"Hold fast! Hold fast, everybody!" cried Tom, for the joy of battle was upon him and his heart exulted in the struggle that was going on about him, in the pressure of bodies against his, the labored breathing, the panting, the fierce grips that were broken only to be made anew. The sophomores now began other tactics. Several of them would grab a freshman in the outer circle. They would pluck him from the restraining grasp of his companions, and then, when a hole was thus made, other sophomores would bore their way in to repeat the process. So quickly was this done and so strong was the peculiar attack that, almost before the freshmen knew it, Gladdus and Fenmore, two of the most aggressive attackers, had reached the circle that was about the pole. The two boldly grabbed at Tom, at the same time calling out: "Sophs this way! Sophs this way! Here's meat for us!" Tom suddenly felt himself being pulled away from the pole. The grips of Phil Clinton on one side and Sid Henderson on the other were slipping from his arms. "Hold fast! Don't let them take you!" cried Phil. "I won't!" gasped Tom. He thought of a trick he had acquired in wrestling. Quickly arching his back like a bow, he suddenly straightened it with a snap, and the holds of Gladdus and Fenmore were broken. They were hurled back and then other freshmen took them up bodily, thrusting them beyond the outer line of defense. Then the whole body of sophomores quickly threw themselves against the freshmen, as if to force them away from the pole by weight of numbers. They nearly succeeded, and Tom and his fellow defenders of the flag staff thought their arms would be pulled out of the sockets. But, as if it was a second down in a fierce football game, the freshmen held their opponents and thrust the wave of sophomores back. So it went on, the attack becoming fiercer until, when the timekeepers announced that there were but two more minutes left in which to hold or gain the pole, the second-year men seemed fairly to overwhelm the others. "Tear 'em up! tear 'em up!" pleaded Gladdus. "Hold, boys, hold!" begged Langridge. And hold they did, for when time was called the defenders were found with their arms still locked about the flag staff. "We win, fellows!" yelled Tom, capering about, with his hands grasping those of Sid and Phil. Then followed an impromptu war dance, while the vanquished sophomores filed away in the darkness, the exultant freshmen sending cheer after cheer out on the air. "Here's where we wear ribbons on our hats!" cried Ford Fenton. "Now, I'd like to see any soph make me take it off." He pulled from his pocket a band and fixed it to a new hat he had bought to replace the slashed one.