ssed up the steps and through the
wide archway, waving his flag and making the hall ring with his shouts
as he went. "Rally on the center, boys, and yell defiance to the
Regicides and Roundheads. Keep your eye on the stairs, Billings, and if
the kurn does not come down when he hears the racket, we are all right
for to-morrow morning."

For a few minutes the greatest confusion reigned in the corridor. The
secessionists yelled themselves hoarse over the Stars and Bars, and,
carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment, pledged themselves to
enlist with the defenders of their respective States within twenty-four
hours after they reached home. Then followed a counter-demonstration for
the Stars and Stripes, led by the tall student, Dixon, of Kentucky, who
was backed up by nearly all the boys from the States that had not yet
joined the Confederacy. The noise was deafening, but the colonel did not
come out of his room to put a stop to it, and that confirmed Rodney in
the belief that he was "all right for tomorrow morning." His friends
were greatly encouraged, and one of them, when the evening gun was
fired, jerked, rather than pulled, the old flag down from the masthead;
and he would have been glad to show his contempt for it by trampling it
under his feet, had it not been for the presence of the guard, who paced
the top of the tower in plain view of the open door of the belfry.

It was necessary to keep a sentry there now, for when the students found
that they could not do as they pleased with the flag, they watched for
an opportunity to pull the halliards out of the block at the head of the
flagstaff. Of course the rope could and would have been restored to its
place, but not without considerable trouble. The staff was so very
slender that the lightest boy in school would have thought twice before
attempting to climb it, and therefore the staff would have had to come
down. Marcy Gray and his friends, who seemed to have a way of finding
out all about the plans that were laid against the flag, thought it
would be best to ask the colonel commanding to have a guard placed over
the halliards, and this was accordingly done.

Although the sentry who was on duty at this particular time had the
reputation of being a good soldier, he was not as friendly to the flag
as he might have been; consequently he offered no remonstrance when the
orderly gathered the colors up in a bunch and started downstairs to
deliver them to the head of t