end
took his men away with a racing start that recalled those they had made
before Montgomery left the crew. The form was well kept; even Franklin,
who had improved rapidly with every day's work, keeping well in with the
swing of the rest of the crew. Dropping the stroke a little soon after
the start, Durend led them along with a strong, lively stroke that was
soon seen to be gaining them ground slowly, foot by foot, upon their old
foe, the Johnson crew. The latter were, however, in no mood to yield an
inch if they could help it, and made spurt after spurt in the desperate
endeavour to keep well away.

For the first eight or nine minutes of the race, Durend did not allow
himself to be flurried 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