“Dick Rover is ahead!”

“See, Jackson is played out!  He can hardly take another stroke!”

“Major Colby is crawling up!  See, he is passing Jackson!”

“And here comes Tom Rover, too.”

“Wake up, Tom!” cried Sam.  “You can beat Jackson yet!”

At this cry Tom did wake up, and seeing Jackson floundering around put on a final spurt and passed him.

“Dick Rover has won the race!”

“And Major Colby is second, and Tom Rover third.”

“Poor Jackson wasn’t in it, after all!”

CHAPTER XVII

THE ENEMY PLOT MISCHIEF

The most disgusted cadet on Pine Island was Lew Flapp, and when Jackson walked out of the water and entered one of the bath-tents he followed his crony with a face full of bitterness.

“Why didn’t you try to keep up and win out”? he asked bitterly, while Jackson was dressing.

“I did try.  But Rover came up like a steam engine.”

“You seemed to play out all in a minute.”

“And that is just what I did do.  The pace was too hot for me, and I just about collapsed.  Those fellows are good swimmers, no two ways about that.”

“Bah!  I could have beaten them with ease.”

“I’d like to see you do it.”

“Do you know I lost six dollars on that race,” went on Flapp, after a pause.

“Who won the money”?

“Songbird Powell.”

“How did you come to put up such an odd figure, Lew”?

“I bet a dollar even first, and then, when I felt certain you would win, I gave him odds of five to one.  I was a chump.”

“Well, I did my best—­honestly I did,” returned Jackson, who hated to have his crony lose.

“I ought to make you pay me back.”

“I’d do it if I had the money,” said Jackson.  He rarely had money in his pocket, spending everything as fast as received.

“Well, that is one more we owe that crowd,” observed Flapp with increased bitterness.

When Jackson was dressed he and Flapp took themselves to another part of the camp, and there met Pender, Rockley, and Ben Hurdy.

“Let us take a walk,” said Jackson.  “I am sick of staying around where the others can stare at me.”

“Come with me,” put in Pender.  “I have found something I want to show you.”

“A gold mine, perhaps,” said Flapp.  “I need one just now.  Betting on Jackson nearly cleaned me out.”

“It’s no gold mine, but it may prove useful to us,” answered the other cadet.

The crowd started off, and Pender led the way through the woods and partly around the rocky hill in the center of the island.

“I ran into it quite by accident,” he said.  “You’d never suspect it was there unless you knew of it.”

“Knew of what?” asked Rockley.  “What sort of a mystery are you running us into now?”

“Just wait and see.”