It was the long rolling yell of the Delawares. It seemed to put new life into him. They were calling on him now for the honor of the tribe! He was almost there. Could he make it? He would make it! He gulped his lungs full of air, buried his face in the water and swung into the crawl, and then it seemed to him that his movements were wholly automatic. “For the honor of the tribe. For the honor of the tribe. For the honor of the tribe.” Over and over his brain hammered that one phrase.
The bang of the finish gun crashed into it, but for a minute he did not sense what it meant. “For the honor of the tribe,” he murmured, weakly paddling the water with his hands.
“And the honor of the boy!” cried a hearty voice, as strong hands caught the slack of his jersey and pulled him into a boat.
He looked up in a daze into the face of Woodhull. “Did I win?” he gasped.
“You sure did!” was the prompt response.
“No, I didn’t; Tug did it,” muttered Walter to himself as he saw his coach wearily finish at the tail end.
Second place had gone to the Hurons and third to the Algonquins. The score now stood Wigwam No. 1—1,483; Wigwam No. 2—1,481, and the excitement of the visitors was hardly less than that of the tribes as they waited for the canoe events.
The fours were called first. There were four entries, one crew from each tribe, four brawny boys in each canoe, captained by the four chiefs. The distance was half a mile with a turn, start and finish being opposite the pier. A pretty sight they made as they lined up for the start, each boy on one knee, leaning well over the side of the canoe, blade poised just over the water at his utmost reach.
Almost with the flash of the gun the sixteen blades hit the water and, amid a wild tumult of yells, the canoes shot away like greyhounds from a leash.
“Did you get on to that start of the Hurons—one long stroke, then five short ones and then the regular long stroke!” yelled Billy Buxby, whose sharp eyes seldom missed anything new.