now that you wasted time when you went after Dick Graham. He's
a Yankee."

"You're another," retorted Dick.

"Do you still claim to be neutral?"

"I do, for a fact. You see, Missouri--"

"Oh, Dick, have a little mercy on a fellow, and don't say that again,"
cried half a dozen voices at once.

"Well, then, what do you want me to say? I'll not help you pull down the
flag, if that is what you are after. I say, let her alone and she will
come down of herself when the sunset gun is fired."

"We don't want her to come down of herself," answered Rodney. "We want
the satisfaction of hauling her down."

"Very well, go and do it; but don't come to me whining over the broken
heads you will be sure to get before you are through with the business.
If you will let the orderly run her down, I will help steal her, so that
she can't be run up in the morning; but being neutral, Missouri not
having gone out of--"

"That scheme won't work at all," Rodney declared, with some disgust in
his tones. "Don't you know that the colonel takes charge of the bunting
every night?"

"I believe I have heard something to that effect."

"And don't you know that he keeps it locked in his bureau?" chimed in
Billings.

"Having been on duty at headquarters a time or two I am not ignorant of
the fact," answered Dick. "All I ask of you is to do as I say, and I'll
get the flag."

Of course the boys were impatient to know what they could do to help,
and Dick at once proceeded to unfold his plans; but as they will be
revealed presently we do not stop to tell what they were. Some of the
combative ones among the students did not like the scheme at all, for
there was not enough danger and excitement in it; and if it succeeded,
they would be deprived of the pleasure of listening to the praises which
they were sure the Barrington people would lavish upon them, when it
should become known that they had hauled the flag down after a desperate
battle with the Northern sympathizers who had tried to protect it. But
these were in the minority. The others had no desire to provoke a fight
with Marcy Gray and his friends, and it was finally decided that Dick's
plan was the safest and best.

"That rather interferes with your arrangements, Cole," said Ed Billings,
as the boys paired off and bent their steps toward the academy, Rodney
Gray leading, with the flag in his hand. "Those girls were particular to
say that the next time you came to see them you must bring