e amusing myself making one good firm snowball, against the
time my turn comes."

"Go at it, fellows! There, did you see me smack one just a foot below
the hole? Gee! that was a sure-enough dandy hit of yours, Bristles;
closer by six inches than mine. Everybody put your best licks in!"

The hard balls flew thick and furiously, for it happened that the rather
heavy fall of snow was just moist enough to be easily pressed into the
finest of missiles for boyish use.

Many of these swiftly thrown balls missed the tree-trunk entirely.
Others splattered here and there against the bark, leaving a tell-tale
white mark. A few came dangerously near the yawning opening; but not a
single one thus far had managed to disappear within the gap.

The boy who had been called Fred Fenton, having manipulated a single
snowball in his hands, stood there watching the onslaught, and
occasionally speaking words of encouragement to those who were taking
part in the spirited contest.

"That was a corker, Sid Wells, and it would have done the business if
you'd only put an ounce more of speed in your throw, so as to have raised
it three inches. Good boy, Brad, you left a mark just alongside the
hole, so some of it must have spattered in the hollow! Not quite so
fierce, Bristles; that one would have landed, if you'd been a little less
powerful in your throw!"

Presently some of the boys began to grow weary of the sport.

"What's the use of our trying to hit that mark so far away?" grumbled
Bristles; which expression of defeat was something strange to hear from
his lips, because the owner of the shock of heavy hair that stood
upright, and had gained him such a peculiar nick-name, was as a rule very
stubborn, and ready to stick to the very end.

"Let Fred show us how!" suggested Sid Wells, who was known as the
particular chum of the pitcher, he being the son of a retired professor,
now engaged in wonderful experiments which might some day astonish the
world.

The rest of the boys seemed ready to join in the chorus, and make way for
the ball flinger. They had watched this same Fred send his dazzling
shots over the plate with such wonderful speed and accuracy that he held
the strike-out record for the high school league.

"Remember I'm hardly in practice just now," Fred told them, laughingly;
"though Sid and myself have been putting over a few, just to warm up
these days when it feels as if Spring might be flirting with Winter. On
tha