Part 13

"The Indian got back to the canoe long before midnight, and did not leave the spot again, Harry says, till morning. He is sure of this. Four or five hours elapsed, then, before the rock slid down on you fellows. How do you account for that?"

Kingdon slapped Pence on the shoulder. "Plain as a pikestaff! Bootleg tried to pry the rock loose, and failed. He meant to squash our tent flat. He cut the lever and dug the hole under the rock. Then he set the stone for a fulcrum. But he couldn't budge the bowlder. Not even that night when he came over here from Clay Head."

"Then what----?"

"The rain did it. The rain, feeding into that hole, worked all around the bowlder and, 'long toward morning, away she went."

"Lucky you had that hunch to move," said Horace.

"More than luck," Kingdon said gravely. But he made no further explanation.

That day there was no rowing practice, so Kingdon's idea was not divulged until the day following. The only change in the arrangement of the positions of the crew he made at first was to have Pence and Pudge MacComber shift places.

"Oh, cracky!" Kirby muttered to the black-eyed chap. "What a chance! Pudge for stroke!"

Kingdon had no idea of keeping Pudge there permanently. He wanted the fat boy, who was not so ponderously slow now, exercise having reduced his corpulency to a marked degree, where he could watch his stroke. After a time, Kingdon sent him back to his former position and brought Pence forward to his own place at Number Seven, taking the stroke-oar himself.

"Now, fellows, I'll give you my idea," Kingdon said. "Length of stroke doesn't always make for power. The longer the stroke, the longer the recovery. For eight men to row successfully in unison, they should use a stroke that is well within the power of the one of the eight who naturally takes the shortest stroke."

"Pudge!" cried several.

"And that weakens the whole bunch," muttered Kirby, still in doubt.

"I get your point," said Horace Pence. "It's the idea of the chain being only as strong as its weakest link."

"Exactly. Gradually the weakest link must be strengthened."

"You're right," the black-eyed fellow said. "Pay attention, everybody. We've got a skipper who uses his head, and he's got a head to use!"

So they started rowing practice on a much different line for the three final weeks before the big race. Horace Pence's friends were not very enthusiastic at first, having been so badly beaten by the Blackport crew that hope had deserted them.

But something happened to revive their spirits and make them all feel good. They went over to Blackport on Saturday afternoon, and beat Yansey's nine 12 to 4. Cloudman pitched five innings, and did well. Then Horace pitched the last of the game, and Rex allowed him to display his speedy ball to his heart's content.

"There's nothing to it! There's nothing to it!" sang Peewee Hicks, as the _Spoondrift_ sailed out through Blackport Channel that evening. "We're going to walk off with the shell race, just as we did with these chaps who thought they could play ball. There's nothing to it!"

"We're merely beginning to get into form at last, chums," said Rex, his words and his glance including them all.

Kirby whispered to Pence: "Never thought it would make me feel good to have him call me chum."

"It makes me feel proud," Horace whispered back.

It was a well contented party that landed on Storm Island that evening. The two crowds of young fellows were becoming more friendly than even Rex had foreseen. The next day Pence and his mates struck their tents and brought them over to the plateau above the cove where the catboat and shell lay. They combined forces to save work and get more time for practice.

Pudge, his cousin and Kirby, as well as Pence, began to enjoy themselves much better, now that they had an object before them and more work to do. There was less grumbling and scrapping among themselves, and a huge lot of fun with the Walcott Hall fellows.

Kingdon worked them hard, no doubt of that. He whipped them along at both rowing and baseball. During the last week of the former practice, however, he let up a little so that, when the great day came, the Storm Island eight went into the big race as fresh and cheerful as though they had every surety of winning.

To the amazement of their rivals, they did win. It could not be said that Rex Kingdon was the sole cause of their doing so. Every fellow in the boat felt that the fact was somewhat due to his own personal work. But Kingdon had trained them to pull together like a machine, and had developed a stroke that gave speed enough to enable them to beat the Blackport crew by a length.

The other two boats were a long way behind when Storm Island crossed the finishing line. Manatee Sound looked like a yacht-racing day at Newport, only on a smaller scale. Boats of all kinds and descriptions for miles up and down the coast, had come to see the regatta.

"Jawn," Rex Kingdon told Midkiff, as they rested after the race, "we'll never have better fun than we did to-day--not even at the old Hall." Which goes to show that even the self-confident Kingdon could be mistaken, as the reader will agree if he reads the subsequent volume of this series, entitled "Rex Kingdon and His Chums."

"We certainly pulled down the little old cup in this boat race," Midkiff chuckled happily. "That was a prize worth winning."

Rex rolled over and seized Midkiff's arm in a tight grip. His eyes were laughing, but his lips were serious as he said:

"We've gathered another prize, a bigger one, Jawn."

"Huh?" asked Midkiff, puzzled.

"Horace Pence is going to Walcott Hall with us next term. I've got his promise. I've written the Doctor about him. He'll enter with some conditions, of course, but he is going to help Walcott Hall win baseball games. He is the prize I was after."

THE END