CHAPTER XXI--THE FINISH OF THE BOAT RACE

Chetwood Belding and his chum, Lance Darby, were in a motor-boat and that boat kept pace with the racing shells. The boat belonged to Prettyman Sweet; but Purt could not run the craft and depended upon his friends to run it for him. "Pretty Sweet" couldn't do much of anything, so it seemed, and therefore, as Chet remarked, things were made "pretty soft for him."

The boys in the launch cheered the girls of Central High vociferously. Laura and her comrades rowed like veterans. They "kept their eyes in the boat" and Celia pulled a stroke that was both quick and long. The shell was driving through the water at increasing speed.

But the Keyport boat kept ahead. And she seemed to be gaining on Central High, too, though that gain was very slow. The shell of the East High girls crept up, nearer and nearer, its bow overlapping the stern of the Central High shell.

But of a sudden West High of Centerport, coming up on the other side, fouled East High. Their oars crashed together for an instant. It scarcely cost the East High girls an inch; but the colliding boat fell out of the race and dropped back behind the Lumberport shell.

This latter came up with a rush. East High kept ahead of Lumberport for a few yards, and then fell back. The girls from the upper end of the lake came on with increasing speed. Keyport was struggling to maintain its place in the lead. The Central High girls were dropping back by inches.

It was useless for the latter crew to strain further. Lumberport was passing them. Yet Celia set the pace for a spurt and her comrades did their level best. Bertha, in the stern, however, got excited, and shifted her seat. It made the boat drag heavily, and the Lumberport shell passed them with a rush.

Those last few yards all three of the head crews were under great strain. But each held to its work as truly as had the boys' crews earlier in the day.

The Lumberport boat could not overtake the Keyport; but it came in Number 2. Central High was Number 3, and East High fourth, while West High had fallen out of the race entirely. The three leading boats, however, crossed the line within lengths of each other--a close and exciting finish.

But the girls of Central High were vastly disappointed. The race should have been theirs, according to the time elapsed from start to finish. Often they had done a straight-away half-mile at better speed when Bobby Hargrew was there. There was something fundamentally wrong with the eight-oared crew.

"We could have won--I know we could!--if Bobby had been in her place," wailed Jess Morse. "See how mean Gee Gee is!"

"See how unfortunate Bobby is," returned her chum.

"See how unfortunate we _all_ are," added Mary O'Rourke. "I believe if that little scamp had been in our boat to-day we would have won."

"We'll never win without a better balanced boat--that is sure," said Laura, gravely, as she and Jess hurried through dressing so as to join the boys for a trip to Cavern Island.

"And the mid-summer races coming on!" groaned Jess.

"We'll have to get her back before that time," declared her chum, assertively.

"But suppose she has to leave school for setting that fire in Mr. Sharp's office?"

"She never set it!" exclaimed Laura, quickly.

"Who did, then?"

"That is what we must find out," announced Laura, decidedly.

"How ridiculous you talk!" exclaimed Jess. "We can't find out."

"I believe one can explain almost any mystery if one only puts mind enough to it."

"That's all right, Miss Sherlock Holmes. Put your great mind to it. Be the greatest female detective of the age!" scoffed Jess. "You're going to do wonders, aren't you? How about getting a big present from Colonel Swayne for our new athletic field, too? Say! you've been promising a whole lot that you'll never perform, Laura."

"I've been promising to _try_, my dear. And I can still try," laughed her friend.

But Laura was very much in earnest regarding three things just at this time. First, was the discovery of how the fire started in the schoolhouse; second was the mystery of the person who had bound her in the haunted house in Robinson's Woods; third was the interesting of the wealthy Colonel Swayne in girls' athletics.

This last would seem to be the hardest of all, for Colonel Swayne had, on several occasions of late, complained to the school board that the athletic field and bathing place adjoining his estate was a nuisance. He complained of the shrill voices of the girls at play; but how did he expect young folk to disport themselves and have a good time without shouting and laughter?

The week following the boat race two eagerly contested doubles were going on the courts next to Colonel Swayne's line at the same time. The girls _were_ making a great deal of noise, but they were doing so innocently. Once a serving man had climbed a stepladder and, looking over the hedge and fence, announced that his master "would be pleased if the young ladies went to the further side of the field to play."

"How ridiculous!" exclaimed Jess Morse, who happened to be one of the contestants. "Does he think that we can pick up the courts and move them about at will?"

So the girls went on enjoying themselves, and, it must be confessed, did little to lower their voices. Laura had dressed and was coming to the gate when she heard angry voices there. The keeper was saying:

"Very sorry, sir; you cannot come in without a ticket. This is not visiting day."

"I'll show you whether I can come in or not!" roared the voice of Colonel Swayne. "Think I'm going to brow-beaten by a lot of little snips that had better be at home in their nurseries? Their parents ought to be ashamed of themselves for bringing them up so badly. And as for this idiotic school board of Centerport----"

His voice died away as Laura came modestly out of the gate. The old gentleman, choleric as he was, could not face the young girl's cool bow and still bully the gate keeper.

"I--I----" he stammered. Then his eye lit up with recognition. "I say!" he growled. "You're the girl who saved that man on the steeple."

"Yes, sir," returned Laura, demurely. "I am Laura Belding, Colonel."

"Look here! Can't those girls in there keep better order? They sound like a pack of wild Indians. I never heard such yelling."

"Oh, Colonel! we are only having a little fun, mixed with physical culture, after school hours," said Laura.

"Call it fun?" gasped the Colonel. "Sounds more like a massacre!"

"I wish you could come in and see how the girls enjoy themselves, sir," said Laura. "But visitors are not allowed save on invitation. But I will ask Mr. Sharp to send you tickets----"

"I don't want to see 'em!" exclaimed the old gentleman. "Think I'm hanging around here to see a parcel of girls be as unladylike as they can? Let me tell you when _I_ was young, girls didn't have athletics--and yell like Indians while they were at it!"

"But don't you think the girls to-day are a lot nicer than the girls used to be?" asked Laura, demurely.

"No, I don't, Miss!" But the Colonel had to smile a little now. Laura, was so unruffled and smiling herself that he could not wholly maintain his "grouch." Besides, he had admired the girl immensely ever since she had shown she had so good a headpiece.

"Why, even my mother says that we girls are much better physically than the girls of her day. We work much harder in school, but we do not get nervous and 'all played out,' as the saying is. She believes it is due to our physical exercises and our outdoor lives. The games and exercises we have in this athletic field are making us stronger and abler to meet the difficulties of life. Don't you believe so, sir?"

"I must confess I had never given it much thought," admitted the old gentleman, eyeing her curiously.

"Don't you see how much healthier and stronger we are than even the girls were ten years ago?" she persisted.

"I never gave much attention to girls--only to one girl," he replied, with a drop in his voice and a gloomy brow.

"You mean your daughter--Mrs. Kerrick?"

"Poor Mabel!" the old man sighed. "Yes. She never was given to activities of any kind--save social activities. She has never been well."

"But suppose she had 'gone in' moderately for athletics when she was my age?" suggested Laura.

"There were no such things in either the private or public schools at that time, my dear," said the old gentleman, shaking his head. "They had what they called 'calisthenic drills'; but I guess they did not pay much attention to them, after all. Poor Mabel was always nervous--little things annoyed her so dreadfully. And that is why the screeching of those girls annoys her now," added Colonel Swayne, with a quickening note of anger in his voice. "And it's got to be stopped."

"Oh, please don't say that, Colonel!" begged Laura. "I--I hoped you would be interested in our work in time, and help us. We need so many things, you know!"

"Want my help, do you?" demanded the old gentleman, grimly. "And my daughter not able to sleep for weeks!"

"But, Colonel! we are not on the field at night."

"And she doesn't sleep at all at night. Why, she hasn't had a night's sleep in weeks upon weeks. But sometimes she is able to just lose herself in the afternoon. I allow nobody to come to the house, and the servants move about within doors in felt slippers. I do everything not to disturb her--and here you crazy young-ones are raising particular Sam Hill out there in that open lot!"

Under other circumstances Laura would have been tempted to laugh at the old gentleman's heat. But she knew that he felt for his daughter very deeply--although Laura believed, with the other neighbors, that if Mrs. Kerrick would rouse herself, she could shake off much of her nervous disorder.

"Hasn't she been attended by Dr. Agnew?" asked Laura patiently.

"Oh, the Doc doesn't seem to realize how sick she is," grunted Colonel Swayne, "He does not give her enough of his attention. I feel sometimes that she ought to have some younger and more up-to-date practitioner attend her. Agnew thinks she makes her case out worse than it is."

"But if she cannot sleep----"

"And that's another thing. He will not give her anything to make her sleep. Says her heart is too weak to stand it. But the truth is, Doc does not believe in giving drugs much. You know how he is," said the Colonel, finding himself--to his secret surprise--talking to this young girl as though she were grown up!

"But isn't it because she sleeps in the daytime that she cannot sleep at night?" asked Laura, thoughtfully.

"Great heavens! she can't sleep in the daytime with you girls yelling like fiends right next door," cried the Colonel, going back to the subject of his exasperation.

"Now, Colonel! we don't yell like fiends," declared Laura, in a little heat herself. "You know we don't. And we are only there after half past three and until half past five--and sometimes from seven o'clock until dark. And so far the athletic field has been open but four afternoons a week."

"By Jove, though! You make yourselves a nuisance when you _are_ there," declared the Colonel.

"We don't mean to, I can assure you. And if your daughter cannot sleep save during the hours when we can go to the field, I believe the girls would all be willing to make concessions of their time. You surely mean that Mrs. Kerrick is suffering from insomnia?"

"I should say she was," sighed the Colonel. "The last time we had a thunderstorm was--when?"

"Why, we have scarcely any this season. You know for weeks not a drop of rain has fallen. Our lawn is suffering."

"Mine, too," grunted the Colonel. "But that isn't the point. The last night's sleep she had was when we had that thunderstorm. The doctor told us she would sleep better if she removed her bed to the top floor so that she could hear the patter of rain on the roof. She has a big room at the back of the house and not only is the roof right over her head, but the tin roof of the extension is right under her windows. But, since she moved up there, there hasn't been a shower, either day or night! And no prospect of one, so the papers say--what's the matter with you?"

For Laura showed that she was startled and she looked up into his face very earnestly. "Oh, Colonel Swayne!" she murmured.

"What's the matter now?" he demanded.

"Do you really believe she could sleep naturally again if there were thunderstorms at night? Do you really believe it?"

"Why--yes. I know it to be a fact, Miss Laura. And so does the doctor. With my daughter it is a proven fact. Even when she was a girl she could always sleep calmly if the rain pattered on the roof. There's nothing more soothing for the nervous patient."

"Then, Colonel, I've got an idea!" gasped Laura.

"I hope it is as good an idea as that one you had the day the man got caught on St. Cecelia's steeple," laughed the Colonel.

"It is as good a one," declared Laura, very earnestly.

"Do you mean something about Mrs. Kerrick?" he asked, more eagerly.

"Yes, sir. Something to help her sleep."

"Have you got influence enough with the weather bureau to bring a storm when none is forecast?" he asked, rather whimsically.

"It will amount to the same, sir. I want to try. May I?"

"I don't know what you mean, Miss Laura,"

"I know you don't; but if you'll just be patient and wait until this evening--after supper--I'll show you. Let my brother and me and--yes!--one of his chums, come over to your house. We three will be enough. What time does Mrs. Kerrick retire?"

"Why, she usually goes to bed early."

"Then tell her nothing about our coming. _Can_ we come, Colonel?"

"Why--why--surely! But I don't understand."

"You will, sir, when we arrive. I'll tell you all about it then. We'll be there about dark," promised Laura, and she darted away through a side street, running hard, she was so much in earnest and had so much to do in preparation for the performance she had in mind.