“Yes,” said Dick. “We’ll take them out for a spin about eleven o’clock. Who’s this?”
There was a sudden put-put, and around the bend in the river a motor boat came puffing along.
“That’s the John Harvard,” said Hargreaves. “There’s Neilson in the bow. Coming to make a call, I guess. Nice chap, Neilson. Pity he went to Harvard.”
Neilson, the Harvard coach, hailed them from the bow of the Harvard coaching launch.
“Hello, Merriwell,” he said. “Glad to see you. I see you’ve put it up to us to score over Yale this spring. Good work—though I’m sorry, of course, that Harvard couldn’t have won the game. I came to see if one of you coaches didn’t want to go out and watch our time row this morning. Plenty of room in the launch—and we’re pretty tired, at Red Top, of all this secrecy about practice.”
“Thanks,” said the Yale coaches, in unison.
“Benton,” said Dick, “suppose you go along? I’ve got to get a look at our own crew, Neilson, or I’d accept for myself. I’ll be glad to take one of your fellows out in the Elihu Yale if any of you care to come.”
“All right,” said Neilson, “I’ll send Thompson. Don’t feel you have to reciprocate—but I think this work of trying to conceal times and all that sort of thing is rot. It doesn’t fool any one, anyhow.”
“I’m with you there,” said Dick.
So Benton got into the John Harvard, and Thompson, one of the younger Harvard coaches, jumped ashore, and took his place in the Yale coaching launch half an hour later.