Fred Fenton on the Crew | Page 7

virtues as a coxswain the candidate possessed.
"Move we vote!" shouted Bristles Carpenter, anxious to get the agony over.
"Question! A motion that we proceed to vote has been made, Mr. Chairman!" called out Corney Shays, whose father was an old college man, and had once, many years back, rowed in a junior four-oared race.
"Any second?" asked the Chairman.
"I second the motion!" came from half a dozen throats.
It was carried with a rush; and then the tellers went around, giving each one a slip of paper on which he was to write the name of the candidate he preferred to serve as coxswain during the season that was at hand.
A few minutes later the tellers collected the slips, which were accurately counted, so that there should be no chance of fraud or mistakes. Then the result was announced by the chairman, as written out by the tellers.
"Whole number of votes cast, seventeen. For Buck Lemington, six votes; for Brad Morton eleven. Which, being a majority, makes Brad Morton the coxswain of the Riverport Boat Club."
Then a great uproar broke out, all of the boys shouting or cheering. Those who had voted for Buck Lemington, taking cue from their leader, declared that the election had not been fairly carried on; and that had all those interested in the club been allowed to vote, and not just those who expected to take part in the actual rowing, he would have carried the day.
Buck himself was crimson with rage. He never could take defeat in a manly way, but burst into a passion. Jumping up, he rallied his five cronies around him. There was mutiny in the air, Fred saw, nor was he in his heart at all sorry, for Buck had promised to be the disturbing element in the association from the start.
"Cheat me out of the position, will you?" he shouted, shaking his fist at the others, after the shouting had stopped, and everybody was staring at him; "make Brad Morton coxswain when I know more about the duties of the job in a minute than he can in a year! All right, I'm going to wash my hands of the whole bunch; and here's five husky fellers that'll go along with me. Keep your old boat, if you want to. I expected somethin' like this'd happen; and let me tell you, fellers, we've been up to Grafton to see an eight-oar shell that once won a college race. We've got an option on her, too, and just understand we'll buy her in, challenge your crowd to a race, and beat you to flinders! Come along, fellers, we don't train with this crowd any more," and the six stalked out of the building with sneers on their faces, amid a dead silence.
CHAPTER IV
IN CAMP ON THE MOHUNK
On the day following the exciting meeting in the schoolhouse, the members of the boat club connected with Riverport school were in camp some miles up the Mohunk river, wishing to practice in their new shell, where curious eyes might not watch them.
It was expected that they would stay several days in camp; so tents had been taken along, as well as all sorts of supplies calculated to help the cooks in their work.
The rebellion of Buck Lemington had not bothered Brad and his friends very much. True, several of their best scullers had been lost by the mutiny; but some of the more promising substitutes were moved up into regular positions, and others taken on to fill the places thus vacated; for there was no lack of candidates among the boys of Riverport school.
Ever since Buck had let out his secret the talk had been about the possibility of the rival crew sending them a challenge, and an actual race taking place somewhere near Riverport, with hundreds of cheering people to watch the contest.
It thrilled the boys just to talk about such a happening.
"Don't get too gay, fellows," remarked a tall lad, whose name was Colon, and who had always been a good friend of Fred Fenton, from the day the latter first came to town. "Buck Lemington is a big bag of wind when it comes to bragging about what he's going to do. I think I can see him buying that shell over at Grafton, that Colonel Simms owns. His boy who went to college rowed in her, you know. There isn't money enough in Riverport to buy that boat."
"Oh! I don't know," broke in Dave Hanshaw, who had always been more or less of a crack athlete on Riverport's teams; "I heard my father saying only last night that the old Colonel had lost all his money, and was selling out over in Grafton. So you see, perhaps he might be willing to let that pet boat, in which his son rowed to