Dick still swam well, but gradually Martin stole ahead of him.

“Where’s Prescott now?” jeered a dozen North Grammar boys.

“Centrals, send out a launch to tow your champ!  Then maybe he’ll make better time.”

Hi swam steadily and rapidly until he had more than half covered the course.  Then he ventured on a look behind him.

“Prescott won’t catch up all day,” grinned Hi to himself.  “Oh, I’m glad I insisted on this individual race!”

Gradually, and, to those on shore it seemed painfully, Dick gained on the leader.  Still, when the race was almost over, Hi was well in the lead.

“Hi Martin!  Hi Hi Hi!” yelled the North Grammar boys, dancing and tossing their caps in their glee.  “Prescott, where art thou?  Say, what did you try to get into the race for?”

“Now, I’ll show the folks a few things,” Hi resolved, putting on the best spurts of speed that were in him.  It was truly a fine performance for a Grammar School boy.

Yet, to the amazement of most of the onlookers, Dick also was doing some very speedy swimming now.  A yard he gained on Martin, then another and another.  When they were still fifty yards from the stakeboat Dick suddenly changed his stroke and surged ahead, distinctly in the lead.

“Confound the human steam launch!” gasped Hi, almost choking, as he saw the powerful strokes of the swimmer ahead.  “He’ll make me look like a fool if I don’t haul up on him—–­and the distance left is so confoundedly short!”

Now it could be seen that Martin was exerting every ounce of energy and strength that he possessed.  Yet still young Prescott gained.

Then Martin foolishly lost his head altogether.

“If I can’t win I’ll make it look like a fluke!” he gritted.

Just as Dick was nearing the stakeboat, Hi threw up one hand.

“I’ve got a cramp!” he shouted.  “Help!”

To some on shore he appeared about to sink.  Dick passed the stakeboat, then turned like a flash and swam back toward Hi.

“Prescott wins!” called Len Spencer.

A few more strokes brought Dick up to where Hi pretended to flounder.

“Keep quiet, Hi, and let me get a hold on you,” Dick offered.  “I’ll have you at the pier in a jiffy.”

“You get away from me,” snarled Martin.  “I don’t want any of your kind of help.”

With that Hi appeared to forget his recent complaint of “cramp,” for he made a lusty plunge toward the pier and pulled himself up.

Then, an instant later, he must have remembered, for he assumed an expression of pain and limped.

“There’s that mean cramp again,” he muttered.  “I’d have won by a good many yards if it hadn’t been for that.”

Some of the Central Grammar boys nearby were impolite enough to laugh incredulously.

“Oh, I’ve dropped my handbag into the river!” exclaimed one woman to another suddenly, at the end of the pier.