"I tell you he is just a fresh kid," said Tommy Tucker. "And I'm going to fix him."
"Now, boys, be careful what you do," advised Louise, who occasionally considered it her duty to put on a sober, admonishing air.
Tommy, however, started for the nearest exit to the platform of the car. He was gone some time, and when he reappeared he carried in both hands a great soggy snowball, bigger than the biggest grapefruit.
"Gee, folks!" he whispered, "it's snowing, and then some! I never saw such a snow. And the porter says it is likely to get worse the farther north we go. Suppose we should be snowbound?"
There was a chorus of cries--of fearful delight on the part of the girls, at least--at this announcement.
"Never mind," Bob Henderson said, "we have a dining car hitched to this train, so we sha'n't starve I guess, if we are snowed up. What are you going to do with that snow, Tommy?"
The Tucker twin winked prodigiously. "I'm going to take it up the aisle and show it to Mr. Gordon. He doesn't know it's snowing like this," said the boy quite soberly.
"Why, Tommy Tucker!" cried Betty, "of course Uncle Dick knows it is snowing. Can't he see it through the window?"
But when she looked herself at the window beside her she was amazed to see that the pane was masked with wet snow and one could scarcely see through it at all. Besides, evening was falling fast.
"I do hope," Teddy remarked, watching his brother start up the aisle, "he tumbles in the right place."
"What is he going to do with that snowball?" demanded Louise.
"I know! I know!" giggled Bobby, in sudden delight. "That man with the silk hander chief over his head is going to get a shower."
"He isn't a man. He's just a fresh kid," declared Ted, but he said it somewhat anxiously now.
"Stop him, somebody!" cried Louise. "He'll get into trouble."
"If you ask me," drawled Bob Henderson, "I think that somebody else is going to get into trouble. I saw that chap stick his foot out and trip Ted before."
"He did it unknowingly," cried Betty, under her breath. "He's asleep."
"If he is he won't be long," whispered Bobby, clutching at Betty and holding her into the seat. "Let Tommy Tucker be. If that fellow trips him----"
The next instant Tommy did trip. Without any doubt the well shod foot of the man lolling in the seat slid into the aisle as the boy with the snowfall approached, and Tommy pitched over it with almost a certainty of falling headlong. Indeed, he would have gone to the floor of the car had he not let go of the mass of snow in his hands and clutched at the seat arms.
