"Now then, are you all ready?" inquired a voice in a hoarse whisper. "Galloping grasshoppers! We're as ready as we ever will be, Jack Ranger!" replied one from a crowd of boys gathered on the campus of Washington Hall that evening in June. "Nat Anderson, if you speak again, above a whisper," said Jack Ranger, the leader, sternly, "you will have to play 'Marching Through Georgia' as a solo on a fine tooth comb seven times without stopping!"