its rack that day and filed upstairs to the dressing-room of Benson's boat-house.

Self-contained and preoccupied though he was, Durend could not help noticing that his conduct of the races was being severely and adversely commented upon. But he only shrugged his shoulders, hurried on his clothes, and left the building perhaps a little more quickly than usual. Some strokes would have given explanations to their crews, but it never occurred to Durend to do so. Dale followed him from the room.

"See here, Max," he said, as he overtook him, "I think you should know that our fellows are tremendously sick at the poor show we are making. They feel that your stroking of the crew is not giving them a fair chance."

Durend stopped abruptly. "So long as I am stroke, Dale, I shall set the stroke I think proper. I am doing what I think is best for the crew, and shall follow it out until the last race is over—lost or won."

"I know, I know, old man," replied Dale hastily. "But what is your game really? You must know you can't win races with a funereal stroke like that, so what's the good of trying it?"

Durend opened his lips as though about to make an angry reply. Apparently he thought better of it, for he closed them again, and for some minutes walked on in silence. When he spoke it was in the quiet measured tones of one who has thought out his subject and has no doubts in his own mind of the wisdom of his conclusions.

"After six weeks' hard work, Dale, we've managed to get the crew into pretty good form—everybody says so. Is it all to be lightly thrown away? Can we really expect Franklin to keep up the pace of the rest of us without rushing his slide, bucketing, or something of the sort? Can we now?"

Dale, but half convinced, returned to the charge. "Well, I don't know. Something's got to be done. I heard three of the fellows just now whispering something about asking Benson to put Montgomery back in the boat."

"Where?"

Dale hesitated.

"I see. At stroke. Well, I may be prejudiced, but I don't think it would answer, old man. Anyhow, we'll leave all that to Benson, and those three fellows too. Come, Dale, I'm sick of thinking about this, so let's try and talk about something a little more cheerful."

Dale was a light-hearted, cheery fellow enough, and found no difficulty in turning the talk into other and more pleasant topics. The two, though so opposite in point of character and physique, were very good friends. Dale was a slim, lightly-built young fellow of eighteen, with a fair complexion and an open boyish face. He was a general favourite, and, though not athletically inclined, was always ready to assist in acting cox or kindred work. Max Durend was dark-complexioned, somewhat reserved, and of a more thoughtful disposition. He also was eighteen years of age, was of medium height but strongly built, and possessed a great capacity for hard work. As has already been explained, he was not popular, and that may have been partly due to his reserve, and partly to the fact that he was only half English, namely on his mother's side.

The race on the following day was even less exhilarating than the last. Benson's still rowed at their provokingly slow stroke, simply retaining their position at No. 4, while Johnson's and Colson's, after a terrific struggle, changed places. Thus Cradock's remained at the Head with the Johnson and Colson crews second and third.

It needed all Dale's persuasion and plentiful supply of hopeful suppositions (partly derived from his talk with Durend, but mostly made up out of his own head) to keep the Benson crew from breaking out into open revolt. Every day they had finished the race half fresh, and not one of them could see the use of parading up and down the course as though uncertain whether they were in the race or not.

And through it all Mr. Benson just looked grimly on, indifferent, apparently, to all their woes, and said no word save a little—a very little—commendation, no doubt intended to keep them from entering the very last stages of despair. It seemed as though he had given the whole thing up as a bad job, and did not intend to interest himself further in the matter.

Another day came just like the last, and listlessly the dispirited crew turned their oars on the feather and waited for the signal to start. Quite suddenly they woke up to the fact that Stroke was leaning back towards them and speaking.

"Now, you fellows," he was saying in a quiet but tense voice, "I am going to give you a racing start at last. See to it, then, that you pick it up and keep it. Don't forget. Franklin, I rely upon you to do your utmost to keep up with us. Now, boys!"

"Boom!"

There was scarcely a soul about to see Benson's start; nearly everyone was watching the struggles going on ahead, where strong crews were striving in the last days to secure and hold a higher position for the Houses they had been called to represent. So it was that the Benson start passed unnoticed until it dawned upon Colson's, the crew ahead, that the Benson boat had drawn unaccountably nearer. And Benson's, too! It could only be a fluke, and with that conviction Colson's settled down grimly to the task of shaking them off.

But somehow or other it did not seem at all easy to shake them off. In fact, to their dismay, the end of the great spurt saw the gap between the boats no wider. Suddenly, too, Benson's spurted in their turn, and the nose of their boat drew closer at a speed that wellnigh paralysed Colson's.

Indeed, in the Benson boat, the pent-up energies of three days of enforced self-restraint were being let loose in a series of desperate spurts for the mastery. Even Durend could contain himself no longer, and Franklin, though he had not yet reached anything like the form of the rest of the crew, was yet able to do his part in the struggle with a fair measure of success. Within five minutes of the start Benson's had overlapped Colson's, and, almost immediately after, the bump came.

We need not describe the joy and relief in the Benson crew at their unexpected victory—unexpected to all of them, for even Durend, though he had hoped and planned, had not anticipated it so soon. To the rest of the school the whole affair was so unexpected as to be stupefying. Only the most penetrating and experienced observers could give a reason for their sudden recovery, and the remainder explained away the sensational victory by a disparaging reference to the utter weakness of Colson's. Had not Colson's dropped in three days from Head of the River to No. 3, and was that not enough proof of weakness? they argued. Gradually the general view crystallized down to the opinion that Benson's had had their fling, and could hope to make no impression upon the two really strong crews now in front of them.

Nevertheless, though this seemed the general opinion, the following morning found the whole school on the tow-path opposite the Benson boat. No one wanted to see the struggle between Cradock's and Johnson's, but everyone was anxious to see the start of the Benson crew, and to learn whether any fresh surprises were in store for them.

There could be no doubt about the spirit of the crew. Hope and confidence seemed to exude from every pore, and it was clear that for them the week was only just beginning. At the report of the gun, Durend took his men away with a racing start that recalled those they had made before Montgomery left the crew. The form was well kept; even Franklin, who had improved rapidly with every day's work, keeping well in with the swing of the rest of the crew. Dropping the stroke a little soon after the start, Durend led them along with a strong, lively stroke that was soon seen to be gaining them ground slowly, foot by foot, upon their old foe, the Johnson crew. The latter were, however, in no mood to yield an inch if they could help it, and made spurt after spurt in the desperate endeavour to keep well away.

For the first eight or nine minutes of the race, Durend did not allow himself to be flurried