“Remember the prize!” shouted Andy Rover to the cadets who were stringing themselves out in a ragged line. “The first fellow to throw a snowball over the top of the barn gets a sock doughnut.”
“For gracious sake! what do you call a sock doughnut?” demanded Phil Franklin, another cadet, as he paused in the act of rounding up a snowball he was making.
“A sock doughnut is one with a big hole in it,” answered Andy, with a grin.
“Then my socks must be all of the doughnut variety,” put in one of the cadets dolefully. “They are always full of holes.”
“Never mind the socks now!” cried Randy Rover. “Let’s see who can put the first snowball over the barn.”
It was late in the afternoon of a day in January and a number of the cadets of Colby Hall had been amusing themselves in the snow which covered the ground to a depth of nearly a foot. They had started in to snowballing each other, but had then grown more serious and had built several snow forts and likewise two or three snowmen which later they had taken great sport in knocking apart. Then some one had suggested that they try their skill at seeing who could throw, the highest and farthest, and this had led to the present contest.
“We’ll mark off a line about a hundred feet from the main barn,” Jack Rover had announced. “And then we’ll see who can throw highest over the roof.”
The four Rovers were accompanied by half a dozen of their chums and six or eight others, and at the word from Jack the snowballs began to fly at a lively rate, a few landing on the roof of the big barn and the majority hitting the side.
“Say, look out that you don’t break a window,” warned Gif Garrison. “If you do, you’ll have an account to settle with Captain Dale.”
“Here she goes!” yelled Dan Soppinger, and let fly with so much strength that the snowball sailed up to the very ridgepole of the barn and disappeared on the other side.