief was a new feeling of responsibility, as though left to fight a battle unsupported, his reserves having been destroyed. On his own account he would not have been troubled by this, but a young sister had been left to him—and very little else. He would have left college at once, but it had been his father's earnest wish that he should take his degree, and there was little chance of finding anything to do before Commencement. So the little sister was quartered with an aunt, and Rivers came back to Cambridge, and went to work again with the crew. The training wore on him more than ever before. He did not miss the fun that was going on around him, but, oh! how he did long for his pipe. He kept grimly on, however, more with the determination of the man (trivial though the object may seem) than with the former enthusiasm of the boy. Holworthy used to do his best in the evenings to lighten his chum's mood, and never smoked himself when the latter was with him.

Besides these troubles, Hollis strongly suspected that there was another; he had not been altogether frank with Bender on the subject. One day some one and her mother came on to Boston for a fortnight, and Rivers at the same time became bluer and more restless than ever. He put all his pipes out of sight, and would tramp up and down the room, or sit and look into the fire for an hour at a time. Nevertheless he would go into Boston nearly every day, and get back only just in time for crew practice.

When some one and her mother came out to see Cambridge, a luncheon had to be given in the room. There was the usual borrowing of furniture, ruthless clearing up, and upsetting of all established disorder in the room, all of which Holworthy suffered in silence. He watched his patient narrowly all through lunch; but when they went out to see the lions, he no longer had any doubt about the case. For Rivers took Mamma, leaving Hollis to convoy the younger craft.

Before the two weeks were up, Rivers did a very foolish thing. He came to the conclusion that, in any event, hell would be better than purgatory. That was of course illogical, but a man in purgatory is not logical. Furthermore when he makes up his mind to jump out of that middle place, he shuts his eyes and always hopes, with or without reason, that he will not go the wrong way. If he were in a comfortable state and could reason at his ease, he might not delude himself with unfounded hope. Charlie Rivers thought he had argued coolly with himself. To the prospect of his responsibilities and narrow means, he answered that he had strength, energy, and education, and that his little sister needed more than money. To the cold reflection that he had never been shown the slightest glimpse of anything more than the dictates of natural gentleness and good manners, he replied that perhaps it was not right for a girl to show more until a man told her that he loved her. At any rate he would not trust his untutored perceptions to tell whether she cared anything for him or not; the only way was to ask her and find out. If he was afraid to do so he was a coward and did not deserve her. Then he argued himself into the idea that it was his duty to tell her squarely how he stood, and give her the opportunity to send him away if she so pleased and put a stop to attentions that might be irksome to her. This was all very silly and boyish. If he had known all about such things, as of course do you and I who read and write about them, he would have spent that Sunday, on which there was no rowing, in his room, reading Thackeray, or gone out with Rattleton and Holworthy in the former's dog-cart, as he was asked to do. Instead of either of these safe and normal Sabbath amusements, he hurried away from his untasted lunch at the training-table (making Bender's blood run cold by showing that he was "off his feed"), spent an hour in dressing, and then went in to Boston.

That afternoon as Holworthy and Jack Rattleton were driving through a suburb of Boston, they saw walking ahead of them a big, familiar form, towering beside another form of very different proportions. Rattleton laid the whip over his horse and went by the couple at a pace that precluded any sign of recognition. Holworthy was as much surprised as pleased at this thoughtful act on Rattleton's part; and concluded that he must in some way have guessed that things were serious with Rivers, and no subject for teasing. Nor did Jack say a word about the pair of pedestrians, or hint that he had recognized Rivers, which reticence confirmed Holworthy's conclusion. On this drive Rattleton did not talk a great deal about anything. He had been quite despondent lately and unlike himself, probably on account of the uncertainty of his Commencement, though the dreaded end of Senior year was still a good way off by Jack's ordinary computation. On two evenings within that past week had he been found in his room, "grinding" for that degree, when the examinations were still two months away.

It was dark when they got back to Cambridge, and went up to Holworthy's room to sit until dinner-time. There was a dark mass on the couch, and when they lit the gas they saw Rivers. The young giant was lying on his chest, his great arms over his head and his face in the cushions.

"The old boy is over-trained and tired," whispered Rattleton. "I had better clear out and not waken him," and he left the room.

Had Jack recognized Rivers that afternoon or not? wondered Holworthy. He hoped not. He turned the light out again, not knowing exactly why. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he went up and laid his hand gently on the shoulder of his prostrate room-mate. Let us not turn the gas up again on those two. We will go down-stairs instead with Jack Rattleton.

As he closed the door gently after him Jack gave a little low whistle. Then he went slowly down-stairs and into the Yard, followed by the dog, Blathers. "Come along, pup," he said to his constant companion; "let's go take a walk." He walked a long way and came back to his club table rather late for dinner.

Holworthy was late, too. As they were smoking with their coffee, the other men having gone, Rattleton asked if Rivers was not getting "stale" from his training.

"I think so, decidedly," answered Hollis. "I have spoken to Bender about it, but he is such a conservative old martinet that he won't break any of the canons of training until he is satisfied that a man is going into a rapid decline. I know a cigar once in a while would do Charlie more good than harm, but I can't make the conscientious beggar steal a smoke without permission from his tyrant. He is blue as indigo."

"Is he troubled about money matters?" asked Rattleton, hesitatingly coming now to what he wanted to find out. "Didn't his father leave him rather hard up? Excuse my asking, but I thought we might help him to find something to do, don't you know."

"That is a great deal of the matter with him," answered Holworthy, glad to see the tack on which Jack was steering. "You needn't apologize for asking about it. I wish to thunder we could find him a job. He is worrying all the time about what he is going to do after leaving college."

That night Rattleton wrote a letter to his father, who was president of a big corporation.

From this time on Rivers seemed to brace up in his mental, and consequently in his physical condition. This apparent improvement, however, did not deceive Holworthy, who saw that it was, in a way, unhealthy. Rivers had kept at his rowing and training patiently and doggedly before; but he now threw himself into it heart and soul as a distraction. He dreamed of the coming race night and day. He tried his best to seem cheerful and encourage the other men, and his plucky efforts succeeded very well. Bender was delighted, declared there was nothing like faithful training to keep a man in proper shape, body and mind, unless he was fool enough to fall in love, and concluded that he had suspected Rivers unjustly on that score.

The latter showed every now and then to his chum the intensity, almost fierceness, that lay under this apparently happy enthusiasm. One day he said that he must make a success of at least one thing before leaving college, and if that race were lost he should feel as though he were going to fail in everything he undertook all through life. Then Mentor Holworthy opened on him with all his batteries. He told him that he ought to be ashamed to make such a mere sport the test of his life; he descanted hotly on the subject of the athletic fever, and laughed scornfully at the fancied importance of such intercollegiate contests.

"I suppose," said he, "that Hancock and Adams and Emerson and Longfellow and all the rest of them will sleep more peacefully in their graves if we beat Yale, and if we get thrashed no doubt old Dr. Holmes will be sorry he ever came to Cambridge, and will at once go down to New Haven to take his entrance examination for the Freshman class there. Haven't you grown up yet, that you look on these things as a school boy? These overwrought struggles can do good in just one way, and you seem ready now to throw away even that advantage. Every time a thoroughbred gets licked it does him good. You have seen the men on our different teams get up after a thrashing and go at it as hard as ever the next year; you have yourself gone through a splendid school of defeat and disappointment, yet now you talk about lying down for all your lifetime if you lose a boat-race. It is true you cannot row against Yale again, but there is a bigger victory than that to be won. Have you for the first time lost all your heart after a failure? You of all men should not need to be told that a prize is never lost until won. At any rate lay up in reserve for yourself the consolation of having done your best. Charley, Charley, if you throw up the sponge after one knockdown, you are not the man I have always thought you."

Rivers listened to all this, with head bent. When Hollis stopped he raised his face again and said: "I know what you mean, old man, and you are right. I won't lie down like a cur. I'll pull it through to the finish, anyway. But in the meantime I must do like a man whatever I have taken up."

"Now you are talking like your old self," answered Hollis, "but don't forget that doing your duty like a gentleman is not confined to rowing a boat-race."

After this broadside Rivers went on with his rowing in a better spirit than he had shown during that year. Before long he was immensely cheered up also by the promise of a position with a good salary and chance of advancement, that was to be ready for him right after the boat-race. Jack Rattleton, through his father, had succeeded in getting this for him. His absorbing devotion to his rowing fortunately did not prevent him from getting his degree but he lost a cum laude and had to "take his A.B. straight," as Burleigh said, "without any green leaves or nutmeg in it."

There was another piece of parchment made out for Commencement Day, that was a surprise to every one. It was marked Johannes Rattleton.

II.

Class Day and Commencement were over, and every one was now bound for New London to attend the post-Commencement carnival that, for the undergraduate at least, really winds up the college year. The crew had gone down to their quarters at Gale's Ferry two weeks before; there had been no Class Day for them. The faithful flocked to the Thames' mouth in squads and divisions, and by all sorts of methods, some in big yachts, some in cat-boats, others on coaches, but most by train at special rates, for the undergraduate is usually not rolling in wealth, particularly at the end of June. The fresh graduate who has just paid his Commencement bills is still less apt to do any coaching or yachting except by invitation.

Dick Stoughton however had a small sloop, and he and his friends had decided that the cruise would not "break" them, and at any rate that they would make it whether it broke them or not. It would be cheaper to live aboard, they argued very plausibly, than to get swindled by New London hotel-keepers. They would refrain from betting on the race; then if Yale won they would be no worse off financially, and if the Crimson went to the front they would not spend twice their winnings on the spot, as they would be sure to do if they bet. This was a highly praiseworthy resolution, and of course the most sensible way of looking at the folly of betting. Burleigh said it was easy enough to look at anything sensibly. They would go, then, on Dick's sloop, and they would not bet a cent. They went on the sloop. The party was made up of Stoughton, Hudson, Randolph, Burleigh, and Gray. Holworthy did not go; he had taken a room in New London at the Pequot House, and went there immediately after Class Day, as he wanted to see all he could of Rivers at the quarters. Strange to say, Jack Rattleton also refused all persuasion to join his friends on the cruise. In vain did Ned Burleigh, with tears in his eyes, assure him that it would be the last and most beautiful "toot" of his college course. Jack advanced several good but utterly insufficient and unnatural reasons for "shaking the gang." Ned exhorted him more in sorrow than in anger.

"What has got into you lately?" he asked anxiously. "That sheepskin seems to have ruined you. I actually believe you have reformed, or have caught a premature aim in life, or some such fatal disease. You were a great deal better fellow when you were Lazy Jack and didn't amount to a row of pins; John Rattleton, Esq., A.B., is a bore. You strained yourself badly for those letters, and are run down in consequence. Hang it all, Jack, come along, it will do you good."

But Rattleton did not go along. He hung around Cambridge until the day before the race, and then joined Hollis at the Pequot House. Capt. Stoughton's craft had arrived safely, notwithstanding her crew, and was anchored in the river with the rest of the fleet in front of the hotel, when Rattleton got there.

The night before the boat-race at New London is one that bears recollection better than description. The Pequot House is usually the centre of ceremonies. Crowds of men are down from Cambridge, and there are a few of the advance-guard from New Haven, although most of the Yale men come next morning. Lectures and examinations are behind them, the long vacation is ahead; it is the last spree of the year, the last gathering of the four years for the Seniors,—and full justice is usually done the occasion. Many a grad., too, runs away from his office to the Connecticut town, or comes ashore there from his yacht, to renew his youth on the eve of battle and to shout at the struggle on the morrow.

Of course on that evening the party from Stoughton's boat were ashore, and in the thick of it. Ned Burleigh was master of ceremonies, and organized a band of "cheerful workers." Holworthy, however, kept out of it. He was thinking of eight men up the river, five or six miles away from all this roystering, and of one big man in particular, whose whole soul, like his muscles, was strung up for the next day. He wondered whether Rivers was getting any sleep, and the anxiety about his best friend left him little heart to rollick with the others. He was surprised to find Rattleton in much the same mood, for notwithstanding the recent change in that young gentleman, it seemed hardly possible that Jack could sulk in his tent at such a time as this. The two, with the dog Blathers, walked out together on the piazza.

As they turned a corner of the veranda they saw sitting in the light of a window two feminine figures, one of which Holworthy at once recognized.

"By Jove!" he thought to himself; "has she come down to see that man kill himself, or does she really want to see him win?" Then he growled to Rattleton, "This is a nice place for a girl on this evening, isn't it?"

Rattleton had stopped short. "Look here," he said, "you go warn those Comanches, and keep them in bounds. I am going to talk to her."

"Why, do you know her?" queried Hollis a little surprised.

"Oh, yes,—slightly,—well enough to speak to. You go along."

Holworthy went to the back of the hotel, and Jack towards the two ladies.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Rattleton," said the younger one, as he came up and bowed. "Let me present you to my aunt, Mrs. West."

"Are you staying in the hotel?" asked Jack after the opening salutations. Just at this moment he heard, from the direction of the billiard-room, the silvery voice of Mr. Edward Burleigh, leading the cheerful workers in the strains of a hymn. He was greatly relieved when Mrs. West answered, "No, we are staying in one of the cottages, and came over here only for dinner. Ethel, my dear, I think we had better go back now. You will walk over with us, Mr. Rattleton, will you not?"

"With pleasure," answered Rattleton, truthfully. "Do you mind my dog?" On the contrary, they thought Blathers a lovely dog, and all four went over to a quiet cottage at a little distance from the hotel. The veranda looked out over the beautiful river and was most inviting. It was apparently not so, however, to Mrs. West; for as she went up the steps, she said: "I feel a little chilly, and am going in doors, Ethel. You may stay out here for a little while, if you like." Ethel did like and went over to a pair of chairs. As she passed through the light of an open door, Jack caught sight of a bit of blue ribbon pinned on her dress. He sat down opposite her, and opened the conversation, by remarking, "You are on the other side of the fence, I see."

"Oh, yes," she answered. "Don't you know that I have a cousin on the Yale crew? I am very proud of him."

"Oh, have you?" said Jack, with an inward groan. "I didn't know it. Well, I never was a really clever, polite liar, but I am not such a transparent one as to say that I hope he will win."

A little rippling laugh followed this confession. "No, you had better not strain the truth to that extent. I will forgive you for sticking to your colors and for being so frank about it."

"It is not only because I am a Harvard man that I want to see our crew win," Jack went on with a sort of gulp, "it is also because the most splendid man I ever knew, and one of my best friends, is in the boat. He has been through an awful mill, and deserves to win if ever a man did."

"Indeed?" came the question, perfectly uninterestedly. "And who is that?"

"A man named Rivers. Do you happen to know him?" Rattleton tried to see in the moonlight whether or not there was any more color in her cheek; but he couldn't. Besides, he had enough to do in looking after his own face. He felt cold all over.

"Oh, yes, I know him quite well," she answered, quite carelessly. "Nice fellow."

"He is more than that, he is a hero," declared Jack. "You can hardly form any idea of what that chap has been through this year, and the way he has borne it all is splendid. He has had all sorts of troubles; his governor died; he was blue about his exchequer; and last, and worst of all,"—Jack was glad the moonlight was kind to him also, but looked at his boots, nevertheless,—"I am perfectly certain that he fell in love with some girl and got a facer."

"A what?" exclaimed his listener.

"I beg your pardon—a staggering blow in the face, metaphorical, of course. I have got so in the habit of using slang, that I fear I am not fit to talk to a lady. I beg you will forgive me for bringing such prize-ring language to your ears."

"It is very expressive, at least," she said. "And did Mr. Rivers tell you that he had received a facer?"

"No, no, no," protested Jack, "of course not. I don't know it, I only suspected it from his actions and condition. I don't even know, of course, who the girl is. But whoever she may be, she is making a big mistake. She is throwing away the most magnificent fellow in the world. If she does not amount to anything," he went on slowly, "I am glad she doesn't take him, for Charley ought not to be wasted on her. But if she is the most beautiful, gentle, sweet woman who ever lived, then, by Jove, such a pair ought to be married. And I am sure she must be just that, or else, you know, Rivers would not have fallen in love with her. Don't you think so?"

Rattleton's hair was rigid at his boldness and impertinence, but his hair had nothing to do with his speaking apparatus. His heart was taking charge of that, moving it very slowly and just a little hoarsely.

"Why, what devout hero worship!" said the girl with a smile. "No, I don't think anything of the kind. He might have fallen in love with some one entirely unworthy of him, or, what is more, who did not care for him. No matter how perfect she might be, you would not have her marry if she did not love him, would you?"

"No—o," assented Jack, reluctantly, "but she ought to love him."

"He must, indeed, be all that you paint him, then," she laughed, "but love does not necessarily take to paragons, you know. Why do you admire him so very much?"

"Because I have known him like a brother for four years," answered Jack, earnestly. "Oh, if you knew him as well as I do, you would——you wouldn't think I was exaggerating."

"What made you think him so desperately in love?"

"Oh, I don't know. I think it is unmistakable," was Jack's weak reply.

"Only those can tell who have themselves been in that condition—they say," came the laughing response.

Jack's finger-nails went into his palms. "No, no," he stammered, "no,—I can tell. Oh, you ought to have seen him," he went on, desperately. "The way he went to work at that rowing after it all, showed his sand. If they lose to-morrow, I believe his plucky old heart will break right in two."

"And is his 'sand,' as you call it, restricted to rowing a boat-race?"

"No, I didn't mean to imply that. He will go on working to win that girl in every way he can, I am sure. I only meant that his conduct about his training, in such a hard time, shows what stuff he has in him."

"Do you think, then, that winning a boat-race is the best way to win a wife? Might not Mr. Rivers find some higher field for his qualities? Is it not a little childish to make an athletic contest the aim of a man's life? Do you think the only pluck worth admiring is that which goes with muscle?"

Jack had heard endless discussions on this subject, and was ready for these questions, "No," he said in answer to the last one, "I don't think anything of the kind. Please don't imagine that at Harvard we are nothing but gladiator worshippers. We admire a plucky athlete, it is true, but not because he is strong or successful, only because of his grit and self-denial. Of course we want him to put the Crimson ahead, but we like him none the less if he fails, provided he has done his best and done it like a gentleman. We admire the same qualities just as much when we see them in any other field than that of athletics, but I suppose we don't recognize them so easily. But in that our little world is not so different from the big one. Now I am going to ask you some questions. Has any man during the last seventy years been elected President of these United States for his greatness, unless he was a soldier? Has not the general been preferred time and again to the statesman? Has not the warrior always been dear to the heart of the people, while other men, who have hammered away all their lives with longer-winded pluck and perseverance, must content themselves with secondary honor? The reason of this must be that when a man does his duty on the battle-field, his merit is more patent to the people than in the harder and less showy struggle of civil life. Are we youngsters, then, so very much younger than the old and wise ones who criticise us? Why, you yourself just now said that you were proud of your cousin because he was on the Yale crew."

"Oh, no, I didn't say that," laughed the girl; "I only said that he was on the Yale crew and I was very proud of him. Why, Mr. Rattleton, what a sharp pleader you are! I had no idea that your talents lay in that direction."

"By Jove! neither had I," exclaimed the ingenuous Jack, really wondering and somewhat abashed at his unaccustomed volubility. "I am only trying, you know, to repeat what I have heard other fellows say," he confessed, apologetically. "I suppose I have got it all mixed up and am talking like a fool, but please make allowances for me, because I am one, you know."

"No you are not at all," she said slowly, to Jack's great relief. "But don't you think that you rather belittle yourself and your fellows by being too humble, and comparing yourselves with people who have not had your advantages? Ought not educated men, men of the same school that has produced our greatest thinkers and workers, ought they not to discern between the showy and the solid? Should the manliness of the athlete be any more patent to them than the higher courage of the student?"

"I suppose not," admitted Jack, resignedly. "That is just what Holworthy always says. I tell him he is a prig, but of course he is right, and so are you. But nevertheless, childish or not, I cannot help admiring such a man as Charlie Rivers for the qualities he has shown. He has been so strong and patient and loyal,—oh! such a man. No, even if it is all wasted as you say, you can never convince me that I ought not to love him for it."

There was silence for a moment, and then came the admission very softly. "No, I don't think I can." Jack's finger-nails went into his palms again.

A moment later she arose and said: "Really I ought not to keep my aunt up any longer. I must say good-night, Mr. Rattleton."

Jack jumped to his feet. "I beg your pardon for staying so late," he said. "The time has gone fast. And—er—by-the-way," he continued, a little awkwardly. "I have done wrong in talking so much about Rivers' trouble. Of course, I really know nothing about it, and it is none of my affair, you know, anyway. Please don't think that I am in the habit of gossiping about other men in this way. I got rather carried away to-night, I am afraid. I beg you won't say anything about it to any one."

"I never make conversation out of such things, Mr. Rattleton," she answered. "You may depend that I shall not repeat it to a soul. And now good-night."

She looked into his eyes with a radiant smile, and held out her hand. Jack took it as if he were afraid of breaking the little thing, and then dropped it quickly. "Good-night," he said, shortly, and went down the steps and over the lawn, followed by Mr. Blathers.

She stood for a moment and watched him putting great stretches of moonlit grass behind his long thin legs, the little dark figure trotting beside him. Then she went in, threw her arms around her aunt's neck, and kissed her.

"Has Mr. Rattleton gone?" asked Mrs. West. "He seems like a nice fellow."

"Yes, and he is one. When I first met him, I thought him easy enough to understand, and like every other boy; but I can't quite make him out now. At any rate he is a species new to me and an interesting one"; and she ran up-stairs to her room, singing.

Jack Rattleton strode along the river bank and out to the end of the Pequot pier. He stood there for a minute, looking over the river and Sound, then sat down on a bench. That enchantress, the moon, was aided in her fairy work by the riding lights of the dark fleet of yachts at anchor, and by the colored sailing lights of the becalmed late comers drifting in from the Sound. But the lights only hurt his eyes. He had sat there some time when he heard his name spoken.

"Beautiful, isn't it," said Holworthy, behind him.

"Got a weed?" asked Jack.

"Yes."

"Give it to me." He bit off the end of the cigar nervously, and lit it with thick puffs. "Gad!" he muttered, "I'm glad I'm not training for the crew. How did he ever stand it! But Charlie Rivers is a very different breed of cats from me."

Holworthy looked on a moment in silence, and tried to pull an idea out of his moustache.

"What is the matter with you, Jack?" he asked, gently.

"Nothing—only that I am such a poor sort of a thing. No ambition, no backbone, no sand. Just a worthless, dissipated loafer. Let's go lush up with the rest of the crowd,—that is all I'm good for."

"Don't talk like a fool," replied Hollis, by way of comfort.

"A disgrace to the University. Haven't you always told me the same thing?" asked Jack, with a ghastly grin.

"That is no reason why you should think so yourself and get so blue about it. I never thought you would ever take it to heart so. You know I never meant half that I said. I used to lay it on thick in hopes that a little would soak in."

"I wish it had all soaked in long ago," answered Jack, ruefully. "Don't take any of it back, old man; you haven't soured me. Come along, let's go back to the old gang. You are all a very bad lot and don't properly appreciate my faults; even you, you old prig. Come along, Blathers."

He tucked his arm through Holworthy's and they went back to the hotel, Hollis musing much.

Meanwhile, in the billiard-room the good work was going on to Ned Burleigh's deepest gratification. He himself, mounted on the pool-table, was beating time with a broken cue for a choir of sweet singers. They had cheered each member of the crew and the coxswain, declaring in the time-honored measures that each was a jolly good fellow, and intimating the mendacity of any one who might deny the fact. Grateful for his degree, and being in a broad and liberal frame of mind, Burleigh had also proposed each member of the Faculty of Harvard College for similar honors, prefacing each nomination with a few well-chosen remarks.

"And now, dearly beloved brethren," said he, "omitting the next fifty-three stanzas, let us all unite in singing the one hundred and forty-fifth; and as I look upon your happy, up-turned faces, I cannot help being touched by the spirit of those beautiful lines. All sing!"

The earnest chorus roared, with cheerful zeal, the one hundred and forty-fifth verse, as exhorted.

"What ho!" shouted the Lord of Misrule, "What is yon tall form i' the doorway. Is it the melancholy Jacques, forsooth? Or is it our long-lost wandering Brother Rattleton returning to the fold? Pull off his coat, somebody, and look for strawberry-marks. Joy, joy, mark his old time smile! Throw him up here. Once more now, all sing, 'For he's a jolly good fellow!'"

III.

The day was beautiful and the water perfect, a most unusual combination for the 'Varsity race day. All the steam yachts had gone up the river, and most of the others towed up also and anchored along the course near the finish. It would be waste of time to try to describe the picture of the great annual event of oardom, a picture that is done every year in the sumptuous paints of the press, with the sky and the river and the yachts and the crowds, and above all the two colors everywhere. It is painted every year, but no one can appreciate it who has not seen the original. It is not for this spectacle, however, that all these tremendous crowds gather; it is to see two long thin yellow streaks, each surmounted by nine bodies, eight of which swing back and forth in a most monotonous, uninteresting manner. That is all that the race looks like to most of the spectators—then why do they go to see it? Because they know that those sixteen men are going through about the hardest physical strain that men can bear. To the layman there is in tennis and base-ball four times the skill and pretty playing that there is in foot-ball, and in rowing there is none at all. Yet a tennis match excites the least interest of all college sports, base-ball comes next in the rising scale, and both of these combined do not rouse a quarter of the enthusiasm provoked by a foot-ball game. But at the head and front of all athletic contests is rowing—because it hurts the most. Foot-ball, it is true, requires a dashing courage and disregard of breaks and bruises (though "dashing courage" and all that sort of thing never occurs to the struggling youngsters), but there is always the great relief of frequent short rests during the game; in a four-mile boat-race there is no let-up. The half-back makes his rush and plunge, is slammed on the hard ground and buried under hard muscle, is picked up, rubbed a little, and with the cheers of the crowd in his ears again goes at the line, head first, as hard as ever. But for the oarsman there is only the incessant pull, pull, pull, with the bees in his brain and the growing hole in his stomach, the aching legs and leaden arms, and before him, growing dimmer and dimmer, the bare back that will never stop rising and falling, and that he must follow, it seems, to death. Oh! it does hurt, and that is why the great crowd goes to see it and goes wild. Yes, fair and gentle one, that is just why even you go to the Thames as your predecessor went to the Colosseum. There is this vast difference, however, between you and Octavia—the Roman Vestal looked at hired gladiators, and prisoners who were forced to hurt each other, whereas you go to see Tom, and Jack, and dear Mary's brother Mr. Brown, hurt themselves; and, God bless you, I hope you always will. So long as you do, this republic will never fail from the effeminacy of its young men.

The "gang" had got seats in the same car on the observation-train and were waiting for it to start.

"What were you doing with that Yale man just now?" Hudson demanded of Randolph, as the latter joined the group on the platform.

"That was an old schoolmate of mine," answered Randolph, evasively.

"Oh, yes; and I suppose you were talking over your happy childhood days, with a bunch of bills in your fist. Fie! Johnny, you have been betting."

"You needn't put on airs. You were the first backslider of the lot," answered Randolph.

"I haven't put up a cent," protested Hudson.

"No, because you met a man who knew you and bet on tick. I heard you."

"A man who didn't know him, you mean," corrected Burleigh. "You are all a set of weak, reprehensible young men. I am ashamed of you. I depend upon you, at least, Hollis, my son, not to indulge in this wicked vice of betting."

"Yes," laughed Holworthy, "there must be some one left to float you home, if we lose."

"Now you mention it," Ned suggested, "perhaps you had better lend me an X now, in case we should get separated after the race. I want to prevent the spread of this athletic fever and the evils that follow in its train. I am afraid my governor may become too enthusiastic. If I go home to him again C. O. D. he will begin to take a real interest in seeing Harvard win, and I fear even a pecuniary one."

"This betting is indeed a deplorable evil," said Stoughton, solemnly, "in off years. Listen to me, my children. Two years ago I, even I, who now stand before you, was a reckless, ungodly Sophomore. I went——"

Just then the whistle blew, and Stoughton jumped for the car to get a front seat before the rest of the crowd. The long observation-train, a peculiar feature of the New London race, moved slowly out from the station on its way to the starting-point, four miles up the river. Then the cheering began, one car taking it up after another, the sharp quick cheers of the Yale men mingling with the slower full-mouthed three-times-three of Harvard. Every one is always in great spirits before the race begins,—it is different afterwards. They chaffed each other, and shouted, and laughed, and the enthusiastic choruses of "Here's to good old Yale, drink her down," were answered with the stirring, swelling cadences of "Fair Harvard."

When they got to the starting-point, of course the crews were not yet there. Across the river, however, at Red Top, the H. U. B. C. quarters, tall forms were seen entering the boat-house.

"Oh, how I wish I were like those chaps," sighed little Gray, who was already beginning to tremble with excitement. "What wouldn't I give to be able to pull an oar to-day."

"I have thought of it myself," said Burleigh; "but they wouldn't build the boat to suit my figure."

"The only thing I could do for the glory of Harvard was to try for coxswain," went on Gray, ruefully, "and they wouldn't have me."

"Was that the best you could do for Alma Mater?" said Holworthy. "What a pity you couldn't succeed in putting such laurels on her brow!"

"There, Gray, take that," chuckled Stoughton; "that is the time Pegasus fell down and got his neck stepped on."

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, you hot-headed little poet," put in Hudson, gravely. "How can you speak so thoughtlessly, even when sitting right beside Holworthy, the Superb? Can you, a member of the Oldest and Greatest take such a childish interest in a paltry boat-race?"

"You are forgetting all about the atmosphere, and the traditions, and all that sort of game," added Randolph. "What difference does it make to us whether we win or lose? Remember the true glories and blessings of our ancient University."

"For instance," drawled Rattleton, "whether we want to celebrate or console ourselves, we have all the royal crimson juices with which to do it, whereas those poor Elis can't find a blue drink to save their souls."

"Jove! I never thought of that. Glad I didn't go to Yale, aren't you, Gray?" exclaimed Stoughton.

"I don't believe the color of their booze troubles them much, as long as we pay for it," reasoned Burleigh. "Still, that is the proper spirit and the right way to look at these comparative collegiate advantages. Isn't it, Gray?"

"If you chaps think you can get a rise out of me," answered Gray to all this, "you are mistaken; but for your own sakes you had better not try to be so funny in public. As for you, Hol, there is no use at all in your trying to play the lofty indifferent. You are as much excited as any man; you look as if you were going to row the whole thing yourself. I have been watching you biting your knuckles and clenching your fist and staring over at——"

He was interrupted by a great shout, and everybody jumped to his feet. Out of the boat-house opposite, came the long shell borne by the Crimson eight. As they put it in the water another shout went up, and a volley of cheers, for at that moment the Yale crew shot round the point from Gale's Ferry, with a beautiful snap and dash, and "let her run" in front of the train. They were not kept waiting long for the Cambridge men got quickly into their boat and came swinging across, showing but one crimson back until they turned. There was perfect precision and splendid power in their sweep. There were five men in the boat who had never pulled an oar in the four-mile race, but they were all good ones. Four had rowed on their class crews; the fifth, though a Freshman, had taken hold wonderfully, had a magnificent physique, and had come up with a good reputation from St. Paul's. And there was Dane Austin, L.S., at stroke, the hero of four 'Varsity races, and behind him at 7, old Billy Bender, the iron captain who, with all luck against him, had made a winning crew before, and certainly must have done so this year with such material. These two could surely "hit up" the stroke indefinitely, and in the middle of the boat towered Charlie Rivers, looking as if he could do all his own share and that of the three men behind him, if need might be.

Now both crews backed up to the starting boats, and off came the jerseys. They were right opposite the car. "Attention!" "Ready!" Rivers leaned forward and buried his blade alongside of Yale for his last chance. He had never won. Holworthy, bent almost double, gripping his chin in his hand, watched that statue. He could see no expression whatever in the sunburned profile and the motionless eye fixed on the neck before it. He wondered,—"Row!" He saw the oar bend so that his heart stopped for a moment in the fear that the spruce would break. A mingled roar that sounded like "Yayavard!" then silence so that he could hear the clear, cool tones of Varnum, the coxswain. He saw the mighty shoulders heave back, and swing forward again in one motion, the arms rigid as steel pistons. Again, with not a movement of the arms. "Row!" A third time, and this time the great muscle leaped up and the arm was bent until the oar butt touched the chest, then shot out again like a flash, "Row! That's good; steady, now hold it." The roar burst out again, and this time it sounded clear enough. Har—ar—vard! Holworthy took his eyes from his chum and looked at the whole picture. The little red coxswain was even with No. 3 in the Yale boat! It had been a perfect racing start; those three tremendous lightning strokes had shot the Harvard eight nearly half a length ahead of their rivals. There was no question as to which were the stronger men, but strength is the least thing of all that wins a boat-race. After this first leap the Yale crew hung right where it was, and would not fall clear of the Crimson oars. At the mile flag Harvard had not increased her lead perceptibly.

"That's all right; they'll spurt in a minute," shouted Randolph. So they did and gained a little, at least so it seemed to the Crimson wearers.

The shells were far out in the stream now, and how slowly those two centipedes were crawling! The two eights, that had dashed away from the starting-point (which is close to the bank), now seem to swing back and forth with aggravating deliberation.

"There! There! now Yale's coming up!" "Not much, sir, look at that!" Since the start that was the best struggle so far,—just before the Navy-yard, and there was no question that this time Harvard had gained. At the end of two miles she had a good length.

Again the Yale men spurt; gaining? no, but holding,—yes gaining,—there! Of course the train has gone behind the island just at the most exciting point. Everybody leans back and tries to take a long breath. For a minute nothing is heard but the chug, chug, chug of the train. Hark! the front cars are out, listen! But that spontaneous indefinite yell may come from the lungs of either, or both sides. "Yale! Yale! Yale!" the two crews are even! Bow and bow to the two and a half mile flag, and the stroke is high now. But high as it is Dane Austin is sending it higher, for Bender behind him knows the vital importance of leading at the three-mile flag, and has probably grunted "hit her up." Slowly the Harvard shell pokes ahead, a yard, two, a quarter of a length, "Harvard! Harvard! Harvard!" The Crimson coxswain shows in the middle of the Yale crew. "Can they hold it?" "Yale is spurting like fury too." "No, the red coxswain is dropping back." "They are even again." "No, by Jove! Yale is ahead!" "Ya-a-l-e!" Two miles and three quarters and Yale is ahead for the first time. Another desperate spurt and the Harvard bow comes up even again, but holds there less than a minute, and another beautiful effort of the Yale crew sends their boat farther ahead than before. The Cambridge men are not rowing as they were; they are ragged; can they be weakening? There is a break somewhere; seems to be in the middle. The Blue coxswain is going ahead fast now. Yes, there is a decided break right in the middle of the Harvard crew. "Hullo! no wonder! somebody is gone!" "What?" "No! Oh, d—— it all, no, not No. 4?" "Man alive, you don't know who No. 4 is." "Can't be!" "Yes, but it is though." "Rivers, by——Charlie Rivers!"

It was. Swaying irregularly, he was throwing himself back and forward all out of time.

"He is a passenger!" exclaimed a Yale man in the car. "It has been a fine race, but it will be a procession now. Those big men are no use in a boat."

"Hold on, my friend, look at that! If he is a passenger he is working his passage pretty hard still."

He did seem to gather himself for a moment, probably in response to a yell from the coxswain, and for a second the glimpse of open water between the boats was shut out by a Harvard spurt. It was no use. Yale drew away again faster than ever. Rivers was growing worse and worse. His head was loosening, but not falling yet; it was snapping back at the end of each stroke, a fault that showed he was still pulling hard, though all out of form and time.

Hollis Holworthy had not moved from his first position since the beginning of the race. He had taken no part in, and paid no attention to the exclamations, shouts, and cheers around him. He had grown paler, that was all. Only now he muttered to himself, "He is too old an oar to pull himself out in the first two miles."

Jack Rattleton sat beside him. "He is doing it deliberately, Hol," he said softly, with a quivering lip.

"I don't believe it, Jack. You do him injustice. He has more grit and patience than that, and if he had not, he would not sacrifice the rest of the crew and the Crimson to his own madness. No, I can't make it out, but I don't believe that."

At the three and a quarter mile flag the New Haven men had a fast increasing stretch of clear water behind them and were going easily. How prettily they did row! A winning crew with a safe lead always does.

And now began that most pathetic spectacle, the finish of a beaten eight-oared crew. Yet there was not one of their friends looking on who would not have given anything to have been pulling with them then. Where was that faultless form, that clock-like time, that glorious sweep, that at the start had raised an exultant shout from every breast that bore the Crimson? Much of the mighty strength was still there, but pitifully divided against itself, and therefore fast waning. The new men were, every one of them, "rowing out of the boat," that is to say, swinging in a circular motion around the ends of their oars, in their desperate efforts to pull their hardest. The temptation to do this is generally irresistible to a green man when behind. It seems to him as if he can pull harder in this way, and indeed it looks so to the unknowing observer. Time and form are thrown overboard in the wild struggle to row his heart out. Only the two old veterans at 7 and 8 were still swinging over the keel, not a hair's breadth to starboard or port, coming forward steadily and back with a simultaneous heave; their backs straight, their chins in, two parallel unbroken lines from hip to crown; their oars taking the water cleanly and together, pulled clear through, and flashing back at once with a perfect feather. So evenly and smoothly did they row that, to the untaught eye on the distant train, they might have seemed to be shirking; but to those on the yacht decks along the course, the spread nostrils, clenched jaws, and swollen veins told a very different story. An old Yale stroke, when his hat came down on deck again after the Yale crew had passed, let it lie where it fell as he gazed at the struggling tail-enders, and exclaimed, "Look at those two men in the stern. By gracious, isn't that grand!" And Rivers, the third of the old guard, Rivers, who had been relied upon to brace the waist of the boat, who had before rowed that terrible fourth mile in a losing race and rowed it well; how was he finishing? Not an ounce of strength in his blade. He was still throwing his body to and fro with the others or nearly so, his head falling forward and back as he did so, and his oar moved; but that was all. He was now being carried over the line by the crew he had ruined. He alone was doing nothing; the others, though ragged, were still pulling desperately, using up the very last of their failing strength.

Through the buzzing in their ears they can faintly hear the guns, the whistles, and the roar of the crowd. Not for them, not for them. What difference does that make? They may win, or at any rate they can lose like men. They may win, they may win. "Let her run."

Over the water from all sides come the cheers and shouts of "Yale, Yale, Yale." Leave them, reader, if you so choose, they are beaten men; go and rejoice with the victors who have rowed a splendid race and well deserve your congratulations. I always take a certain morbid interest myself in the nine heartbroken men who are quietly carried away in their launch as soon as possible after a race.

All over and lost in twenty minutes, the work and self-denial of seven months! The big Freshman has dropped his head on his knees and is sobbing like a baby; of course it must be all his fault. Bill Bender is still grimly gripping his oar and looking straight before him; that back is bent now, but the jaw is still set, the eyes flashing, and through his teeth he registers a vow to come back to the Law School and get at 'em again. Varnum, the coxswain, is as pale as the rest; he has rowed every stroke of that race without the savage comfort of the physical torture; he has seen what the others could not—the Blue coxswain going farther and farther ahead, and he powerless to help his straining men. They all hold on to something or clasp their knees tightly—to faint or fall over would be a grand-stand play.

Nevertheless that was what Charles Rivers did. He swayed for a moment, grasped blindly at the side of the shell, and fell back unconscious in the lap of the man behind him. And then, for the first time, No. 3 saw that the bottom of the boat was red with blood. Rivers had broken his sliding-seat before the two mile flag was reached, and had rowed the last half of the race sliding back and forth on the sharp steel tracks that cut into him at every stroke.[2]

Before the observation-train had fairly stopped Holworthy leaped from it and dashed for the river bank followed by Rattleton. As they passed one of the cars they both recognized a girl with a blue flag. Holworthy said something that Jack did not hear; the former did not notice that the girl's face was deadly pale and the blue flag motionless in her hand, but the latter did.

"There is no use in our following them," said Burleigh. "They won't be allowed to talk to the crew even if they get out to the float." Therein he was quite right; before the two could get a boat to go out to the Harvard float at the finish, they saw the men helped out of the shell and onto the University launch. They saw Rivers carried aboard. Then the launch steamed quickly up the river, towing the empty shell.

"Hullo, there is my uncle's boat," exclaimed Rattleton, pointing to a big schooner. "I am going aboard her. You go back to New London and get a trap, and I'll meet you at the ferry."

Holworthy ran back towards the town. On the way he met the others, who stopped him to hear what was up.

"I don't know," he replied. "He is completely gone. I am going up to the quarters. You fellows mustn't come. They won't allow a crowd there."

"Where is Jack?"

"Gone aboard his uncle's yacht. Rather think he has gone to ask for an invitation for Charlie. Hope so."

"Isn't there anything we can do?"

"Not a thing. Don't try to see him, please; you probably won't have a chance to, anyway."

"You won't dine with us then?"

"Can't possibly."

"Well then, good-bye, old man. We'll all come back together next year and see them win."

"Good-bye. Write to a fellow once in a while and let me know how you are all getting on in the world."

"Good-bye." "Good-bye." "Good luck to you." "Thank heaven we have all been at Harvard anyway." This last for the benefit of a knot of radiant men who pushed by, with violets in their button-holes, and who looked back and laughed good-naturedly.

So "the gang" separated, and so separate constantly, after this battle, not knowing when they will ever meet again, men who have lived together four years and have become the closest friends that live.

Half an hour later Holworthy and Rattleton in a buggy were on their way to Red Top. All sorts of rumors had already spread about No. 4 in the Harvard boat, and they were really relieved to find, on arriving at the quarters, that Rivers was nowhere near death's door, not even permanently injured. But the great, stalwart, glorious man was weak and limp as an invalid girl. As soon as possible they got him away from the gloomy group at the quarters, and took him aboard the cruiser of Rattleton's uncle for perfect rest and sparkling blue water.

There they kept him prisoner for two weeks, though before he had fairly got back his strength, he began chafing to get to work. When at last they let him go, he buckled down to his desk, as he had to his oar, and kept at it until, at the end of the summer, a short vacation was forced on him.

The following cablegram, received by "Herr Holz Holvordy," at St. Moritz, explains itself:

Newport, Sept. 5.

She is mine. Hurrah. Be my best man.

Rivers.

At the wedding every one remarked what a handsome couple they were, and how well suited to each other. Holworthy of course was best man. The ushers were Messrs. Bender, Burleigh, Gray, Hudson, Randolph, and Stoughton. Jack Rattleton happened to be abroad at the time.

THE END.

[1] This farce is printed by the kind permission of the Hasty Pudding Club for which it was originally written.