The Rover Boys on a Tour

"Now then, boys, are you ready?" "I am!" "Been ready for the last five minutes!" "Sure you've got all the snowballs you can carry?" "I couldn't carry any more if I tried," came from Sam Rover, with a grin. "Just see how I am loaded up," and he glanced down at both hands, which were filled with snowballs, and at the snowballs held under either arm. "I've got some dandy hard ones," put in Spud Jackson. "Oh, you can't use soakers, Spud!" cried Stanley Browne, who was the leader of the snowballing contingent. "That's against the rules." "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.