The Eight-Oared Victors: A Story of College Water Sports Read online

  CHAPTER II

  THE FLOOD

  "Hello, you fellows!" called Dave Ogden, who was acting as the coxswainof the shell, waving his megaphone at them. "Out for practice?" and hegrinned as he looked at the heavy barge.

  "Yes, we're getting ready to order a new shell," answered Tom.

  "Ha! Ha! That's pretty good. Maybe you think you can beat us rowing!"and Dave looked not a little proudly at the eight lads whose efforts hehad been directing. They had been out for a spin on the lake, and werenow coming back rather leisurely.

  "We will beat you--some day!" declared Frank.

  "Maybe you'd better not tell them about our shell until we get it,"suggested Tom, in a low voice.

  "Oh, they'll have to know it some time or other," declared Frank. "Itwill be all over the college in a day or so, and Boxer Hall is sureto learn of it. Besides, I want to get things stirred up a bit. Butthey'll only think we're joking, so far."

  The eight-oared shell passed on with a sweep, the rowers making goodtime against the current. But then the craft was so much like a knifethat it offered scarcely any resistance to the water.

  "Row easy, all!" came the command from Dave Ogden, and the rowersreduced the number of their strokes per minute. They were closer toshore now, and out of the worst grip of the current. The coxswainwaved his megaphone at our friends in a friendly fashion, and thengave his attention to his crew. Though there was rivalry--sometimesbitter--between Randall and Boxer Hall, the students were, for the mostpart, very friendly.

  "Jove! It will be great to get in that game!" exclaimed Tom with a sigh,as he watched the rival's shell.

  "And we'll do it, too!" declared Frank, earnestly.

  "Well, let's be getting back," suggested Sid; and the others agreed thatthis might be a wise thing to do.

  And while they are returning to college I will, in order that mynew readers may have a better understanding of the characters, tellsomething of the books that precede this in the "College Sports Series."

  Our first volume was called "The Rival Pitchers," and told how TomParsons, then a raw country lad, came to Randall College, with the ideaof getting on the baseball nine. He succeeded, but it was only aftera hard struggle and bitter rivalry. Tom made good against heavy odds.The second volume had to deal with college football, under the title,"A Quarter-back's Pluck," and in that I related how Phil Clinton, undertrying circumstances, won the championship gridiron battle for hiseleven.

  "Batting to Win," the third book of the series, was, as the titleindicates, a baseball story. Besides the accounts of the diamondcontests, there was related the manner in which was solved a queermystery surrounding Sid Henderson. Going back to football interests,in the fourth book, "The Winning Touchdown," there will be found manyaccounts of pigskin matters. Also how Tom Parsons, and his chums, savedthe college from ruin in a strange manner.

  The book immediately preceding this volume was "For the Honor ofRandall," and while it was, in the main, a story of various collegeathletics, there is detailed how a certain charge, involving the honorof Frank Simpson, and incidentally his college, was disproved.

  My old readers know much about Randall, but I might mention, forthe benefit of my new friends, that the college was located on theoutskirts of the town of Haddonfield, in the middle west. Near theinstitution ran Sunny River, as I have said, and it was on this stream,and the connecting lake, that it was proposed to have Randall enter intoaquatic sports. Randall, Boxer Hall and Fairview Institute--the latter aco-educational college--had formed the Tonoka Lake League in athletics,though in rowing only the two latter colleges had competed. But this wassoon to be changed.

  At the head of Randall was Dr. Albertus Churchill, dubbed Moses, inaffectionate terms. Dr. Emerson Tines, alias "Pitchfork," was headLatin instructor, and Mr. Andrew Zane was proctor. Dr. Marshall was aphysician in residence, and also gave instruction in various lines.

  Tom, Phil, Sid and Frank roomed together. Formerly they had had a largesingle dormitory to themselves, doing their studying there, and goingfrom there to classes, lectures or chapel--but not the latter when itcould conveniently be "cut." In the book just before this I told of theSpring track games in which Randall had managed to come out the victor.These had been past a week or two when the present story opens.

  Just after the games there had been thrown open to the use of thestudents a new dormitory, and study-building, with rooms arranged _ensuite_, and the four chums had taken a large central apartment, withbedrooms opening from it. This gave them a much more convenient placethan formerly.

  But, if they changed their room, they did not change the furniture--atleast they kept all the old, though getting some new. Among the former,were the two ancient armchairs, known to my readers, and the decrepitsofa, which had been mended until it seemed that nothing of the originalwas there. And then there was the alarm clock, which served to awakenthe lads--that is, when they did not stop it from ticking by jabbing atoothpick somewhere up in the interior mechanism.

  As for the friends of our heroes they were many, and their enemies few.You will meet them, old as well as new, as the story progresses.

  "There sure is some water!" exclaimed Tom, as he gazed from shore toshore of the turbulent stream.

  "And it's getting higher," added Phil.

  "And going to rain more," came from Sid.

  "Oh, there'll be a flood sure, if you calamity-howlers have your way,"remarked Frank. "Give way there! What are you doing, Phil--stalling onme?"

  "Say, who made you the coxswain, anyhow?" demanded the aggrieved one.

  The boys reached Randall just as the downpour began again, but theirspirits had been raised by the row, and by the good news which Frankhad heard. It was confirmed a little later by an announcement on thebulletin board, calling for a meeting of the athletic committee, withina few days, to consider the matter.

  "Say, this is going to be great!" cried Holly Cross, one of the footballsquad. "Rowing is something Randall always needed."

  "And she needs rowers, too, don't forget that, Holly, me lad!" exclaimedBricktop Molloy, a genial Irish lad who was taking a post-graduatecourse, after an absence of some time at Columbia and with a miningconcern. Some said he came back to Randall merely because he loved herathletics so, but Bricktop, with a ruffling up of his red hair wouldsay, half-savagely:

  "I deny the allegation, sir, and I defy the alligator!" an old joke buta good one.

  "Oh, we'll get the rowers," was the confident declaration of many, andthen the lads, gathering in the gymnasium, or in the rooms of one andanother, talked over the coming rowing contests.

  It rained all night, and part of the next day, and then seemed to clearoff for good.

  "What about another spin on the river?" asked Tom, after his lastlecture. "I'm ready for it."

  "So am I," declared Sid, and the remaining two fell into line. Severalother lads agreed to accompany the four inseparables, and soon quite agroup was headed for the river.

  "Say, look at that; would you!" cried Phil, as they came in sight of thestream. "That's a flood all right!"

  "I should say so!" remarked Tom. "Why, it's almost up to the doors ofthe boathouse, and it hasn't been that high in years!"

  "Some water," agreed Frank. "I wonder if it's safe to go out? Look atthat current!"

  "Safe! Of course it's safe!" exclaimed Phil. "I've seen it worse."

  "But not with so much wreckage in the river," added Tom. "Look at thosebig logs. If one of them even hit the barge it would smash a hole in it."

  "There's part of a chicken-coop!" cried Sid, pointing to the objectfloating down the river.

  "Yes, and there's half a cow-shed, if I'm any judge," went on Frank.

  "The river sure is high," conceded Phil. "I did want to take a run downto Fairview, and see Sis, but----"

  "See your sister!" jeered Sid. "I know who you want to see down thereall right," for while Phil's sister, Ruth, attended the co-educationalinstitution, so did Madge Tyler, of whom Phil was very fond, and als
oMabel Harrison, in whom Sid was more than ordinarily interested.Besides, there were "others."

  "I was going to row down," declared Phil, stoutly. "But I can go bytrolley."

  "Oh, let's try a little row," suggested Tom. "If we find the current istoo strong, we can come back and take a car. I'd like to see the girls."

  "Brave youth! To admit that!" exclaimed Frank. "I fancy we all would.Well, let's get out the boat."

  But they found the flood too much for them. Venturing only a little wayout from shore they were gripped in the current with such force thatthey saw it would be folly to proceed. Accordingly, they put back, asdid their companions in other boats.

  As they were tying up at the boathouse, Wallops, one of the collegemessengers, came in.

  "Did you hear about it?" he demanded, apparently much excited.

  "About what?" he was asked.

  "A lot of boathouses down the river have been washed away in the flood,"he went on. "The small one at Boxer Hall came near going, but theyanchored it with ropes. One of their small shells was smashed. Oh, it'sa bad flood all right!"

  "Well, we can't help it," said Tom. "I guess the trolley cars are stillrunning. Come on, fellows, if we're going to Fairview Institute."

  So, leaving the boathouse, they started for the trolley line.

  "We'll take a row down the river to-morrow, and see what damage theflood did," called Sid to Wallops, as they moved away. They littlerealized what they would find, or what part it would play in the historyof Randall.