the larger boy, but Jud by far the braver.

"Here, better stop all of this," broke in Hal good-naturedly, reaching
out and grabbing angry Bunny by the coat collar.

Noll rested a rather friendly though detaining hand on Jud Jeffers's
shoulder.

"Lemme at him!" roared Bunny.

"Yes! Let 'em finish it!" urged three or four of the younger boys.

"What's it all about, anyway?" demanded Hal Overton.

"That fellow insulted his country's uniform. It's as bad as insulting
the Flag itself!" contended Jud hotly.

"That's right," nodded Hal Overton grimly. "I think I saw the whole
thing. You're right to be mad about it, Jud, but this young what-is-it
is too mean for you to soil your hands on him. Now, see here,
Hepburn--right about face for you!"

Hal's grip on the boy's coat collar tightened as he swung Bunny about
and headed him down the street.

"Forward, quick time, march! And don't stop, either, Hepburn, unless you
want to hear Jud pattering down the street after you."

Hal's first shove sent Bunny darting along for a few feet. Bunny
discreetly went down the street several yards before he halted and
lurched into a doorway, from which he peered out with a still hostile
look on his face.

"Your view of the uniform, and of the old Flag, is all right, Jud, and
I'm mighty glad to find that you have such views," Hal continued. "But
you mustn't be too severe on a fellow like Bunny Hepburn. He simply
can't rise above his surroundings, and you know what a miserable,
egotistical, lying, slanderous fellow his father is. Bunny's father
hates the country he lives in, and would set everybody to tearing down
the government. That's the kind of a brainless anarchist Hepburn is, and
you can't expect his dull-witted son to know any more than the father
does. But you keep on, Jud, always respecting the soldier and his
uniform, and the Flag that both stand behind."

"It gets on a good many of us," spoke up Tom Andrews, "to hear Bunny
always running down the soldiers. He believes all his father says, so he
keeps telling us that we're a nation of crooks and thieves, that the
government is the rottenest ever, and that our soldiers and sailors are
the biggest loafers of the whole American lot."

"It's enough to disgust anybody," spoke up Oliver Terry quietly. "But,
boys, people who talk the way the Hepburns do are never worth fighting
with. And, unless they're stung hard, they won't fight, anyway."

"Oh, won't they?" growled Bunny, wh