Ruth Fielding At College: or, The Missing Examination Papers

The shells were started at twenty-yard intervals, and in the order of the classes. The freshman eight, in which rowed Ruth, Helen and Jennie, had practised vigorously all these weeks and now they displayed the value of their exertions.

Within the first quarter they "bumped" the sophomore eight. This crew dropped out of the race immediately and the freshmen spun ahead, Ruth setting a wonderfully effective stroke, and little Trix Davenport swaying her body in time with the motion of the boat and shouting encouragement through her megaphone.

On and on crept the freshman eight until there was barely a hand's breadth between the nose of their shell and the stern of the junior craft. The crowd along shore cheered the younger girls vociferously, and although they did not quite "bump" the juniors before crossing the mile line —

"We came so near it there was no fun in it!" declared Jennie Stone, delightedly. "Oh, girls! some of us are going to be great rowists after a few more years at Ardmore."

"Dear me," panted Helen, making the last pun of the term. "It should be called Hard-more. I never worked so hard in my life as I have this first year at college."

"But it will never hurt us," laughed Ruth, later. "We have got on famously."

"You have, my dear," interposed Helen. "You stand A, number one in classes. And look at that new play of yours – a big success! Money is rolling in on you – "

"Think a little of yourself," proposed Ruth. "Don't you consider your time well spent here, my dear chum?"

"Sure! It is the end of a perfect year," agreed Helen.

"And think of me —little me!" cried Jennie Stone, bursting into the chums' study at that moment, and in time to hear the last of the conversation. "Do you know what's happened, girls?"

"No! What?" demanded the curious Helen.

"I have lost another pound," said the ex-fat girl, in a sepulchral voice.

THE END