"I've got a cramp!" he shouted. "Help!"
To some on shore he appeared about to sink. Dick passed the stakeboat, then turned like a flash and swam back toward Hi.
"Prescott wins!" called Len Spencer.
A few more strokes brought Dick up to where Hi pretended to flounder.
"Keep quiet, Hi, and let me get a hold on you," Dick offered.
"I'll have you at the pier in a jiffy."
"You get away from me," snarled Martin. "I don't want any of your kind of help."
With that Hi appeared to forget his recent complaint of "cramp," for he made a lusty plunge toward the pier and pulled himself up.
Then, an instant later, he must have remembered, for he assumed an expression of pain and limped.
"There's that mean cramp again," he muttered. "I'd have won by a good many yards if it hadn't been for that."
Some of the Central Grammar boys nearby were impolite enough to laugh incredulously.