Bang!
The starter’s pistol cracked once more as the Eagles’ whaler, with the sturgeon in tow, shot across the line. But as she did so, Freeman Hunt made a desperate effort, and by some fluke—for the distance between the boats must have been twenty feet,—succeeded in landing his spear in the sturgeon’s tail.
“Back water! Back water!” Dale Harding began yelling, working his steering oar about.
“Too late,” laughed back Rob good-naturedly. “Try again next heat.”
“What do you mean?” shouted Hunt angrily. “My harpoon is in.”
“Yes, but we had crossed the line as you cast it,” yelled back Merritt.
An immediate appeal to Commodore Wingate followed, the referee being hopelessly outdistanced in that wild dash for the float.
“Silence!” he shouted above the confusion of excited boyish voices. Instantly there was a hush, only broken by some excited supporter of the Hawks having it out with an equally heated adherent of the Eagles.
“My decision is that the Eagles win the first heat,” announced Mr. Wingate. “The sturgeon was across the base line before the Hawks harpooned it.”
Instantly Bedlam broke loose.