CHAPTER II
THE FLOOD
"Hello, you fellows!" called Dave Ogden, who was acting as the coxswain of the shell, waving his megaphone at them. "Out for practice?" and he grinned as he looked at the heavy barge.
"Yes, we're getting ready to order a new shell," answered Tom.
"Ha! Ha! That's pretty good. Maybe you think you can beat us rowing!" and Dave looked not a little proudly at the eight lads whose efforts he had been directing. They had been out for a spin on the lake, and were now coming back rather leisurely.
"We will beat you—some day!" declared Frank.
"Maybe you'd better not tell them about our shell until we get it," suggested Tom, in a low voice.
"Oh, they'll have to know It some time or other," declared Frank. "It will be all over the college in a day or so, and Boxer Hall is sure to learn of it. Besides, I want to get things stirred up a bit. But they'll only think we're joking, so far."
The elght-oared shell passed on with a sweep, the rowers making good time against the current. But then the craft was so much like a knife that it offered scarcely any resistance to the water.
"Row easy, all!" came the command from Dove Ogden, and the rowers reduced the number of their strokes per minute. They were closer to shore now, and out of the worst grip of the current. The coxswain waved his megaphone at our friends in a friendly fashion, and then gave his attention to his crew. Though there was rivalry—sometimes bitter—between Randall and Boxer Hall, the students were, for the most part, very friendly.
"Jove! It will be great to get in that game!" exclaimed Tom with a sigh, as he watched the rival's shell.
"And we'll do it, too!" declared Frank, earnestly.
"Well, let's be getting back," suggested Sid; and the others agreed that this might be a wise thing to do.
And while they are returning to college I will, in order that my new readers may have a better understanding of the characters, tell something of the books that precede this in the "College Sports Series."
Our first volume was called "The Rival Pitchers," and told how Tom Parsons, then a raw country lad, came to Randall College, with the idea of getting on the baseball nine. He succeeded, but it was only after a hard struggle and bitter rivalry. Tom made good against heavy odds. The second volume had to deal with college football, under the title, "A Quarter-back's Pluck," and in that I related how Phil Clinton, under trying circumstances, won the championship gridiron battle for his eleven.
"Batting to Win," the third book of the series, was, as the title indicates, a baseball story. Besides the accounts of the diamond contests, there was related the manner in which was solved a queer mystery surrounding Sid Henderson. Going back to football interests, in the fourth book, "The Winning Touchdown," there will be found many accounts of pigskin matters. Also how Tom Parsons, and his chums, saved the college from ruin in a strange manner.
The book immediately preceding this volume was "For the Honor of Randall," and while it was, in the main, a story of various college athletics, there is detailed how a certain charge, involving the honor of Frank Simpson, and incidentally his college, was disproved.
My old readers know much about Randall, but I might mention, for the benefit of my new friends, that the college was located on the outskirts of the town of Haddonfield, in the middle west. Near the intsitution ran Sunny River, as I have said, and It was on this stream, and the connecting lake, that it was proposed to have Randall enter into aquatic sports. Randall, Boxer Hall and Fairview Institute—the latter a co-educational college—had formed the Tonoka Lake League in athletics, though in rowing only the two latter colleges had competed. But this was soon to be changed.
At the head of Randall was Dr. Albertus Churchill, dubbed Moses, in affectionate terms. Dr. Emerson Tines, alias "Pitchfork," was head Latin instructor, and Mr. Andrew Zane was proctor. Dr. Marshall was a physician in residence, and also gave instruction in various lines. Tom, Phil, Sid and Frank roomed together. Formerly they had had a large single dormitory to themselves, doing their studying there, and going from there to classes, lectures or chapel—but not the latter when it could conveniently be "cut." In the book just before this I told of the Spring track games in which Randall had managed to come out the victor. These had been past a week or two when the present story opens.
Just after the games there had been thrown open to the use of the students a new dormitory, and study-building, with rooms arranged en suite, and the four chums had taken a large central apartment, with bedrooms opening from it. This gave them a much more convenient place than formerly.
But, if they changed their room, they did not change the furniture—at least they kept all the old, though getting some new. Among the former, were the two ancient armchairs, known to my readers, and the decrepit sofa, which had been mended until it seemed that nothing of the original was there. And then there was the alarm clock, which served to awaken the lads—that is, when they did not stop it from ticking by jabbing a toothpick somewhere up in the interior mechanism.
As for the friends of our heroes they were many, and their enemies few. You will meet them, old as well as new, as the story progresses.
"There sure is some water!" exclaimed Tom, as he gazed from shore to shore of the turbulent stream.
"And it's getting higher," added Phil.
"And going to rain more," came from Sid.
"Oh, there'll be a flood sure, if you calamity-howlers have your way," remarked Frank. "Give way there! What are you doing, Phil—stalling on me?"
"Say, who made you the coxswain, anyhow?" demanded the aggrieved one.
The boys reached Randall just as the downpour began again, but their spirits had been raised by the row, and by the good news which Frank had heard. It was confirmed a little later by an announcement on the bulletin board, calling for a meeting of the athletic committee, within a few days, to consider the matter.
"Say, this is going to be great!" cried Holly Cross, one of the football squad. "Rowing is something Randall always needed."
"And she needs rowers, too, don't forget that, Holly, me lad!" exclaimed Bricktop Molloy, a genial Irish lad who was taking a post-graduate course, after an absence of some time at Columbia and with a mining concern. Some said he came back to Randall merely because he loved her athletics so, but Bricktop, with a ruffling up of his red hair would say, half-savagely:
"I deny the allegation, sir, and I defy the alligator!" an old joke but a good one.
"Oh, we'll get the rowers," was the confident declaration of many, and then the lads, gathering in the gymnasium, or in the rooms of one and another, talked over the coming rowing contests.
It rained all night, and part of the next day, and then seemed to clear off for good.
"What about another spin on the river?" asked Tom, after his last lecture. "I'm ready for it."
"So am I," declared Sid, and the remaining two fell into line. Several other lads agreed to accompany the four inseparables, and soon quite a group was headed for the river.
"Say, look at that; would you!" cried Phil, as they came in sight of the stream. "That's a flood all right!"
"I should say so!" remarked Tom. "Why, It's almost up to the doors of the boathouse, and it hasn't been that high in years!"
"Some water," agreed Frank. "I wonder if it's safe to go out? Look at that current!"
"Safe! Of course it's safe!" exclaimed Phil. "I've seen It worse."
"But not with so much wreckage in the river," added Tom. "Look at those big logs. If one of them even hit the barge it would smash a hole in it."
"There's part of a chicken-coop!" cried Sid, pointing to the object floating down the river.
"Yes, and there's half a cow-shed, if I'm any judge," went on Frank.
"The river sure is high," conceded Phil. "I did want to take a run down to Fairview, and see Sis, but"
"See your sister!" jeered Sid. "I know who you want to see down there all right," for while Phil's sister, Ruth, attended the co-educational institution, so did Madge Tyler, of whom Phil was very fond, and also Mabel Harrison, in whom Sid was more than ordinarily interested. Besides, there were "others."
"I was going to row down," declared Phil, stoutly. "But I can go by trolley."
"Oh, let's try a little row," suggested Tom. "If we find the current Is too strong, we can come back and take a car. I'd like to see the girls."
"Brave youth! To admit that!" exclaimed Frank. "I fancy we all would. Well, let's get out the boat."
But they found the flood too much for them. Venturing only a little way out from shore they were gripped in the current with such force that they saw it would be folly to proceed. Accordingly, they put back, as did their companions in other boats.
As they were tying up at the boathouse. Wallops, one of the college messengers, came in.
"Did you hear about it?" he demanded, apparently much excited.
"About what?" he was asked.
"A lot of boathouses down the river have been washed away in the flood," he went on. "The small one at Boxer Hall came near going, but they anchored it with ropes. One of their small shells was smashed. Oh, it's a bad flood all right!"
"Well, we can't help it," said Tom. "I guess the trolley cars are still running. Come on, fellows, if we're going to Fairview Institute."
So, leaving the boathouse, they started for the trolley line.
"We'll take a row down the river to-morrow, and see what damage the flood did," called Sid to Wallops, as they moved away. They little realized what they would find, or what part it would play in the history of Randall.