“Keep it going, boys!” he shouted to his three chums, as he scooped up more of the soft snow and started making fresh balls; “hit hard all along the line! We’ve got ’em wavering! Another rush, and the game is ours! Send in your best licks, and make every shot count!”
All of them were attacking Andy now. They realized that if he could be put to flight there must follow a complete collapse of his line; because these fellows were only held there by the fact that they feared Andy’s anger if they deserted him.
Andy had managed to make one last hard ball. He had even in desperation, as was afterward proven, snatched up a stone and hid it in the middle of the snowball he pressed between his half-frozen hands. This is reckoned a mean trick among most boys and frowned upon as much as hitting below the belt would be in a prize fight.
Frank saw that he had been selected as the victim of the bully. He managed to dodge in the nick of time, and the weighted missile, sailing across the street, smashed through the window of a house.
With the jingling of broken glass Andy Lasher gave a shout, and then with jeers of derision he and his followers vanished from sight, leaving the four outdoor chums to bear the brunt of the householder’s anger.
“Gee whiz! Look who’s coming out of the house on the rampage, will you!” cried Bluff Masters, as the front door was flung open and an excited man hurried down the steps toward the spot where the four chums stood breathing hard after their recent exertions.
“It’s old Isaac Chase, the meanest man in Centerville!” exclaimed Jerry, in dismay.
“But we didn’t break his old window, you know,” expostulated Will Milton. “Here are lots of witnesses to prove it came from the other side.”
“Little he’ll care about that,” Bluff told him. “He must have seen us in the fight, and that settles it. Frank, you talk with him. I’d be apt to get sassy if he scolded too hard.”
So it usually came about. Upon Frank’s shoulders was laid the burden of extricating them from numerous mishaps. But Frank rather liked being made the scapegoat; he certainly faced the angry old miser of Centerville without showing a sign of alarm.
“Now you’ve gone and done it, you young rapscallions!” cried Isaac Chase, so excited that he could hardly control his trembling voice. “I don’t know what this town is coming to, when a pack of boys are allowed to fight battles right on the public streets, and with stones in their snowballs at that!”