The party got back to school just before the retiring bell rang, and escaped a scolding only because the rules were relaxed for the holidays. In the cold, chilly dawn, half a dozen of the boys of Dormitory Two were awakened by the bigger fellows. Bobby and Fred were among them.
"Aw, crickey!" gaped Fred, burrowing in the pillow. "I don't want to get up now."
Bobby was out of bed in a moment. "Come along! It's going to be fun, Fred," he said.
Fred was lazy. He burrowed deeper. In about thirty seconds a large, juicy snowball, scooped off the window sill by Max Bender, was thrown into the back of Fred Martin's neck.
"Yee-ow!" yelled the startled Ginger, and rose up to fight back. The big boy ran, however, chuckling, and all Fred could do was to dress, grumblingly.
"All these big fellows are fresh," he confided to Bobby.
"I wonder what we'll be when we are as big as they are, and boss the school?" returned his more thoughtful chum.
That feazed Fred a little. By and by—as he finished his dressing—he admitted:
"Well, Bobby, I'd never thought of that!"
The guard thus called to duty by Captain Gray gathered, shivering, in the kitchen. Good natured Mary had risen an hour earlier than usual and made a big can of coffee, and there were sandwiches and doughnuts.