that now
numbered a score of youngsters.

"Don't you dare talk against my dad!" sputtered Bunny, doubling his
fists and trying to look fierce.

"Then don't say anything against soldiers," retorted Jud indignantly.
"My father was one. I tell you, soldiers are the salt of the earth."

"Say, but they're a fine and dandy-looking lot, anyway," spoke up Tom
Andrews, as he turned toward the post-office window in front of which
the principal actors in this scene were standing. The place was one of
the smaller cities in New Jersey.

In the post-office window hung a many-colored poster, headed "Recruits
Wanted for the United States Army." Soldiers of the various arms of the
service were shown, and in all the types of uniforms worn on the
different occasions.

"Oh, yes, they're a fine and dandy lot of loafers--them soldiers!"
declared Bunny Hepburn contemptuously.

This opinion might not have gotten him into trouble, but he emphasized
his opinion by spitting straight at the glass over the center of the
picture.

"You coward!" choked Jud.

Biff!

Jud Jeffer's fist shot out, with all the force there is in
fourteen-year-old muscle. The fist caught Bunny Hepburn on the side of
the face and sent him sprawling.

"Good for you, Jud!" roared several of the young boys together.

"Go for him, Jud! He's mad, and wants it," called Tom Andrews.

Bunny was mad, all the way through, even before he leaped to his feet.
Yet Bunny was not especially fond of fighting, and his anger was
tempered with caution.

"You dassent do that again," he taunted, dancing about before Jud.

"I will, if you give me the same cause," replied Jud.

Bunny deliberately repeated his offensive act. Then he dodged, but not
fast enough. Jud Jeffer's, his eyes ablaze with righteous indignation,
sent the troublesome one to earth again.

This time Bunny got up really full of fight.

From the opposite side of the street two fine-looking young men of about
eighteen had seen much of what had passed.

"Let's go over and separate them, Hal," proposed the quieter looking of
the pair.

"If you like, Noll, though that young Hepburn rascal deserves about all
that he seems likely to get."

"Jud Jeffers is too decent a young fellow to be allowed to soil his
hands on the Hepburn kid," objected Oliver Terry quietly.

So he and Hal Overton hastened across the street.

Bunny Hepburn was now showing a faint daub of crimson at the lower end
of his nose. Bunny was