“Did you have any trouble following my pace?” asked Murchison of Flagg, who had the seat immediately behind him.
“Not a bit,” said Flagg. “I was pulling my arms out, but I could feel the blooming boat drag between the strokes every time. I can’t make it out at all.”
“You were rowing all right,” said little Rogers, the coxswain. “There wasn’t a thing the matter with the rowing anywhere in the boat—and you can bet I was watching pretty closely when I saw how those freshmen were pulling away from us. It was about the weirdest thing I ever saw—and I’ve sat in the coxswain’s seat often enough not to be surprised by most things that I see a racing crew do.”
“Well, Mr. Merriwell’s here,” said Flagg. “We’ll be all right now. If there’s anything wrong he’ll find out what it is. We can leave the worrying to him. Jim Phillips is some pitcher, isn’t he? I hope he gets here soon. I want to see him and shake hands with him. I’m glad he’s captain.”
“So’m I,” said Murchison heartily. “He’ll be a good one, and we ought to land another championship next year.”
Meanwhile, while the oarsmen talked and rested after their breakfast, Dick Merriwell and the other coaches were sitting at the far edge of the float, talking over the whole situation.
“I’ve looked over the shell,” said Dick, “and there’s not a thing wrong. The changes in the rigging that you told me you had made for Harper, at bow, are all right. His legs are longer than those of most men of his height, and it’s much better as you’ve fixed it. I thought for a moment there might have been some sort of funny business by some one who wanted to injure the crew.”
The other two were surprised. So Dick, suppressing details, and making a long story short, told them of the startling incidents of the week preceding the last games with Harvard.
He told them how an attempt had been made to prove that Gray and Taylor, the members of the senior battery, had cheated in an examination, that they might be prevented from playing against the crimson, and of the desperate trick by which Jim Phillips, Yale’s chief reliance in the box, had been lured into an empty freight car and locked in, so that he had been carried off in the car when the train had moved away. They exclaimed in surprise and disgust when he told them of the long chase after Jim, and his rescue just in time to get back and pitch Yale to victory, despite his exhaustion.
“We haven’t seen anything of that sort around here,” said Benton, “but, then, we haven’t been looking for it, either. We’ll have to keep our eyes open. Still, I don’t see how that thing yesterday could have been due to anything of the sort. It’s simply inexplicable, so far as I can see. Will you take the crew out to-day, Mr. Merriwell, and see what you make of it?”