n the gymnasium of the Corinna Institute, and knew something of
their muscular accomplishments. "Y' ought to see 'em climb ropes, and
swing dumb-bells, and pull in them rowin'-machines. Ask Jake there
whether they can't row a mild in double-quick time,--he knows all abaout
it."

Jake was by profession a fisherman, and a freshwater fisherman in a
country village is inspector-general of all that goes on out-of-doors,
being a lazy, wandering sort of fellow, whose study of the habits and
habitats of fishes gives him a kind of shrewdness of observation, just
as dealing in horses is an education of certain faculties, and breeds a
race of men peculiarly cunning, suspicious, wary, and wide awake, with a
rhetoric of appreciation and depreciation all its own.

Jake made his usual preliminary signal, and delivered himself to the
following effect:

"Wahl, I don' know jest what to say. I've seed 'em both often enough
when they was practisin', an' I tell ye the' wa'n't no slouch abaout
neither on 'em. But them bats is all-fired long, 'n' eight on 'em
stretched in a straight line eendways makes a consid'able piece aout 'f
a mile 'n' a haaf. I'd bate on them gals if it wa'n't that them fellers
is naterally longer winded, as the gals 'll find aout by the time they
git raound the stake 'n' over agin the big ellum. I'll go ye a quarter
on the pahnts agin the petticoats."

The fresh-water fisherman had expressed the prevailing belief that the
young ladies were overmatched. Still there were not wanting those who
thought the advantage allowed the "Lantas," as they called the Corinna
boatcrew, was too great, and that it would be impossible for the "Quins"
to make it up and go by them.

The Algonquins rowed up and down a few times before the spectators. They
appeared in perfect training, neither too fat nor too fine, mettlesome
as colts, steady as draught-horses, deep-breathed as oxen, disciplined
to work together as symmetrically as a single sculler pulls his pair of
oars. The fisherman offered to make his quarter fifty cents. No takers.

Five minutes passed, and all eyes were strained to the south, looking
for the Atalanta. A clump of trees hid the edge of the lake along which
the Corinna's boat was stealing towards the starting-point. Presently
the long shell swept into view, with its blooming rowers, who, with
their ample dresses, seemed to fill it almost as full as Raphael fills
his skiff on the edge of the Lake of Galilee. But how