Huntington regarded him with a satisfaction too deep for outward exuberance. "I knew the spirit was too strong to accept limitations!" he exclaimed quietly but with an exultant ring in his voice. "I knew that no man could once place himself within the influence of college ideals and not recognize their existence. You have tested my convictions, Hamlen, but my faith has remained 'calm rising through change and through storm.'"
The strength of Huntington's emotion impressed Hamlen deeply. His own dawning was so recent that at first he could not believe it possible for his friend to be so affected by the subject under discussion.
"Do other Harvard men feel as strongly as you do?" he demanded questioningly.
"Of course," Huntington replied; "but it isn't a question of Harvard any more than of other colleges. We shout for our Alma Mater, but no more lustily than the Yale or the Princeton man or the men of the smaller colleges shout for theirs. It is merely the expression of the spirit of loyalty and the sense of obligation, Hamlen. Not to express it is unnatural, not to feel gratified when another laurel wreath is placed upon the brow of our Dear Mother is a lack of filial devotion which I refuse to believe exists."
They elected to see the race from the observation-train, that they might watch the positions of the crews from beginning to end rather than at any fixed point. There was no novelty in the experience for Huntington or Cosden except the ever-present uncertainty of the outcome, but to Hamlen even the crowds which he had previously avoided added to his excitement by imparting to him the thrill of their repressed expectancy. He resented the calmness of his companions as they perused their morning papers on the train. He tried to follow their example, but found himself mechanically reading over and over again the statistics of the two crews. Harvard was the favorite, but that he took as a bad omen for he still remembered the Harvard teams which had gone into their contests with the odds on their side, and had failed to win the expected victories. Harvard overconfidence was a byword when he was in college, and it was overconfidence which he feared now.
They took their places on the improvised seats of the platform freight-cars, ready to be hauled to the point of vantage at the start, but the train seemed frightfully deliberate in getting under way. Hamlen glanced at his watch nervously and was surprised that so little time had elapsed since his last observation. Finally they found themselves opposite the judge's boat. Harvard was already nearing the mark and the Yale crew followed only a few lengths in her wake. Hamlen watched the manœuvers, disturbed by the conflicting cheers coming in sharp staccato from every direction. At last the boats lined up in position. Hamlen fancied that he could hear the referee's challenge: "Ready, Harvard? Ready, Yale?" Then the pistol cracked out with reverberating echoes, the oars gripped the water, the shells shot forward, and the race was on!
Hamlen's face set grimly and he sat bolt upright, taking no part in the mad cheering or the boisterous excitement. His eyes followed every stroke of the oars, and he suffered keenly as the Yale boat took a lead of half-a-length at the quarter-mile. Then he saw Harvard settle down to her work with a stroke quickened enough to enable her to take the advantage. The same stroke kept the crimson boat forging steadily ahead. At the half-mile the positions were reversed, at the mile clear water showed between the shells, another mile added two lengths more, in spite of Yale's plucky efforts to close in on the gaping space. At three miles Harvard had five lengths to the good, and for the first time Hamlen relaxed his tense attitude.
"If it would not be a case of overconfidence," he said quietly to his companions, "I should say that Harvard was going to win!"
"Nothing but an act of God can save Eli now!" Cosden replied between his cheers. "Why don't you yell?"
"I can't," Hamlen said; "I feel it too much!"