“Could they have reached your shell?” Dick Merriwell asked Neilson.
“Easily,” replied the Harvard coach. “We never have kept any very special watch on the shells. We’ve guarded them against fire, but we never supposed that anything else was necessary.”
“That’s how it was with us,” said Dick. “It could have been done here, or before we left New Haven. And it’s only sheer good fortune that enabled us to find it out.”
“I’m no shark in physics,” said Neilson, “but I suppose that the iron in the two shells may be magnetized in a different degree, so that one current in the magnet would attract one shell and not the other.”
“That seems plausible, anyhow,” said Dick. “They could vary the magnet by regulating the strength of the current.”
At Gale’s Ferry, conditions were the same as those that had been discovered at Red Top. By dint of tremendous work by the riggers and the coaches, the new shells, or, rather, the old ones, were adjusted to the men who were to sit in them, and by two o’clock in the afternoon, without the knowledge of the oarsmen, the change had been effected. The first race, that between the varsity four-oared crews, was to be rowed at three o’clock, upstream. The freshman race was to follow at once, and then, at six o’clock, the great race of the day, between the varsity eights, was scheduled.
Jim Phillips, gradually being restored to his full strength, and fearing no bad effects from his fast and his immersion, stood on the float with Brady, looking at the gay scene that was developing on the river. Scores of small boats were about, and the spirit of carnival was in the air.
“Well, I guess you’ve done your share toward winning this boat race, if we do win it,” said Bill. “The rest of it is up to the crew.”
“They’ll win, all right,” said Jim, with supreme confidence.