"And I even guess he'd have cared precious little if our boat had been burned up, when some of those tramps, they say, tried to set things on fire," a second girl broke out with; which remark appeared to amuse Semi-Colon very much, for he roared through his megaphone the word:
"Tramps! Ha! Ha!"
Evidently, while officially it had been decided to keep secret the facts connected with the finding of the bottle of kerosene and the rags, at the time Conrad Jimmerson was caught in Colon's trap, enough had leaked out among the boys connected with Riverport school to give them a pretty fair idea Buck must have been the leading spirit behind the miserable game.
"Silence there! the referee wants you to keep still while he says something to the crews!" roared a heavy voice through a megaphone.
"He's going to advise 'em what not to do," broke out Semi-Colon, for the benefit of the girls; "and that a willful foul with carry a penalty. There goes Coach Shays in that little launch; he's going to get in that car belonging to Judge Colon, and be whirled along the road, which keeps pretty near the river all the way. So you see, he can every little while shout out his directions to the coxswain."
"There, the referee is talking to them now," said Flo Temple, plainly excited, since the critical moment was at hand. "Oh! don't I just hope our boys will leave them away behind right in the beginning! Because, they say that the first one around the turning boat will have a big advantage. Every second on the down-current will put yards between them, that the second boat may never be able to make up."
"Brad Morton knows that, make up your mind, girls; and he won't let those Mechanicsburg fellows turn first, if he can help it," Semi-Colon advised.
"That's it, if he can help it!" mocked a girl near by, who was boldly waving the banner of the up-river town right in the stronghold of the rival school.
"Watch, they're going to start!" cried Cissy Anderson, shrilly.
Every sound seemed to cease like magic, as doubtless thousands of eager eyes saw that the decisive moment was at hand.