"Now, that's an idea. Of course we'll help. Great Scott! What a crazy crowd, and what do you reckon they're going to do?" It was no wonder that Bob Cole asked this question. While he and his companions were talking they walked through the archway into the hall, which was filled with pale, determined-looking students, who were quietly making their way up the wide stairs toward the armory. "What's up?" repeated Cole. "We're going after our muskets," replied one. "Fall in." "Not the whole school?" Billings managed to gasp, while Marcy Gray stood speechless, wondering at the magnitude of the rebellion which had been brought about by the colonel's refusal to send a squad to Rodney's assistance and Dick's, and by the stirring appeals to which they had listened from Dixon, as well as from the lips of the boy who had received those hasty instructions at the guard-tent. "Talk about rebels! Why, this is a riot," said Cole. "It looks very like it," replied Dixon, who stood at the foot of the stairs urging every boy to fall in. "They're all going except the company officers, who have taken themselves off out of sight, so that they cannot be called upon to oppose us. Where's Caleb?" "I made sure of him by saying that I would raise some money for him," replied Marcy. "If we were only outside the gate we should be all right." "We'll get out easy as falling off a log," said Dixon. "If you had glanced toward the gate when you came in, you would have seen four good fellows there talking with the sentry. It will be their business to disarm him, if he shows fight when we attempt to march out, as it is his duty to do; and if the officer of the guard tries to turn the key upon us, those four fellows will quietly take the gate from its hinges and tumble it over into the road. It's all cut and dried, and if the boys keep as still as they are now, we'll be out before the colonel knows what we are up to. Oh, I haven't been idle since the commandant ordered me from the guard-tent." There was no need that Dixon should say this, for the actions of the students proved that he had done a good deal of talking since he was ordered out of the tent. Although they were pushing and crowding one another in their haste to get into the armory and out of it again before some busybody (there are boys of that sort in every school) could run to the colonel and apprise him of what was going on, there was not the least noise or confusion, not a word spoken above a whisper, and if there had been any studious scholars in the dormitories, they would not have been in the least disturbed. In five minutes more the armory was thronged with students, who having taken their muskets from the racks, were buckling on their cartridge-boxes. The weight of the boxes dispelled the fear that the colonel might have had the ball cartridges that were put in them the night before removed. Why he hadn't done it, seeing that he had promised to remain neutral in future, was a mystery.