they tried it again, and made only about an inch. a third time sawed-off gave the signal, and the trojans, recognizing it, waited a bit before bracing for the shock. but for the third time sawed-off had arranged that the pull should immediately follow the command. again the trojans were fooled, and the white went two inches into kingston territory. the trojans now grew angry and panicky, and began to wrench and twist without regard for one another. the result of this was that kingston gradually gained three inches more before winthrop could coax his men back to reason and team-work. the time was almost gone now, and he got his men into a series of well-concerted, steady, deadly efforts, that threatened to bring the whole kingston four over with the snail-like white cord. but sawed-off pleaded with his men, and they buried their faces in the board and worked like mad. to the spectators they seemed hardly to move, but under their skins their muscles were crowding and shoving like a gang of slaves, and fairly squeezing streams of sweat out of them as if their gleaming hides were sponges. and then, after what seemed a whole night of agony, the white cord budged no more, though the trojans pulled themselves almost inside out; and suddenly the lever nipped the rope, and the contest was over. the trojans were all faint, and the head of winthrop fell forward limply. even sawed-off was so dizzy that he had to be helped across the floor by his friends. but they were glad enough to pay him this aid. all kingston had learned to love the sturdy giant, and the lakerimmers were prouder of him than ever, for it was through him that the fatal balance had been pulled down to kingstons side, so that the team could take another victory home with them to the academy. xxvii as the school year rolled on toward its finish in june, times became busier and busier for the students, especially for the lakerimmers, who felt a great responsibility upon their shoulders, the responsibility of keeping the lakerim athletic club pennant flying to the fore in all the different businesses of academic lifein the classroom, at the prize speaking, in the debating society, and, most of all, in the different athletic affairs. it was no longer necessary, as it had been at home in lakerim, for the same twelve men to play all the games known to humanityto make a specialty of everything, so to speak. at kingston, while they were still one body and soul, and kept up their union with constant powwows in one anothers rooms, but most often in tugs, they were divided variously among the athletic teams, where each one felt that his own honor was lakerims. their motto was the motto of the three musketeers: all for one, and one for all. the springtime athletics found the best of them choosing between the boat crew and the ball team. it was a hard choice for some of them who loved to be jacks-at-all-trades, but a choice was necessary. the kingston academy possessed so many good fellows that not all of the dozen found a place on the eight or the nine; still, there were enough of them successful to keep lakerim material still strongly in evidence. of the men that tried for the crew, all were sifted out, gradually, except b.j., quiz, and punk. the training was a severe one, under a coach who had graduated some years before from kingston, and had come back to bring his beloved academy first across the line, as it had gone the year he had captained the crew. as the training went on, the man who had been elected captain of the eight worked so faithfullyor overworked so faithfullythat he was trained up to the finest point some two or three weeks before the great regatta of academies. every day after that he lost in form, in spite of himself, and the coach had finally to make him abdicate the throne; and punk, who had worked in his usual slow and conservative fashion, seemed the fittest man to succeed him. so punk became captain of the crew, and found himself at the old post of stroke-oar. on the day of the great henley of the interscholastic league, when all the crews had got away in their best style, after two vexatious false starts, punk slowly, and without any impatience, urged his crew past all the others, till kingston led them all. from this place he could study his rivals well, and after some shifting of positions, he saw the troy latin school eight coming cleanly out of the parade and making swiftly after him. suddenly a great nervousness seized him, because he remembered the time, the year before, when the lakerim crew rowed troy, and when his oar had broken just before the finish, so that he had been compelled to jump out into the water, and had missed the joy of riding over the line with his winning lakerimmers. he wondered now if this oar would also play him false. but he had selected it with experienced care, and hard as he strained it, and pathetically as it groaned, it stood him in good stead, and carried him, and the seven who rowed with him, safely into the paradise of victory. xxviii of the lakerimmers who tried for the baseball team, four men were elevated to the glory of positions on the regular nine. sleepy had somehow proved that left-field was safer when he was seeming to take a nap there than it was under the guard of any of the more restless players. tug was a second baseman, whose cool head made him a good man at that pivot of the field; he was an able assistant to the right-field, a ready back-stop to the short-stop, and a perfect spider for taking into his web all the wild throws that came slashing from the home plate to cut off those who dared to try to steal his base. sawed-off was the nearest of all the kingstonians to resembling a telegraph-pole, so he had no real competitors for first base. he declined to play, however, unless jumbo were given the position of short-stop; and jumbo soon proved that he had some other rights to the position besides a powerful pull. reddy and heady had worked like beavers to be accepted as the battery, but the pitcher and catcher of the year before were so satisfactory that the twins could get no nearer to their ambitions than the substitute-list, and there it seemed they were pretty sure to remain upon the shelf, in spite of all the practice they had kept up, even through the winter. the kingston ball-team had found its only rival to the championship of the interscholastic league in the nine from the charleston preparatory school. the kingstonians all plucked up hope, however, when they found themselves at the end of the season one game ahead of charleston; or, at least, they called it one game ahead, for charleston had played off its schedule, and kingston had only one more nine to defeat, and that was the brownsville school for boys, the poorest team in the whole league, a pack of good-for-nothings with butter on their fingers and holes in their bats. so kingston counted the pennant as good as won. down the team went to brownsville, then, just to see how big a score they could roll up. back they came from brownsville so dazed they almost rode past the kingston station. for when they had reached the ballground, one of those curious moods that attacks a team as it attacks a single person seized them and took away the whole knack that had won them so many games. the brownsvillers, on the other hand, seemed to have been inspired by something in the air. they simply could not muff the ball or strike out. they found and pounded the curves of the kingston pitcher so badly that the substitute battery would have been put in had they not been left behind because it was not thought worth while to pay their fare down to brownsville. the upshot of the horrible afternoon was that brownsville sent kingston home with its feelings bruised black and blue, and its record done up in cotton. it was a good thing that kingston had prepared no bonfire for the victory they had thought would be so easy, because if the defeated nine had been met with such a mockery they would surely have perished of mortification