"Come on up to the other end of the barn," suggested Gif. "Then the snowballs will fly right out into the open field and do no harm."
"Well, I don't care where you throw 'em as long as you don't get into mischief," answered Bob Nixon, and disappeared into the barn.
After that the cadets continued to throw over the structure for some time. But then they gradually lost interest, and as the short winter day was coming rapidly to an end some hurried into the Hall to do a little extra school work before the bell should ring for supper.
"Well, what next?" questioned Fred Rover, when he and his three cousins and Gif, Phil and Spouter found themselves left alone.
"I've got a great scheme for to-night if you fellows will help," announced Randy. He and his twin brother were always ready for a joke.
"This snow is just soft enough for rolling some big balls, as we found out this afternoon," answered his cousin. "What's the matter with making a whole lot of big snowballs and placing 'em in some of the bedrooms to-night?"
"Gee, that's the talk!" cried his twin merrily. "I'd like to place a couple in Codfish's room."
"He certainly deserves 'em," added Fred. "He's getting to be just as big a sneak as he ever was. All of our kindness to him seems to have been useless."
"And I thought he was going to turn over a new leaf," declared Jack. "I wonder if some of the other fellows haven't been teasing him and that has made him go back to his old tricks."
"I know one person I'd like to treat to some big snowballs!" broke out Fred. "That's Professor Duke."
"Oh, say! I'd like to square up with him myself," burst out Andy. "Gee! he certainly did have it in for us yesterday."
"Professor Duke is certainly a sour one--much worse than Asa Lemm ever dared to be," came from Gif.
"I was thinking of Duke when I mentioned it," said Randy. "You know he has his room in our building instead of with the other professors in Colonel Colby's residence."
"We don't want to get in bad with the colonel," remarked Fred seriously.
"Oh, I think we can fix it so that nobody will know who did it," returned his cousin.
The matter was talked over for several minutes, and then, having agreed on their plan for more fun, the Rover boys and their chums set to work rolling a number of snowballs which were two feet or more in diameter. These they placed close to the school building at a point where there was a series of fire-escapes leading down from the upper halls of the institution.
