Once more they swarmed to the attack, and with very good effect, delivering such a rattling volley of balls, that the defenders were thrown into confusion, and could not send back an answering fire quickly enough.
“Swarm the walls! Swarm the walls!” yelled Joe.
He and his lads scrambled up, their pockets filled with balls. Down upon the hapless foe they threw them, and in another moment the fort would have been theirs.
“Repel boarders! Repel boarders!” sang out Hiram. “Come on, fellows, give ’em an extra dose!”
Joe saw the bully, and Luke, his crony, rush to a corner of the fort and take something from a wooden box. The next instant several lads uttered cries of real pain, as they felt the missiles of almost solid ice hit them. Joe understood at once.
“The mean, sneaking coward!” he cried. In his hand he held a large snowball. It was hard packed, but did not equal the ice balls in any particular. Yet it was effective.
Joe saw the chance he wanted. Hiram had drawn back his hand to throw one of the missiles he and Luke had secretly made, when, with a suddenness that was startling, Joe threw his large snowball full in the bully’s face.
Hiram caught his breath. The ball he had intended throwing fell from his hand. He staggered back, his face a mass of snow. Then he recovered himself, cleared his eyes of the flakes and, with a yell of rage sprang forward.
“I saw you throw that, Joe Matson!” he cried. “You had no right to pitch it with all your might at such close range.”