ernoon, indeed, that kept
them from stepping into their boat.

The boatkeeper was a weather-wise old man, who had guarded the Ardmore
girls against disaster on the lake for a decade. Being so well used to
reading the signs he never let the boats out when he considered the
weather threatening in any measure.

One afternoon, when there had been a call passed for the freshmen eight
to gather at the boathouse immediately after recitations, Johnnie, as
the boatman was called, had been called away from his post. Only a green
assistant was there to look after the boats, and he was much too bashful
to "look after the girls," as Jennie, giggling, observed.

"I don't see why they don't put blinders on that young man," she said.
"Whenever he has to look at one of us girls his freckles light up as
though there was an electric bulb behind each individual one."

"Oh, Heavy! Behave!" murmured Helen, yet amused, too, by the bashfulness
of the assistant.

"We _are_ a sight, I admit," went on Jennie. "Everything in the shell,
girls? Now! up with it. Come on, little Trix," she added to the
coxswain. "Don't get your tiller-lines snarled, and bring your
'nose-warmer'"--by which inelegant term she referred to the megaphone
which, when they were really trying for speed was strapped to the
coxswain's head.

The eight oarswomen picked the light shell up, shoulder high, and
marched down the platform to the float. Taking their cue from the
tam-o'-shanters the seniors had made them wear early in their college
experience, the freshmen eight wore light blue bandannas wound around
their heads, with the corners sticking up like rabbit-ears, blue
blouses, short skirts over bloomers, and blue stockings with white
shoes. Their appearance was exceedingly natty.

"If we don't win in the races, we'll be worth looking at," Helen once
said pridefully.

The assistant boatkeeper remained at a distance and said not a word to
them, although there was a bank of black cloud upon the western horizon
into which the sun would plunge after a time.

"We're the first out," cried one of the girls. "There isn't another boat
on the lake."

"Wrong, Sally," Ruth Fielding said. "I just saw a boat disappear behind
Bliss Island."

"Not one of _ours_?" cried Jennie, looking about as they lowered the
shell into the water.

"No. It was a skiff. Came from the other side, I guess. Or perhaps it
came up the river from the railroad bridge."

"Now," said Trix Davenport