CHAPTER XV

WAYNE RAISES A FLAG

March came in like a lion that spring and roared and raved over the river and about the dormitories and made life out of doors a hardship that few cared to brave. Ere it was a week old it had piled the ice in walls along the river banks, swept the green bare of snow, and snapped the tall flag post in front of Academy Building. Wayne and Don hugged the fireplace when not at recitations or in the gymnasium, and got a lot of studying done. Wayne’s ability to learn his lessons had increased of late, and he was ready to give credit to Professor Beck and the steady training he was undergoing. Physical exercise clears the brain, and Wayne discovered an improvement before he had been at work with the track squad for two weeks. He even began to speak tentatively of trying for a scholarship, and Don grinned and cunningly encouraged him by saying:

“Oh, well, you can try, of course. But I don’t believe you can make it. You won’t stick to it long enough; you’ll get tired of studying after a while.”

An assertion which Wayne indignantly denied.

“Just you wait and see! You needn’t think you and Paddy are the only fellows in school who can get scholarships!”

Gymnasium work was much the same as it had been since Don and Wayne went into training; there was always the chest weights and the dumb-bells, and Wayne knew every splinter and crack in the running track by this time. But he had dropped two or three pounds of weight, and felt better for it; he had made the acquaintance of a number of the candidates who were the sort of chaps that it was well to know; he had secured a new interest in school life, and he was able to talk more or less intelligently with Don upon subjects that occupied full half of that youth’s thought--namely, the approaching spring handicap meet and the more distant interscholastic contest. Don had thrown himself heart and soul into the task of turning out a winning track team, and, being a youth who was willing and eager to back his mental efforts with the hardest sort of physical labor, he was in a fair way to succeed. For two weeks past he had been in correspondence with a number of Hillton graduates, and now he was able to announce that he had secured promises of active assistance from almost all of them, and that the track men would not want for coaching.

“Barret is coming in April,” he told Wayne one day. “He was a star hurdler at college a couple of years ago. Then Kenyon, who holds the intercollegiate two-hundred-and-twenty-yard record, and Burns, who won the one hundred yards last spring, are both coming to coach the sprinters. Remsen, the old football coach, is coming, and I think he’ll be willing to teach Dave and Hardy and Kendall a few tricks with the weights. We need a middle-distance man and some one who knows something about pole vaulting. Johnstone may come; he’s half promised. As for you and Chase and Treadway and the rest, why, Beck will look after you; he’s a dandy coach for the distances; he used to be a fine runner in the mile, and held the intercollegiate championship for a couple of seasons. We’ll be well fixed for coaches this spring.”

“Seems to me with all those men to help,” said Wayne, “we can’t help winning.”

“It doesn’t follow. You see, St. Eustace and the other schools will have just as many good grads coaching them. St. Eustace generally has a whole army of them. That’s one bully thing about that school: you never hear of it begging for aid of any sort from the alumni; the alumni’s always on hand and waiting to help. Of course, I don’t mean that Hillton graduates aren’t like that, only--well, sometimes they seem a bit backward in coming forward.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Wayne; “perhaps if the truth was known we’d find that St. Eustace captains have just as much trouble getting the old fellows to go there and coach as you have had. I know from what Dave told me once that Hillton fellows always help the school all they know how.”

“Good for you!” answered Don, with a grin. “’Rah for Hillton!”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing much; only that you are coming on. I think I can detect symptoms of patriotism, Wayne.”

“Pshaw! Of course a fellow always stands up for his school; he’d be mighty poor trash if he didn’t.”

“Glad to hear you say so,” responded Don dryly. “You didn’t seem to be impressed with that fact when you first arrived in our midst with your two trunks and an air of supreme importance.”

“Oh, shut up!” growled Wayne. Don smiled silently, as though at an amusing thought, and Wayne observed him with rather an embarrassed expression. Finally he broke the silence.

“Stop grinning there like a chloroformed catfish, Don! I suppose I was rather a silly ass when I got here. But, you see, I hadn’t been away from our little old village very much and didn’t know a great deal about boarding schools.” He paused and looked reminiscently into the flames. “You and Dave and Paddy were awfully nice to me. I must have seemed a powerful sulky brute!”

“Well, you were a bit exasperating at first with your high and mighty views of the school and the fellows and the way in which we conducted things here at Hillton. But we all kind of took to you the first day; perhaps that was the reason. I’ll never forget the afternoon you walked in here, plumped your valise down, and asked why the nigger hadn’t lighted the fire!”

“But it was chilly,” objected Wayne.

“And when I explained very respectfully that you would be obliged to share the study with me, you looked me over very condescendingly and remarked: ‘Well, I reckon it’s the rule; but seems to me they might have told me that.’”

“Did I say that?” asked Wayne meekly.

“Every word. And I don’t mind acknowledging now that I was sorely tempted to knock your head against the wall.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t. Because if you had we wouldn’t have been chums. But I wonder why you didn’t kick and get another roommate?”

“That’s the funny part of it, Wayne. I suppose I must have liked you even then. By the way, do you remember how mad you got one day when Paddy told you that you spoke with a ‘refined negro dialect’?”

“Yes,” answered Wayne, “I remember. Well, I’m glad I’ve learned a little sense since then. I felt powerful mean and homesick the first few weeks I was here; and you and Paddy and Dave were awfully decent to me. It isn’t the thing that a fellow talks about, of course, and I hate to have any one get ‘sloppy,’ but, honest, Don, I won’t forget it, you know.”

“Oh, quit your joking!” cried Don, jumping up. “Let’s go over to Hampton and bother Dave.”

So they struggled into their sweaters and went. The sound of hammering and shouting aroused their curiosity, and they made a detour to the front of Academy Building to learn the meaning of the noise. A group of workmen were putting the finishing touches on the new flagstaff, and already it reared its length aloft on the edge of the bluff, the glistening gold ball at the top of the slender mast shining bright against the gray sky.

“Phew!” exclaimed Don. “She’s a tall old stick, isn’t she? Must be a good fifty feet, eh?”

“Worse than that,” answered Wayne. “I should say about sixty.”

“Maybe. I wonder if they’ll get a new flag. The old one’s pretty well worn out.”

“Say, Don,” Wayne suggested as they hurried on toward Hampton House with their ears tingling, “wouldn’t it be a grand joke to run a flag up there to-night ourselves? Think how surprised ‘Wheels’ would be in the morning!”

“By Jove! Great scheme. Come on; let’s tell Paddy and Dave.”

Those young gentlemen hailed the idea with glee, and called Wayne a public benefactor and many other flattering things. The fact was, life had been deadly dull of late, and the continued indoor existence was beginning to affect their spirits. The idea of having a flag raising of their own appeared illumined with brilliance, and the quartet at once began arrangements.

“But we haven’t a flag,” objected Dave.

“Let’s make one. It ought to be something more startling than the Stars and Stripes,” said Paddy. “I wish we had a class flag. I tell you, fellows, let’s run up a skull and crossbones!”

“Just the thing!” giggled Wayne. “Where’ll we get it?”

“Have to make it. Dave’s got some black paint stuff, and we’ll use a sheet or something.”

“Pillowcase would be better,” said Don. “Rip it open, you know.”

“Splendid! We’ll use Dave’s.”

“Use your own,” responded Dave. “If I supply the paint you’d ought to supply the pillowcase.”

“Well, all right, stingy. Get your paint stuff.”

Paddy’s pillow case was quickly produced and ripped at the seams, and the four boys squatted about it on the floor, while Don drew a skull--at least, he declared it was that--and a pair of very stout bones beneath it. Then Wayne, claiming the right by virtue of the origination of the idea, filled in the design with some extremely sticky varnish, and the flag was complete.

“That’s not black at all; it’s sort of brownish,” Wayne objected.

“Well, bones aren’t black, anyway,” said Don. “Besides, it shows up finely. Now how’ll we get it up there?”

Plans were discussed until supper time, and at length it was decided to go and have a look at the pole and the halyards on the way to the dining hall. This was done. The workmen had departed, the new ropes were flapping sharply against the pole, and the boys found everything ready for them. They didn’t linger there, for fear that they would be observed and connected with the affair the next day, but went on to supper, agreeing to meet in Hampton at nine o’clock.

At a few minutes past that hour four muffled and mysterious figures scuttled across the yard, keeping in the shelter of the laboratories and the gymnasium, and gathered about the flag pole. Detection was out of the question, for the night was as dark as the most desperate mission could demand. Above them the topmast creaked complainingly in the wind and the halyards beat a tattoo against the wood. Very quickly the new flag was attached, Paddy complaining _sotto voce_ because the varnish stuck to his hands, and Wayne laid hold of the other rope.

“Hats off!” commanded Don in a husky whisper.

Four cloth caps left as many heads bare to the cold wind, Dave whistled a lugubrious march beneath his breath, and Wayne ran the flag upward into the darkness and the teeth of the March tempest.

“Hold on,” whispered Paddy. “Pull it down again!”

“What’s the matter?” asked the others.

“Why, don’t you see, they can get it down! Shall we allow our flag to be lowered? Never! So let’s cut the rope that the pillowcase is on. Then they’ll have nothing to lower it with!”

The others studied the problem a moment in silence. Then, “Well that sounds reasonable,” muttered Wayne. “Let’s try it anyway.” So the flag came down, and Paddy cut the halyards a few inches beneath it. Then the skull and crossbones was again hoisted, this time with scant ceremony, the severed length of rope was stuffed under Paddy’s jacket, and the four conspirators parted with muffled laughter. Above them in the wind-swept space the ominous standard flapped in the darkness.