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 Kingston’s 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 life—­in 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 humanity—­to 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 another’s rooms, but most often in Tug’s, they were divided variously among the athletic teams, where each one felt that his own honor was Lakerim’s.

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 faithfully—­or overworked so faithfully—­that 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.