For a moment after Jerry had given the word to increase the stroke, his chums thought that he would keep them on that for a hundred yards or so, and then hit up the pace still faster. But he did not. Instead, coolly and calmly, he glanced critically at the Fairview shell, and kept on at the same rate.
“Hang it all, why doesn’t he give the word to spurt?” thought Frank, as his broad back rose and fell to the measured rhythm. “We can do it!”
But Jerry was a wise little coxswain. Not for nothing had he spied out the course, so that he knew every foot of it, and by marks previously noted, he could tell exactly how far they were from the finish mark.
Nearer and nearer to it came the eight-oared shells. Boxer Hall was struggling hard to pull up, but for once she had met her match—two, in fact, for it was easy now to see that the race, barring accidents, lay between Randall and Fairview.
“And, oh! May we win!” prayed Tom and his chums. And they could not understand why Jerry would not put them at their limit. True, their hearts were pumping at an abnormal rate, their muscles strained as they never had before, and their breath came labored, and went out gaspingly.
And then, when Coxswain Jerry, with his eager eyes, saw a certain old gnarled tree on the river bank, and when he had noted that Fairview had added another stroke per minute, then and not until then did he give the word.
He had slid down into his seat, feeling the tiller lines as a horseman feels with the reins the mouth of his pet racer. Gently, as if the shell were some delicate machine, did Jerry guide her on the course. Now the time had come!
Up he sat, like one electrified. Through the megaphone strapped to his mouth came the words:
“Row, boys! Row as you never rowed before! Put all you can to the stroke. I call for thirty-three! Give it to ’em! Give it to ’em!”
It seemed as though the Randall shell was suddenly galvanized into action. Reaching forward over their toes, eight sturdy backs bent for the stroke. Then it came.