"Clifford leads!"
"This is what we've been waiting for!"
"Look at Bellport pull up, will you? Go it, you tigers! Hurrah!"
"Careful, Frank, careful, boy!"
Amidst the riot and confusion of sounds that listening ear of the young Columbia coxswain caught this last shout through the megaphone.
He realized that it sprang from the coach, who was moving along the road that skirted the river all the way up to Rattail Island, keeping pace with the boats.
Frank knew what he was to do, and glanced immediately toward the spot from whence the admonition had sprung. He saw Coach Willoughby waving his arm in a certain way. That meant he was to slightly increase his motion, and bring the pull of the oars up two strokes to the minute.
In a race of this sort each boat is looked upon as a unit, and every man aboard reckons himself a spoke in the wheel, or a cog in the whole machine. Every eye is supposed to be fastened exclusively on the figure of the coxswain, and movements must be wholly regulated by his.
It matters not to the sturdy rowers that a competing boat begins to crawl past them, foot by foot. They are not supposed to know the circumstances, everything being left entirely in the care of the one who is there to guide their destinies.
Against the current of the Harrapin they set themselves, and such was the vigor of their stroke that they seemed to fairly fly up-stream.