"They are not soakers, Stanley," was the reply. "They are only good and hard, that's all."
"Hi, you fellows! When are you going to start things?" came a cry from behind a snow wall up the slope of a hill. "We can't waste the whole afternoon waiting for you."
"We're coming, don't fear," answered Stanley Browne.
"And when we arrive you won't know what's struck you," announced Sam Rover gaily.
"It's all vell enough to brag, but you'd chust better start dot fight," came in German-American accents from behind the snow wall, and a merry face appeared in sight for an instant and a fist was shaken playfully at those beyond.
"Sound that bugle, Paul!" yelled the leader of the attacking party, and an instant later the mellow notes of a bugle floated out on the crisp, wintry air.
It was the signal for the attack, and with merry shouts the students at the foot of the hill charged upward through the snow toward the wall above.
The occasion was the annual snowball fight at Brill College. Snow fights there were, of course, without number, but each year there was one big contest in which the freshmen and sophomores attempted to hold a snow fort located on the hill back of the institution against the attacks of the juniors and seniors. According to the rules, three charges were allowable, all of which must be made inside of two hours, and if all of these failed to take the fort, then the victory went to the defenders, and they were permitted to crow over their success until the following winter.
A little over an hour and a half had been spent in the sport and two attacks had been made and repulsed, much to the chagrin of Stanley Browne, the senior in charge of the attacking army. Juniors and seniors had fought nobly, but the freshmen and sophomores outnumbered them, and, being strongly intrenched behind the snow wall of the so-called fort, had succeeded in forcing a first, and then a second, retreat.
"Say, fellows, we've got to do it this time, sure!" cried Sam Rover, as, side by side with Stanley, he led the attack. "If we don't oust them they'll never get done talking about it."