they were
given with a will. Then followed a cheer from the high-school students
for those of the military academy, and then the crowd started to
disperse.

"Oh, boys! some celebration to-night, what?" cried Randy Rover, and in
the exuberance of his spirits he turned several handsprings on the
grass.

"You bet we'll celebrate!" exclaimed his cousin Fred.

"Say! we ought to shoot off the old cannon for this," burst out Andy
Rover. He referred to an ancient fieldpiece located on the front lawn
of the school.

"Too dangerous," interposed his cousin Jack. "That old cannon is too
rusty, and it would fly into a million pieces."

"Yes, but we might----"

_Boom!_

It was a loud explosion coming from a considerable distance. The
cadets, as well as all the others gathered on the ball field, looked
at each other in surprise.

"What could that have been?" questioned Fred Rover.

"Sounds like a big cannon going off," answered Walt Baxter.

_Boom! Boom!_

Two more explosions rent the air, both much louder than the first. The
very ground seemed to be shaken by the concussion.

"Say, that sounds like a warship!"

"No warships around here," was the answer.

"Maybe it's a German Zeppelin!"

"Gee! do you suppose the Germans have come over here to bombard us?"

_Boom! Boom! Boom!_

Several more explosions came now close upon the others, each explosion
heavier than those which had gone before. The ground all around seemed
to tremble, and those who were still in the grandstand cried out in
alarm.

"The grandstand is going down! Everybody jump for his life!"

"Look! Look!" was the sudden cry from Jack Rover, and he pointed to a
place on the opposite shore of Clearwater Lake. A dense volume of
smoke was rolling skyward. Then came another tremendous explosion, and
a mass of wreckage could be seen to be lifted skyward.

"It's the Hasley ammunition factory going up!" cried Fred Rover. "What
an awful thing to happen!"

"That factory is right across the lake from our school!" cried Martha
Rover. "I wonder if it will damage that place any?"

"I shouldn't be surprised," answered her cousin Andy. And then he
added quickly: "I hope Mary will be safe."

"Oh, oh! do you think Mary is in danger?" cried Ruth Stevenson, who
had just joined the others. Mary was Fred Rover's sister, who had been
left behind at the girls' boarding school because she had been
suffering that day with a severe headache, and had said she preferred