in the result, and taken sides, one way or the other.

While Paulding had no proper boat club as yet, evidently every boy and
girl attending school there, together with many older persons, had
flocked to witness the sight of a river regatta so near at hand.

School flags were waving everywhere, and class cheers accompanied their
appearance, as the young people gathered in groups, the better to chant
their patriotic songs.

When the long shell from above came speeding down to the starting
point, the occupants were given a rousing welcome from friends and foes
alike. For everybody admired the game, sportsmanlike qualities of those
Mechanicsburg fellows.

"Who are they all, Flo?" asked Cissy Anderson, as she cuddled down
alongside her chum, who was using a field glass; the girls being in the
midst of a group that had a particularly fine place for witnessing the
start and close of the race.

"Oh! we know everyone of them, because they've figured in the battles
on the diamond and the gridiron," replied Flo.

"Wagner, of course, is among them; they say he has been made the
coxswain of the Mechanicsburg crew; and then there must be Sherley, who
was such a dear captain in their football games last fall; yes, and
Waterman and Gould, too."

"That's right, Cissy," the girl with the glasses continued; "and
Hennessy is stroke oar, for I can tell him by his big, bushy crop of
hair. He makes me think of Bristles Carpenter, who, they say, is
pulling a wonderful oar these days. Let's see, there's Harkness, too,
and Boggs--how many is that, Cissy? Just six oarsmen, you say? Well, I
can see Smith there, I'm sure; and the other, why, of course it's that
fussy Bob Jones. Don't they look splendid; and how evenly they pull."

"You don't think now, for a minute, do you, Flo, that they can beat our
boys?" the other girl asked, somewhat fearfully.

"Of course I don't, silly," replied Flo, who had the utmost confidence
in the sterling ability of Fred and his fellows to hold their own, no
matter whether on the football field, the baseball diamond, in a hotly
contested hockey match on the ice, a snowball battle, or in athletic
sports; and consequently in aquatic matters as well.

"There comes Sid and the rest!" exclaimed Cissy; just as though, in her
eyes at least, the whole chance of success for the Riverport boys lay
in the stalwart figure of Sid Wells alone.

As Brad Morton led his eight sparsely-clad young oarsmen from the new
buil