The balls flew hot and heavy. Miss Keren had improvised a flag for the front of each fort, and the object of the fighters was to down the opposite flag first of all.
"Where did you learn to throw, Happie?" asked Robert, as Happie sent her snowballs true. "I don't wonder so much at Gretta, but you throw well for a city girl."
"Bob," replied Happie, too out of breath for details.
"I hate to hit 'em," murmured Ralph on the other side, sending a ball just past Happie's ear as she put up her head to do her own throwing.
"You let Happie catch on to your sparing her because she's a girl, and I pity you, Ralph," replied Bob. "She won't stand fooling. If she plays with us, she doesn't want favor. You found that out last summer."
"Well she's got to take 'em soft then," grumbled Ralph. It may have been that his chivalry weakened his strong right arm; for some reason Ralph did not fight with the zest of his adversaries and comrades. It was Gretta who came up and held her place while snowballs whizzed around her, and sent a big, icy ball that carried off the flag and snapped the flagstaff on the fort of her foes.
A cheer and the Harvard yell from Robert was answered by a defiant howl and the "yell of the Ark," which these same young people had compiled during the summer:
"Hark, hark! keep it dark.
Keren-happuchs in the Ark.
Weather-tight, we're all right.
Gretta, Gretta, glad we met her,
Zintz, blintz, Bittenbender!"
"Flag's down! Now for the sortie, girls!" cried Robert, his face flushed with his enthusiastic efforts to carry the opposing fort.
It had been agreed that if either flag fell the combatants from the other fort were to be allowed to rush out and try to carry the adversaries' fort by assault. Robert tore out of his fort, followed closely by Happie and Gretta. The foe was ready to receive them. A storm of snowballs fell on them, but like a well-disciplined legion the three attacking warriors wavered, but did not halt. Two of them—the amazonian wing of the army—bent down and came on somewhat like jackknives, doubled over, but came on, nevertheless, presenting their backs to the foe in a sense that was not cowardice.