The breeze freshened as night came on and the waves were running high, but the Northland was as “steady as a church.” After supper there was a concert in the great saloon and there was no dearth of talent. Some of the fellows were members of mandolin and banjo clubs and had brought their instruments along. Others had fine bass and tenor voices, and glee clubs were improvised. The amateur theatrical contingent was not lacking, and, what with song and sketch and music, the evening passed all too rapidly. The trainers, however, who never let pleasure interfere with business, came now to the fore and packed the boys off to their staterooms to have a good night’s rest before real work began on the morrow.
“Well,” said Bert, the next morning, as, after a hearty breakfast, he sat on the edge of his berth, getting into his running togs, “here comes one more new experience. There’s certainly nothing monotonous about the racing game. I’ve run up hill and down, I’ve run through the woods, I’ve run on the cinder paths, I’ve run round the bases, and, when the savages chased us last year, I ran for my life. Now I’m to run on a ship’s deck. I’ll bet there isn’t any kind of running I haven’t done. I’ve even run an automobile.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Dick, flippantly, “you haven’t run up a board bill.”
“No,” added Tom, “and you haven’t run for office.”
A well-aimed pillow that made him duck ended these outrages on the English language, and, as Reddy poked his head in just then to summon his charge, they tumbled up on deck.
[CHAPTER VII]
The First Marathon
“By George!” exclaimed Dick, as he looked about him. “I wish we had a moving picture machine on board. This would make a dandy film.”