ith which the stream was playing upon his face, the boy grasped the
flag, determined not to surrender.

But the enemy now surrounded the fort on all sides, and were already
scaling the walls. Both Jim and Drusie were anxious to gain the glory
of capturing the flag, and a desperate fight raged round the flagstaff.
Twice Drusie laid hands upon it, and twice she was driven back.

The hose played upon besieged and besiegers alike, and all the
combatants were being drenched to the skin. But the battle continued
to rage, and, though he was hampered by his helmet and sorely
outnumbered, the valour displayed by the holder of the fort might yet
have gained him the day, if Jim, warned by a cry from Hal that the
water in the barrel was giving out, had not succeeded in grasping the
flagstaff.

"Jump with it, Jim, jump!" Drusie cried, and flung herself between
them. But with one hand the boy tossed her aside, while with the other
he clutched at the flag.

There was a short tug of war; then a sharp sound of tearing cloth; and
while the gallant defender toppled backwards into the stream, carrying
the greater part of the flag with him, Jim fell down on the other side,
bearing with him the flagstaff and the fluttering remnant of the Union
Jack.

Both sides would certainly have claimed the victory, for both held a
portion of the flag, had not Drusie, scrambling out of the hawthorn
bushes into which she had been tossed, jumped into the middle of the
stream, and snatched the part that he still held out of the hand of the
prostrate, half-drowned enemy.

Then the fort had no choice but to capitulate, and the day was won by
the besiegers.

"You all fought jolly well," said the holder of the fort, calmly
sitting upright in the middle of the stream and removing his helmet,
thereby disclosing to view the face of the boy who had come to Jumbo's
rescue. "It has been warm work from first to last. It is quite jolly
to sit here and get cool."

Then Hal, jubilant at the success which had attended his manoeuvre,
emerged from the hawthorn bushes in which he had been concealed, and
congratulated his late enemy on the splendid stand which the fort had
made.

"It ought not to have been taken," Dodds said. "But that hose upset me
completely; it came as such a tremendous surprise."

"I say," said Jim, who was standing on the bank panting from his
exertions, "are you really Dodds?"

"That's my name," said the boy with a polite flourish of