"I should like to try a race with those fellows," added Life Windham; and half a dozen others indorsed the wish.
"It would be no race at all; if we should give them a mile, we could beat them in going two," replied Dory.
"It will do them good to beat them," suggested Ned Bellows.
"While they call us names I shall have nothing to say or do with them," added the coxswain.
"I should like to get even with them in some way," said Ben Ludlow; for, "though beaten, he could argue still."
"I don't want to get even with them. We are a long way ahead of them in gentlemanly conduct, and we should have to fall back a long distance to be even with them," answered the coxswain.
This remark satisfied most of the crew, and was even comforting to Ben Ludlow. The Chesterfields continued to yell at the Winooski, exercising their inventing powers in inventing new terms of derision to apply to the Beech Hill students. Dory maintained his policy of silence to the end, and very likely the collegiate gentlemen thought they were treated with contempt.
The Winooski ran up to the beach at the head of the cove, and her crew landed. The Gildrock was not yet in sight, and it was apparent that Matt Randolph was taking his defeat very much to heart, and was training his crew. The second class boat was carefully secured, and in a few minutes more the crew were swimming at some distance from the shore, for they had to go out at least ten rods to find water that was over their heads.
The boys were enthusiastic in this recreation, as they were in the boats, and they soon forgot the scenes in which the Chesterfields had taken part. They had received plenty of instruction in swimming, and what they needed now was abundant practice. But by this time there was not a single one of them who could not sustain himself and make fair progress in the deep water.