It was a well contented party that landed on Storm Island that evening. The two crowds of young fellows were becoming more friendly than even Rex had foreseen. The next day Pence and his mates struck their tents and brought them over to the plateau above the cove where the catboat and shell lay. They combined forces to save work and get more time for practice.
Pudge, his cousin and Kirby, as well as Pence, began to enjoy themselves much better, now that they had an object before them and more work to do. There was less grumbling and scrapping among themselves, and a huge lot of fun with the Walcott Hall fellows.
Kingdon worked them hard, no doubt of that. He whipped them along at both rowing and baseball. During the last week of the former practice, however, he let up a little so that, when the great day came, the Storm Island eight went into the big race as fresh and cheerful as though they had every surety of winning.
To the amazement of their rivals, they did win. It could not be said that Rex Kingdon was the sole cause of their doing so. Every fellow in the boat felt that the fact was somewhat due to his own personal work. But Kingdon had trained them to pull together like a machine, and had developed a stroke that gave speed enough to enable them to beat the Blackport crew by a length.
The other two boats were a long way behind when Storm Island crossed the finishing line. Manatee Sound looked like a yacht-racing day at Newport, only on a smaller scale. Boats of all kinds and descriptions for miles up and down the coast, had come to see the regatta.
"Jawn," Rex Kingdon told Midkiff, as they rested after the race, "we'll never have better fun than we did to-day—not even at the old Hall." Which goes to show that even the self-confident Kingdon could be mistaken, as the reader will agree if he reads the subsequent volume of this series, entitled "Rex Kingdon and His Chums."
"We certainly pulled down the little old cup in this boat race," Midkiff chuckled happily. "That was a prize worth winning."
Rex rolled over and seized Midkiff's arm in a tight grip. His eyes were laughing, but his lips were serious as he said:
"We've gathered another prize, a bigger one, Jawn."
"Huh?" asked Midkiff, puzzled.