“We’ll fix that,” Roy answered. “Where’s the flag?”
Dick happened to be sitting on it and the cautious way in which he disentangled it from his feet made the others laugh. Chub fastened it to the bow and received a salvo of applause from the occupants of a near-by punt. The punt was only some ten feet long, but it held eight Ferry Hill boys by actual count. Mr. Buckman, one of the instructors, hailed them from the bow of the judges’ boat, a few yards distant, and warned them that they were on the course, but they pretended not to hear him.
“Just as though a couple of feet were going to make any difference!” growled Chub, disgustedly. “Buckman is stuck on himself to-day.”
“A nice judge he will make,” laughed Dick under his breath. “He will be so excited that he won’t have the least idea which boat crosses the line first!”
“Ours will,” replied Chub, stoutly. “I’ll bet you we’ve got ’em beaten already.”
“Whitcomb told me yesterday that he expected to win,” said Dick, “and I guess he wouldn’t say that unless he was pretty certain.”
“Well, if we win the boat-race it’ll make a clean sweep for the year,” said Roy: “foot-ball, hockey, track, base-ball, and rowing. We’ve never done that before, and I’m afraid it’s too much to hope for. You can bet that Hammond will do all she knows how to win one event out of the five.”
“Yes, but we’ve got the crew,” Chub replied, untroubled. “Hammond will have to take it out in trying. You’ll see. They ought to be here pretty quick. Can you see anything, Roy?”
“N-no; at least, I don’t think so. Yes, I can, though. There they are, but the sun’s so strong--”
“Hammond’s in the lead!” cried a voice from the sail-boat, where, clustered at the bow, a group of Hammond supporters were looking intently up the river. The one who had spoken, a youth in white flannels who held a pair of field-glasses to his eyes, was visibly excited.
“Don’t you believe it,” said Chub. “He can’t tell at this distance.”
“I don’t care if he’s got a twelve-inch telescope! He doesn’t know which side Hammond has got, and it isn’t likely he can tell red oars from brown at this distance. You wait until they get under the cliff up there, out of the sunlight, and then you can see for yourself.”