Keeping His Course

by Ralph Henry Barbour

The two boys stood on the seat, side by side, and poised themselves for the plunge. Arnold, only half undressed, gave the signal and over they went.

Toby reappeared a good two yards ahead of Frank and then began a battle royal. Frank was a far prettier swimmer, as Arnold, watching from the launch, readily saw, but there was something extremely businesslike in the way in which Toby dug his head in and shot his arms forward in swift, powerful strokes. While both boys used the crawl, Frank’s performance was far more finished, and his strokes longer and slower. He breathed after every stroke, while Toby used the more obsolete method of holding his breath and keeping his head down until endurance was exhausted and then throwing his head up for another long inhalation. For a time the contestants held the same relative positions as at the start when Toby’s shallower dive had gained him the advantage of a full length, but as the half-way distance was reached, Arnold, discarding the last of his attire without taking his eyes from the race, saw that Frank had practically pulled himself even. From that time on the boys were too far away for him to judge their progress, but he waited in the launch until, after many minutes, they reached the end of the lighthouse landing. To him it seemed that Toby flung an arm over the edge of the float at least a second before Frank, but he was too far away to be certain. He saw the contestants clamber out and fling themselves down in the sunlight and then he, too, sprang over the side into the green depths.

Toby had predicted that the temperature of the water would be about sixty, but Arnold, coming to the surface with a gasp, was certain that fifty was far nearer the fact. The water was most decidedly cold, and he swam hard for a few minutes to get warm. Then, looking back at the launch to find that he had made far less progress than he had supposed, he turned over on his back and went leisurely on toward the distant landing.

On the float meanwhile Toby and Frank were pantingly arguing over the result of their contest. Toby declared warmly that he had finished a full length ahead of his opponent, while Frank with equal warmth proclaimed the race a tie. “You may have got hold of the float before I did,” he said, “but I was right there. You finished your stroke ahead of me, that’s all. I couldn’t grab the float until my stroke was finished, could I?”

“When I touched the float you were a length behind me,” replied the other positively. “I had my arm over the edge there before you got where you could touch it.”

“You did not! You flung your hand out at the finish and I didn’t. It was a dead-heat, that’s what it was, and if the water hadn’t been so cold I’d have beaten you easily.”

“The water wasn’t any colder where you were than it was where I was, was it?” asked Toby indignantly.

“I don’t say it was, but you’re more used to sea bathing than I am. In the tanks——”

“Oh, bother your tanks!” said Toby in disgust. “You said you could beat me to this landing, and you didn’t, and that’s all there is to it.”