"That drum." And in answer to the warning rub-a-dub, Cadet Kindred touched his cap to the ladies and crossed the green strip in front of the colour line. "Oh, dear!" sighed Miss Kent, a pretty blonde in her first West Point season, and who had taken the whole yearling class as near to her heart as is usual on such occasions; "I shall just cry, I know I shall, when that camp goes down! Think, girls, there won't be any place to go to spend the day!" "The seats under the trees," suggested Miss Beguile. "Oh, yes, you can sit there as long as you please," said Minna Kent, "but _they_ can't come and sit with you. Some old dowager always pokes along and turns them out." "And if the men look at you in ranks, you're none the wiser," said Miss Saucy. "Do you know, I just _made_ Clinch look at me the other night as he came round Towser. He was acting-adjutant. It's the meanest thing to break camp before cold weather. There it goes!--our camp!" But it was the same old story, after all. Always crushed sugar plums under foot and withered flowers; the air filled with heart-beats that nobody heard, and glances that no one saw. The cadets get rid of their plumes and trappings; the girls hold fast to all they have; and away they all go, for walks, talks, and flirtations. Two girls to a cadet, three cadets to a girl, or two very special chums together. Among the solitary stragglers was Charlemagne Kindred. He waited till every girl was out of sight, dodged or shook off his loitering comrades, and then, with steady step went straight across the plain and took stand beneath the waving folds of his old love, the flag. Two whole years--two years and three months almost--since the first day when he stood in that circling shadow and took his vow of brave allegiance. Leaning back now against the white pole, he tried to scan the two years' record. In the main, he had kept his vow; love had never faltered, nor fealty. But he knew now, far better than he knew then, that for this love as for the other he must _live_, as well as be ready to die. The honour of the Stars and Stripes was at stake, wherever an American fought out his personal life-fight with evil. On harder fields sometimes than Chapultepec, and with no earthly glory for reward. No name on a tall column, no tablet in chapel or hall. Unknown, perhaps, while the fight lasted: no notice taken, until the Great Captain shall speak the "Well done," when he comes to survey the field. Looking up at the red, white, and blue, Magnus said to himself that devotion, purity, and truth were the real defenders of the country; winning victories far beyond what powder and shot could ever gain; keeping the flag not only flying, but unstained. "Winning victories"--he repeated to himself, looking up again at the lovely waving folds of the flag: "positive, as well as negative." Bible words are very positive. "He that is not with me is against me," said the Lord Jesus. "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth."