It might seem easy to hit the head of a barrel at that distance, but either the lads were not expert enough or else the snowballs, being of irregular shapes and rather light, did not carry well. Whatever the cause, the fact remained that the barrel received only a few scattering shots and these on the outer edges of the head.

“Now we’ll see what Sister Davis can do!” exclaimed Nat Pierson, as Joe’s chum stepped up to the firing line.

“Oh, I’m not so much,” answered Tom with a half smile. “Joe will beat me all to pieces.”

“Joe Matson sure can throw,” commented Teeter, in a low voice to George Bland. “I remember what straight aim he had the last time we built a fort, and had a snow fight.”

“I should say yes,” agreed George. “And talk about speed!” he added. “Wow! One ball he threw soaked me in the ear. I can feel it yet!” and he rubbed the side of his head reflectively.

The first ball that Tom threw just clipped the upper rim of the barrel head, and there were some exclamations of admiration. The second one was a clean miss, but not by a large margin. The third missile split into fragments on the rim of the head.

“Good!” cried Peaches. “That’s the way to do it!”

“Wait until you see Joe plug it,” retorted Tom with a smile.

“Oh, I’m not such a wonder,” remarked our hero modestly, as he advanced to the line. In his hand he held three very hard and smooth snowballs, which he spent some time in making in anticipation of his turn to throw. “I haven’t had much practice lately,” he went on, “though I used to throw pretty straight when the baseball season was on.”

Joe carefully measured with his eye the distance to the barrel. Then he swung his arm around a few times to “limber up.”

“That fellow used to pitch on some nine, I’ll wager,” said Teeter in a whisper to Peaches.

“Yes, I heard something about him being a star on some small country team,” was the retort. “But let’s watch him.”

Joe threw. The ball left his hand with tremendous speed and, an instant later, had struck the head of the barrel with a resounding “ping!”

“In the centre! In the centre!” yelled Peaches with enthusiasm as he capered about.

“A mighty good shot!” complimented Teeter, doing his particular toe stunt.

“Not exactly in the centre,” admitted Joe. “Here goes for another.”

Once more he threw, and again the snowball hit the barrel head, close to the first, but not quite so near the middle.

“You can do better than that, Joe,” spoke Tom in a low voice.

“I’m going to try,” was all the thrower said.

Again his arm was swung around with the peculiar motion used by many good baseball pitchers. Again the snowball shot forward, whizzing through the air. Again came that resounding thud on the hollow barrel, this time louder than before.

“Right on the nose!”

“A clean middle shot!”

“A good plunk!”

These cries greeted Joe’s last effort, and, sure enough, when several lads ran to get a closer view of the barrel, they came back to report that the ball was exactly in the centre of the head.

“Say, you’re a wonder!” exclaimed Peaches, admiringly.

“Who’s a wonder?” inquired a new voice, and a tall heavily-built lad, with rather a coarse and brutal face, sauntered up to the group. “Who’s been doing wonderful stunts, Peaches?”

“Joe Matson here. He hit the barrel head three times out of three, and the best any of us could do was once. Besides, Joe poked it in the exact centre once, and nearly twice.”

“That’s easy,” spoke the newcomer, with a sneer in his voice.

“Let’s see you do it, Shell,” invited George Bland.

“Go on, Hiram, show ’em what you can do,” urged Luke Fodick, who was a sort of toady to Hiram Shell, the school bully, if ever there was one.

“Just watch me,” requested Hiram, and hastily taking some hard round snowballs away from a smaller lad who had made them for his own use, the bully threw.

I must do him the credit to say that he was a good shot, and all three of his missiles hit the barrel head. But two of them clipped the outer edge, and only one was completely on, and that nowhere near the centre.

“Joe Matson’s got you beat a mile!” exclaimed Peaches.

“That’s all right,” answered Hiram with the easy superior air he generally assumed. “If I’d been practicing all day as you fellows have I could poke the centre every time, too.”

As a matter of fact, those three balls were the first Joe had thrown that day, but he did not think it wise to say so, for Hiram had mean ways about him, and none of the pupils at Excelsior Hall cared to rouse his anger unnecessarily.

“Well, I guess we’ve all had our turns,” spoke George Bland, after Hiram had thrown a few more balls so carelessly as to miss the barrel entirely.

“I haven’t,” piped up Tommy Burton, one of the youngest lads. “Hiram took my snowballs.”

“Aw, what of it, kid?” sneered the bully. “There’s lots more snow. Make yourself another set and see what you can do.”

But Tommy was bashful, and the attention he had thus drawn upon himself made him blush. He was a timid lad and he shrank away now, evidently fearing Shell.

“Never mind,” spoke Peaches kindly, “we’ll have another contest soon and you can be in it.”

“Let’s see who can throw the farthest,” suggested Hiram. His great strength gave him a decided advantage in this, as he very well knew.

The other boys also knew this, but did not like to refuse to enter the lists with him, so the long-distance throwing was started. Hiram did throw hard and far, but he met his match in Joe Matson, and the bully evidently did not like it. He sneered at Joe’s style and did his best to beat him, but could not.

“I ate too much dinner to-day,” said Hiram finally, as an excuse, “so I can’t throw well,” and though there were covert smiles at this palpable excuse, no one said anything. Then came other contests, throwing at trees and different objects. Finally Hiram and Luke took themselves off, and everyone else was glad of it.

“He’s only a bluff, Shell is!” murmured Peaches.

“And mean,” added George.

“Joe, I wonder if you can throw over those trees,” spoke Tom, pointing to a fringe of big maples which bordered a walk that ran around the school campus. “That’s something of a throw for height and distance. Want to try?”

“Sure,” assented our hero, “though I don’t know as I can do it.”

“Wait, I’m with you,” put in Peaches. “We’ll throw together.”

They quickly made a couple of hard, smooth balls, and at the word from Tom, Joe and Peaches let go together, for it was to be a sort of contest in swiftness.

The white missiles sailed through the air side by side, and not far apart. Higher and higher they went, until they both topped the trees, and began to go down on the other side. Joe’s was far in advance of the snowball of Peaches, however, and went higher.

As the balls descended and went out of sight, there suddenly arose from the other side of the trees a series of expostulating yells.

“Stop it! Stop that, I say! How dare you throw snowballs at me? I shall report you at once! Who are you? Don’t you dare to run!”

“We—we hit some one,” faltered Peaches, his fair complexion blushing a bright red.

“I—I guess we did,” admitted Joe.

There was no doubt