The Bursley game was to be started at two o’clock. At half past ten that morning it became known that Terry Doyle, who had been missing from his usual haunts for ten days, had caught up with his studies and that the faculty had reinstated him. The tidings brought vast relief and satisfaction to Maple Hill. Without Terry Doyle defeat was possible; with him victory was assured. So argued the school. The twins heard the news over the hedge from Tad, who, having nothing better to do that morning, was trying to kill time by manufacturing a bow from a section of barrel stave.  
“I’m so glad!” exclaimed Matty, clapping her hands and smiling radiantly over the hedge.
 
“So glad,” echoed May, equally delighted of countenance.
 
 
“Now we’ll surely win, won’t we, Tad?” continued Matty.
 
Tad chose to be pessimistic. “Can’t say. Maybe. They’ve got a corking team over there at Bursley this year. You girls going?”
 
“Yes.” This from Matty. After a pause, “I suppose you’ll be with the cheerers, Tad,” she added.
 
Tad nodded. “Have to. Sorry. I’ll take you over, though, if you’ll be ready by one-thirty.”
 
“Will you? Then we’ll be ready, won’t we, May?”
 
“We’ll be ready,” agreed May with decision.
 
“Will Rod play to-day?” asked Matty, after a moment of silence spent in watching Tad’s manipulation of his knife. Tad looked cautiously at Rodney’s window. Then, lowering his voice:
 
“Not a chance,” he answered, “after what happened last Saturday. At least, that’s what all the fellows say. Poor old Rod made an awful mess of it, didn’t he?”
 
“I don’t think they ought to hold that against him,” said Matty stoutly. “Lots of other boys[273] have done things just as bad. Besides, he might—might redeem himself to-day if they’d let him play.”
 
“Suppose he might. Then again he mightn’t. As far as I’m concerned I wish they’d give him another show. Anyway, Cotting kept him on the squad, and that was pretty fair.”
 
“What are you going to do with that?” asked May, nodding at the implement Tad was concerned with.
 
“Shoot tigers,” replied the boy. “Saw a beauty last night near your summer-house. Must have been twelve feet long from tip to tip.”
 
“Twelve inches, you mean,” answered Matty scathingly. “That was the Thurston’s black and yellow cat. He comes over here to catch birds, the old rascal. We’ll be ready at half past one, Tad. Don’t forget.”
 
“All right. See you later.”
 
The twins’ faces disappeared from above the hedge and Tad, snapping his knife shut, went off in search of a cord.
 
Shortly after one o’clock Bursley came. As she had only to journey by train or carriage[274] down the river to Milon, a distance of something under two miles from the school, and then cross in the ferry to Greenridge, the trip was brief and inexpensive, and as a result practically the entire enrollment of Bursley School, over two hundred all told, invaded the stronghold of the enemy that morning. As the tiny ferryboat was unable to accommodate them all on one voyage, it landed its first contingent and then hurried back across the river, puffing and panting importantly, and brought the rest, the first hundred or so waiting at the landing and raiding the popcorn and peanut stands. Finally, when they had formed into a long procession two abreast to make more of a showing, they started off up the hill. Every boy was armed with a small red megaphone adorned with a blue B, and through it as he kept step, or tried to, for marching up the steep ascent of River Street is no light task, he proclaimed over and over:
 
“B, U, R, S, L, E, Y, Rah, rah, rah!
B, U, R, S, L, E, Y, Rah, rah, rah!”
Chanting their refrain and keeping time with aching legs, they stormed the hill. Greenridge,[275] from the sidewalks, looked on smilingly and occasionally waved a defiant Green-and-Gray banner in the face of the invader. At the head of the procession two cheer leaders held a six foot banner of red silk on which “Bursley” was blazoned in big blue letters. Long before they reached the Y at the top of the hill their deep, sonorous slogan had penetrated to the campus, and Maple Hill emptied itself from dormitory and boarding-house and assembled along the road. Bursley always turned into Academy Street and marched through the campus on her way to the field, and always, where the driveway separated in front of Main Hall, she paused and cheered her rival. And to-day she made no exception. Still chanting, although with failing voices, her “B, U, R, S, L, E, Y, Rah, rah, rah!” she followed the head cheer leader as, waving his yard-long megaphone, he swung through the big gate between rows of smilingly hostile faces. They were a good, sturdy looking lot of fellows, those Bursleyans, and Jack Billings said as much to Warren Hoyt as the two, having raced across from Westcott’s, watched them file past.
 
[276]
 
“Not so worse,” replied Warren in his rather affected manner. “Sort of lack class, though, it seems to me.”
 
Jack laughed. “You’re a beast of a snob, Warren,” he said; “or you want fellows to think you are. You know perfectly well that those chaps are every bit as good as we are. Now, don’t you?”
 
Warren raised his eyebrows languidly. “Er—theoretically,” he said.
 
“Theoretically! What the dickens do you mean by theoretically?” demanded Jack. “Come on. They’re getting ready to cheer.”
 
Over in front of Main Hall the procession had stopped and the cheer leaders were hurrying to positions along the line. Then:
 
“All ready, Bursley!” announced the chief marshal of the parade, his big megaphone high in air. “Regular cheer for Maple Hill! One! Two! Three!”
 
“Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah! Maple Hill!” shouted two hundred voices, and a responsive “A-a-ay!” swelled from the throats of the enemy. Then Borden, Fourth Form President and Crew Captain, sprang to[277] the steps and waved his arms and Maple Hill returned the compliment. More “A-a-ays!” from both contingents, and Bursley took up her march again, and, having in a measure recovered her breath, started once more her reiterative chorus as she went tramp, tramp, tramp along the gravel driveway and around the end of Main Hall on her way to the field. Maple Hill watched with grudging admiration. Bursley made a brave showing, there was no gainsaying that. There was a fine nonchalance in the way in which the veriest junior at the tag-end of the procession carried himself and a sturdy self-possession and equanimity in the faces of all. They were proud to be Burslians, and, incongruous as that might seem at first thought, Maple Hill on reflection felt a thrill of sympathy and understanding. Certainly those shouting Red-and-Blue partisans had made a frightful mistake in the choice of a school, but, having committed themselves, they were right to stand up for it, to be proud of it and to fight for it! Many Maple Hill hearts warmed toward the paraders as they disappeared from sight, still chanting their &l............