"Whoop-ee!" cried Reddy, and was off like a bullet from a gun. Soon he was back with the coveted paper, still damp from the press. Across the top in screaming headlines was the phrase: _President Declares War on Germany!_ "That settles it," said Frank. "We're in for it, now." "Up to the neck," put in Reddy, whose small frame held an unlimited amount of patriotism. "Gee, I wish I was old enough to get in it. I wouldn't wait for no draft!" "And now that we're in, we're in for keeps. That's America's way," said Bart. "She's put her hand to the plow and she won't turn back," said old Peterson, solemnly, and into his dim eyes came the light that had shone there when, in his youth, he had stormed with his regiment the heights of Lookout Mountain. There was little more work done in the office that day. Business, for the time, seemed a trivial thing. Something far greater and nobler filled the hearts of these ardent young Americans. They heard the tramp of marching multitudes, they saw their country's flag unfurled, those glorious Stars and Stripes, that had never been smirched with dishonor, or gone down in defeat. And in their hearts they swore that what had been true in the past should be true, too, in the future, though they might shed their blood and lose their lives in making it true. A great mass meeting was organized that night and Bart and Frank attended it. The hall was thronged, and eloquent speakers voiced the feeling that filled the hearts of all. But nothing stirred them so strongly as when the final orator closed his speech with a scathing denunciation of the Prussian foe, quoted from one of America's noblest sons: "They have gone forth to battle in the spirit of their ancestral Huns. Wreckers of cathedrals, destroyers of libraries, despoilers of cemeteries, slayers of old men and women and children, barbarians by instinct, pirates and incendiaries by practice, terrorists by training, slaves by habit and bullies by profession--maiming, poisoning, burning, suffocating, deporting, enslaving, murderers of the very souls of a people so far as it is in their power--the rest of the world can live on terms of peace and good will with them only after they have drained to the dregs the bitter cup of military defeat!" Thunders of applause swept through the hall as the speaker finished. "Say, but that was a rattling speech," remarked Bart, as the two chums walked home together. "Yes," agreed Frank, "it was magnificent. But after all, Bart, it will take more than words to win this war. It's up to us to turn those words into deeds. It's bullets and bayonets that count!" CHAPTER VII FOR LOVE OF COUNTRY Although it was nearly midnight when he reached home, Frank found his mother sitting up and waiting for him. "You shouldn't have sat up for me, Mother," he said, in tones of tender reproach. "It's too bad that you should be robbed of your sleep like this."