into any answering spurt. He knew that he was within reach, and to him that was, for the time, sufficient. His watch was strapped to the stretcher between his feet, and he was carefully measuring the time he could allow Johnson's before calling them to strict account.

It wanted one minute to the time when the finishing gun would boom out before Durend quickened up. His men were waiting in confident expectation for that moment, and answered like one man. From the very feel of the stroke they had known what a reserve of power their stroke and comrades possessed, and they flung themselves into the spurt with all the energy of conscious strength. The boat leapt to the touch, and up and up, nearer and nearer, the nose of their craft crept to the boat ahead.

A hoarse and frantic appeal from the stroke of the Johnson boat, and his men strove to answer and stave off that terrible spurt. But they had spurted too often already, and another and a greater was more than they could bear. Their time became ragged; some splashed and dragged, and the boat was a beaten one before the end came.

It was a thrilling moment when the boats bumped, and the straggling crowds upon the tow-path shouted and yelled with delight and deepest appreciation. Rarely had there been such a race in the school's annals; never one in which the winning crew had thus fought its way up from previous failure and defeat.

After witnessing that achievement, the opinion of the school veered completely round, and everyone confidently predicted that Benson's would win their way to the Head of the River on the following morning. It had now become as clear as noonday to all that the stroke of Benson's had been playing that most difficult of all games, the waiting game. He had held his crew inexorably in until the new man had had time to settle down into his place and catch the form and time of the rest of the crew. Clearly, too, the crew was rowing better every day, and no one believed that Cradock's would be able to keep them off in the full tide of their swing to victory.

This time the opinion of the school was right, and the following day Benson's caught up and bumped Cradock's within three minutes of the start. They had settled down and become a great crew, confident in themselves and even more confident in the power and judgment of their Stroke.

The ovation they received on the return to their boat-house they long remembered. The noisy and enthusiastic tumult was indeed something to remember and be proud of, but to Durend the few words of commendation of Mr. Benson counted for far more.

"Well done, Durend!" he said simply. "I saw you knew your business, and that is why I did not interfere. But even I did not expect so splendid a success. Your men have done well indeed, but it is to you and your fixity of purpose our win is mainly due. I have never known an apparently more hopeless chase; and, to you others, I say that it shows that there is almost nothing that fixity of purpose will not achieve in the long run."

Even more pleasurable were the words of Montgomery, touched with real contrition, as he grasped his old Stroke by the hand and begged his pardon for doubting his ability and power to stroke a crew to victory.

CHAPTER III

Max Durend at Home

It was only two days after the close of the races when the head master called Durend into his room. He held a slip of paper in his hand, and in rather a grave voice informed the lad that his father was seriously ill. His mother had cabled for his return, and he was to get ready to catch the 2.15 train for Harwich at once.

Max obeyed. His preparations did not take long, and there was still a little time to spare before he needed to start; therefore he sought out Dale to say good-bye.

"But you will come back, of course, Durend?" the erstwhile cox protested, rather struck by the earnestness of his friend's adieu.

"I have a feeling that I shall not, Dale. I cannot help it, but I keep on acting almost unconsciously as though this were the last I shall see of Hawkesley."

"Don't say that, Max. Why should you think your father is so ill as all that? The cablegram doesn't say so. No, I can't take that. You simply must come back. There are lots of things we have promised to do together."

"Can't help it, Dale. But there's one thing you must promise me before I go, and that is, that if I should not come back you will come over and see me. Spend a fortnight at our place at Liége in the summer—eh?"

"You're coming back, old man," replied Dale with determination. "But all the same, I will give you the promise if you like. My uncle and aunt—all the relatives I have—would not mind, I know."

"Thanks, old man—you shall have a good time."

Presently Durend left, and in forty-eight hours he was back in his own home in Belgium on the outskirts of Liége. Prompt as he had been, he found he was too late, for his father had died at the time he was on the boat on the way to Antwerp.

Though not altogether unexpected, the blow was a severe one to Max Durend. He had been very fond of his father, who had latterly treated him more as a chum than anything else, and had talked much to him of his plans for the time when he could assist him in his business. His mother was, of course, even more upset, and though Max and his sister, a girl of twelve, did their best to comfort her, she was quite prostrated for some days.

It was now more than ever necessary that Max should enter his father's business, and, when old and experienced enough, endeavour to carry it on. From the nature of the business it was evident that this was no light task, and would require a great deal of training and an immense amount of hard work if it were to be done successfully. But the prospect of hard work did not appeal Max, and within a fortnight of his father's death he was busy learning the details of the vast business carried on under his name.

Monsieur Durend had been the proprietor of very large iron and steel foundries and workshops in Liége. The business was an immense one, and, beside the manufacture of all kinds of machinery and railway material, worked for its own benefit several coal and iron mines, all of which were in the district or on the outskirts of the town. The business had been a very flourishing one, and had been largely under the personal direction of the proprietor, assisted by his manager, M. Otto Schenk, to whose ability and energy, M. Durend was always ready to acknowledge, it owed much of its success. The latter was now, of course, the mainstay of the business, and it was with every confidence in his ability that Madame Durend appointed him general manager with almost unlimited powers.

M. Schenk was indeed a man to impress people at the outset with a sense of strength and of power to command. He was over six feet in height, broad, but with rather sloping shoulders, and very stoutly built. His head, large itself, almost seemed to merge in a greater neck, and both were held stiffly erect as he glowered at the world through cold and rather protruding eyes, much as a drill-instructor glares at his pupils. He was florid-complexioned, with short, closely-cropped grey hair and a short, stubby, dirty-white moustache. Of his grasp of the affairs of the firm and his business ability generally, people were not so immediately impressed as they were with his power to command, but they invariably learned to appreciate this side of his character in time.

The matter of the direction of the affairs of the firm settled to everyone's satisfaction, the question as to what was to be done with Max came up for discussion.

"I think it will be best, Max, if you go into M. Schenk's office and assist him there," said Madame Durend at last. "You will there pick up the threads of the business, and when you are two or three years older we can consider what we are going to do."

"But, Mother," replied Max, "that was not the way Father