"Best speed---and work, fellows!" called Dick, as quietly as ever,
though in his voice there was a note almost of despair.

Now, indeed, the Gridley craft sped through the water. Yet all
of her crew, and many people on shore, realized that the war canoe
was not showing a prize-taking gait.

How Dick, Dave, Tom and the others worked, bending all their energies
to the task! Yet all felt the same awful doubts.

Bang! The first gun had sounded.

"Down to the line, fellows!" Dick called. "Put in all the steam
you can. I was wrong not to have warmed you up before. Get your
blood to moving. One, two, three, four! Hump it! Hump it!"

Their bodies streaming with perspiration, breath coming fast,
their faces deeply flushed, Dick & Co. bent to their paddling.
They were moving fast, yet not as fast as they should be moving
and back.

"What on earth can ail our boys?" cried Laura Bentley anxiously
as she watched.

"They're moving fast," replied Clara Marshall.

"Yet not the way they should move," Laura insisted. "There's
nothing about them of the easy, brisk form that Preston High School
shows to-day."