by the time the Mayor and various other
officials had entered their special reviewing stand hundreds of people
were massed in a semicircle about the field.

To one side of the entrance was a group of gay colored tents or marquees,
about which were crowded hundreds of tiny tots, all arrayed in the gaudy
carnival dress. Some were ladies of the French courts, some were garbed
in Colonial costumes and some were masquerading as bears or as wolves.
One group was wearing the wooden shoes and frocks of Holland, another
group was costumed as Russian peasants and still others were dressed to
represent German, Swedish, Danish and Irish folk. The Campfire Girls
were there, too, in a special little marquee by themselves, and to the
right of their location was the Quarry Troop, every lad in full uniform,
and looking very important.

"Corking crowd, eh, Bruce?" said Nipper Knapp, who stood watching the
bank of faces in the grandstand.

"You bet it is. Say, we'll have to do our finest. Not a hitch to-day,
fellows," said Bruce.

"Right-o," asserted half a dozen members of the troop enthusiastically.

Then every one became silent, for the director of the carnival had taken
the center of the field. A moment he stood there and surveyed his
performers, then he gave the signal for the music, and presently the
grand march was under way.

Hundreds of youngsters ranging from tiny tots who were to take part in a
Mother Goose scene, to the stalwart scouts themselves, formed in line and
paraded around the field, passing in front of the stands.

A very impressive scene representing the signing of the Declaration of
Independence was the first number on the program. In this, several
academy boys took the parts of John Hancock, John Adams and John
Dickinson, and the members of the First Congress.

Immediately following came the folk dances, in which scores of pretty
girls in costumes executed the national dances of the various foreign
countries. These little maids tripped lightly to the fantastic dance
music of the people of the old world for fully twenty minutes and as the
last group began the final steps of a pretty Scotch fantasy Bruce stood
up and mustered the scouts in line.

"We're next, fellows. Now do your finest. Are the tents ready and the
rest of the equipment in order? How's 'Old Nanc'?" he called.

But it was needless to ask the question, for the lads had been ready for
fully fifteen minutes.

"How about the flag?"