The Go Ahead Boys in the Island Camp Part 23

"I seem to be out of it," remarked Fred ruefully when the final selections had been made.

"Why are you?" demanded Grant. "You're going to be in the canoe race just as much as John and I?"

"I know it, but I'm not on the first team."

"That's all right, you and Pop might beat us out after all."

"Huh," exclaimed Fred. "Pop doesn't do any work; he just sits there and expects me to do it all."

"You know that's not so, Fred," protested George warmly. "No one in the world works harder than I do."

"Well, if that's so," returned Fred, "all I can say is that there are an awful lot of loafers in the world."

"All four of us will be in every event except the tilting match," said John. "You and I are both out of that, Fred."

"You can save your strength while that's going on for the swimming race," said Grant. "We'll have to depend on you two to win first and second in that."

"How long is it going to be?" asked George.

"A hundred and seventy-five yards. Tom Adams was over here yesterday while you were away and we decided on that distance."

"It seems to me like a queer distance though," said George. "How did you ever happen to hit on that?"

"Why, we wanted to make it a hundred yards and they wanted a two-twenty.

We finally compromised on a hundred and seventy-five yards."

"That's fair enough," said George. "How are we going to measure off these different distances?"

"Guess at them, I suppose," laughed John. "It won't make any difference whether they're exact or not, I guess."

"No, I imagine we're not going to break any time records so we needn't bother about such details," agreed George.

"We haven't had any practice so far to-day," remarked Fred. "What's the matter; are we afraid of getting over-trained?"

"That can be done easily enough, all right," said Grant. "Don't you remember what the track coach we had at school last year said?"

"He said I'd never make a runner if that's what you mean," laughed George.

"No, not that. What he said about training."

"What was it?" asked Fred. "I don't remember."

"Why, he said it was much better to be under-trained than over-trained.

Another thing, when a fellow was training for a certain event he'd never let him run the full distance in practice."

"Is that so?" exclaimed George. "That doesn't sound logical to me though."

"All right," said Grant, "but you know which school won all the meets held anywhere around home, don't you?"

"We did," said George.

"That's just it," exclaimed Grant, "and yet you say that trainer was no good."

"I didn't mean to say that. All I said was that it didn't seem reasonable to me not to let a fellow run the full distance."

"Well, Mr. Smythe used to say that the great temptation for most fellows was to do too much work. They'd go out and run all the afternoon and hang around until they were tired out and then wonder why they felt heavy in the legs and had no life in them."

"Sailing can't hurt us anyway," said John.

"That's right," agreed Grant, "and I'm in favor of doing this: stop training for the events to-morrow. That'll leave us two days to rest up before the games are held and we can devote those two days to learning how little we know about sailing."

"I know that already," laughed George. "I'm afraid we're going to get a good beating in that race."

"Oh, I don't know," Fred objected. "They might run on a rock or something."

"That's our best chance all right," said George. "I have an idea that those fellows are all awfully good sailors."

"I hope we have some wind," said Grant hopefully. "We'll never finish the race unless we have a pretty stiff breeze. Personally I think the course is too long."

"Twice around the lake," said John. "That's not so far."

"It's pretty far," insisted Grant. "Wait until you see the buoys out and then you'll realize it."

"Who's going to put them out?"

"The red team," laughed Grant.

"They're doing most of the work, aren't they?" inquired Fred.

"Well, they wanted to; naturally I didn't object."

"They're going to get dinner over here, you know," said George. "That'll give us something to do."

"Just think of it," exclaimed John. "Won't we be hungry that day? The swimming and canoe races and the tilting contests all in the morning and then food. You'll have to cook a lot, Grant."

"I realize that," said Grant grimly. "I guess we can feed them though."

"Suppose we're all even at the end of the morning," exclaimed George.

"That would certainly make the sailing race exciting, wouldn't it?"

"It sure would," Fred agreed. "We'll have plenty of time to sail it too, Grant. All afternoon ought to be long enough."

"That's right," said Grant. "Yes, I hope we can get around twice in one afternoon."

"This canoe race is what's bothering me," exclaimed George. "That'll take it out of us all right. It's hard work paddling and as long as Fred and I aren't the first team I wonder if it wouldn't be better if we didn't go in it at all. If we were fresh for the swimming race that might increase our chances."

"I know," said Grant, "but it seems to me that every fellow ought to be in every event."