el the
defeat keenly; but he was determined not to take too great chances.
When he saw that Colon had reached the limit he meant to slacken the
pace, no matter what happened, nor how much the crew shouted at him for
a "quitter."

Buck's boat was coming on again now. Brad doubted whether they had been
able to put any fresh vim into their efforts, for that seemed next to
impossible, since already every fellow was straining his muscles to the
limit. It must be that the growing weakness of Colon was beginning to
make itself felt.

Well, what they could not cure they must endure. Colon was too good a
fellow to take chances of doing him an injury that would put him off
the crew indefinitely. They needed his strong back in that real race
with Mechanicsburg.

The others had by now discovered that the outlaw boat was slowly
forging ahead, and that, despite all their efforts, the gain continued.
Slowly they could see each opposing oarsman creeping along; and it was
discouraging to feel that after all Buck seemed to have the better
"stayers" in his crew.

Already they could hear the low, taunting remarks which the others were
calling out, and they stung. Defeat is hard enough to stand, when
pitted against honorable, high-minded fellows, whose first thought is
to give an encouraging cheer for their whipped rivals; but it is doubly
painful when forced to listen to all manner of insulting remarks from
rough lads devoid of decent feelings, and only bent upon "rubbing it
in."

Brad had really lost all hope. He was even about to throw up the
sponge, and slacken the pace to such an extent that the people of
Riverport, seeing the two boats coming down the river so far apart,
would never think they had been racing.

Then something happened, unexpectedly, as it always does in a boat
race.

Brad heard a sudden loud snap. He saw that the crew in the other boat
seemed to be floundering around in the utmost confusion. One fellow
even toppled overboard, though he immediately clutched hold of the
speeding boat, and was dragged along with it.

Like a race horse, the boat containing the regular Riverport crew shot
past the disabled outlaw craft. Buck was shouting in his disgust. He
even shook his fist at his rivals as they went on speeding down the
river; and they caught the tenor of his remarks.

"We had you beat good and plenty, never fear, only for that pesky
outrigger bustin' on us! Next time we'll rub it in all the harder. You
fe