But Mr. Watson was in a state of speechless wrath. The heat of the summer sun combined with the internal burning of his indignation would have produced apoplexy in a less cadaverous person. Some minutes passed before he could quite explain the situation. When at length he could tell it, it appeared that he had collected his flock at the school in proper order and supplied them all with full instructions. Then he delivered a flag to each boy and a maple branch to each girl, to be waved as they entered the woods singing. Mr. Watson had an eye for the artistic, and had at first decreed that each flag should march beside a maple bough; but the proposition was received with such hysterical squeals and giggles from beneath the Canadian emblems and such dark looks of terrible rebellion from the red banners that the schoolmaster was compelled to change the order of their going. So the boys led the procession, going two and two, with the girls tripping demurely behind, as was compatible with the masculine idea of the fitness of things. The procession marched along quietly enough. Only one digression occurred, when Neil Neil and Patsy Regan halted long enough to hold a muscular dispute as to who should lead the van, a contest in which both the Flag that Braved a Thousand Years and the Maple Leaf Forever were trampled in the dust of the highway. The matter was settled by their teacher setting the two belligerents, with sundry cuffs and jerks, to march side by side, which they did in perfect peace until they reached the grove. And then it occurred--the great disaster! Just how it was managed, or whether it was impromptu or with malice aforethought, the schoolmaster did not know. But just as they entered the leafy path and he was clearing his throat to give the keynote of "Upon the Heights of Queenston," without warning or disturbance, the flags of their country were flung to the ground and the disloyal young Britons were scurrying off through the woods in twenty different directions, leaping over fallen logs, crashing through underbrush and whooping like a pack of wild Indians. The crucial moment had proved too much for schoolboy modesty. Mr. Watson glared around to find himself left with only a handful of embarrassed and giggling girls. Just one boy remained, little Tommy Basketful, who was too small to run away and who held to his sister's hand. There was no use trying to have the procession now; the master dismissed the girls in a choking voice and went raging through the woods to find Mr. Egerton, his progress and his wrath accelerated by snatches of the interrupted song coming in high falsetto voice or deep bass growl, from tree-top or hollow stump.