Through the buzzing in their ears they can faintly hear the guns, the whistles, and the roar of the crowd. Not for them, not for them. What difference does that make? They may win, or at any rate they can lose like men. They may win, they may win. "Let her run." Over the water from all sides come the cheers and shouts of "Yale, Yale, Yale." Leave them, reader, if you so choose, they are beaten men; go and rejoice with the victors who have rowed a splendid race and well deserve your congratulations. I always take a certain morbid interest myself in the nine heartbroken men who are quietly carried away in their launch as soon as possible after a race. All over and lost in twenty minutes, the work and self-denial of seven months! The big Freshman has dropped his head on his knees and is sobbing like a baby; of course it must be all his fault. Bill Bender is still grimly gripping his oar and looking straight before him; that back is bent now, but the jaw is still set, the eyes flashing, and through his teeth he registers a vow to come back to the Law School and get at 'em again. Varnum, the coxswain, is as pale as the rest; he has rowed every stroke of that race without the savage comfort of the physical torture; he has seen what the others could not--the Blue coxswain going farther and farther ahead, and he powerless to help his straining men. They all hold on to something or clasp their knees tightly--to faint or fall over would be a grand-stand play. Nevertheless that was what Charles Rivers did. He swayed for a moment, grasped blindly at the side of the shell, and fell back unconscious in the lap of the man behind him. And then, for the first time, No. 3 saw that the bottom of the boat was red with blood. _Rivers had broken his sliding-seat before the two mile flag was reached, and had rowed the last half of the race sliding back and forth on the sharp steel tracks that cut into him at every stroke._[2] [Footnote 2: There is no fiction about this. It was done by a Harvard oarsman.] Before the observation-train had fairly stopped Holworthy leaped from it and dashed for the river bank followed by Rattleton. As they passed one of the cars they both recognized a girl with a blue flag. Holworthy said something that Jack did not hear; the former did not notice that the girl's face was deadly pale and the blue flag motionless in her hand, but the latter did. "There is no use in our following them," said Burleigh. "They won't be allowed to talk to the crew even if they get out to the float." Therein he was quite right; before the two could get a boat to go out to the Harvard float at the finish, they saw the men helped out of the shell and onto the University launch. They saw Rivers carried aboard. Then the launch steamed quickly up the river, towing the empty shell.