"You did just right in knocking them down!" was the cry, and so hostile were the looks, actions and words of the crowd, that Zeke and Lem on scrambling to their feet, did not renew the fight. They shook their fists at Dick and Tom, however, and muttered threats, as they moved away through the crowd declaring that they would get even with Dick and Tom. The patriot youths received the congratulations and commendations of the people in their vicinity with becoming modesty, and a little later moved on up the street. They walked about for an hour or more, after that, and then took up their station as near the old State House as they could. There was such an immense crowd there that it was impossible to get within half a block of the building. In the steeple of the State House was a bell, and the old bell-ringer sat beside it, waiting for the moment when his son, stationed below, should give him word that the Declaration had been adopted, when he would ring the bell. He had been stationed there since morning, waiting, waiting, and as the day wore away and still the word to ring came not, he shook his head and muttered that they would never reach a favorable conclusion. But he was mistaken, for when evening was almost at hand, his son came rushing out of the State House and called up eagerly and excitedly: "They've done it, father! They've adopted and signed the Declaration of Independence! Ring the bell! Ring it, father! Ring the bell! Ring it--quick!" With a glad cry, the old man leaped up, forgetting his rheumatism in his excitement and delight, and seizing the great iron clapper, swung it back and forth against the sides of the great brass bell, thus causing it to do what by a strange coincidence the inscription on its side said it was to do, viz.: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." Chapter II Waylaid on the Road As the deep tones of the old bell died away on the evening air a great shout of delight went up from the people on the streets. They leaped and danced for joy. They tossed their hats in the air. They shouted and sang. Many wept for joy. It was an exciting, a thrilling manifestation. Dick and Tom Dare were not a whit behind any in their expressions of delight. They shouted for joy, and then in the excess of their happiness they threw their arms around each other in a bearlike hug. "Oh, Dick, I'm so glad!" cried Tom. "I never was so happy in my life." "Nor I, Tom. This is the most joyous hour of my life! How delighted father will be when we go home and tell him that it is settled, that the Declaration of Independence is a real and determined fact!" "It will please him more than anything else in the world, Dick." "Yes, yes indeed." Then lifting up his voice the patriot youth cried out loudly, his voice ringing clear as the notes of a bugle: "Down with the king! Long live Liberty! Long live Washington!"