rigged
on a drag like that."

The blanket, towing below the surface, was a drag that could be
depended upon, perhaps, to delay the canoe at least one length
in every dozen that her crew could put her through the water.

"None of our fellows did that trick," Dick declared hotly. "You
saw us launch our canoe, Mr. Referee, and she was clear when
we launched her."

"I naturally wouldn't suspect the Gridley crew of rigging a drag
on the Gridley canoe," remarked the referee dryly, as he followed
the line back to the canoe. "See! Some scoundrel managed to
twist a screw-eye into one of your frame timbers underneath.
The line is made fast to the screw-eye. Captain Prescott, that
could have been done by someone hidden under this float while
your craft lay alongside. He could bring his mouth above water,
under the timbers of this float. Then, with his hand and arm
hidden under water the same rascal could easily reach out and
fasten in the screw-eye."

"Prescott," gasped Bob Hartwell, in a disgusted voice, "I hope
you don't believe that any of our fellows, or their friends, could
be guilty of such contemptible work!"

"Hartwell," Dick answered promptly, resting a hand on the arm
of the Preston High School boy, "I am offended that you should
believe us capable of suspecting Preston High School of anything
as mean as this. Of course we don't suspect Preston High School!"

The referee himself now twisted the screw-eye out of its bed in
the canoe frame. Then he gathered up the wet cord and blanket
and hurled the whole mass shoreward.

"I'd pay twenty-five dollars out of my own pocket," the race official
declared hotly, "for proof against the scoundrel who tried to
spoil clean sport in this manner!"

Nearly all of the crowd of spectators had now surged down close
to the float.

"I think we could make a pretty good guess at who is behind this
contemptible business," snarled Danny Grin, his face, for once,
darkened by a threatening frown.

"Who did it?" challenged Referee Tyndall. Dalzell opened his
mouth, but Prescott broke in sharply with the command:

"Be silent, Dan! Don't mention a name when you haven't proof."

"Can it possibly be anyone from Preston?" asked Hartwell anxiously.
"If it is, I beg you, Dalzell, to let me have the name---privately,
if need be. I'd spend the summer running down this thing."

"I know whom Dalzell has in mind, Hartwell," Dick rejoined. "It's
no one from within a good many mi