CHAPTER XX

ON THE BRINK OF WAR

To everybody else, affairs at Rockledge School seemed to go on as ever. There were hard lessons, and easy lessons (the former predominating, the boys thought) and there were many, many good times as the season advanced.

Monatook Lake froze completely over. At first the boys were not allowed upon it; but when a team of horses, hitched to a pung, had been driven from shore to shore--from the edge of Rockledge town to Belden--word was given from the teachers' desks that skating on the lake within so many yards of the boathouse, would be allowed.

The gate-keeper set stakes, to which little red flags were attached, at the corners of the ice-bounds, and for a few days, at least, the Rockledge boys were satisfied with the restrictions.

They saw the Belden boys skating on their side of the lake, too, and other boys, from the two villages, who did not go to either school, skated where they pleased.

On half holidays bounds were released, but if the boys wished to skate the length of the lake a teacher went along. Owing to the feeling between the boys of the two schools, Dr. Raymond did not even test the Lower School with Barry Gray for monitor.

Bobby, of course, entered into all these sports. Even Fred thought that his chum's punishment had ended, and likely enough the red-haired boy had forgotten all about his interrupted fight with Sparrow Bangs.

Fred and Sparrow were the best of friends. To tell the truth, Bobby Blake was somewhat gloomy these days--he was not as much fun as usual.

Fred put it down to the fact of the mystery regarding Mr. and Mrs. Blake. Of course, a fellow could not be very jolly when he did not know for sure whether his father and mother were dead or alive!

However, Fred did not see how he could help his chum. He did his best to liven Bobby up; but was not very successful at it. It did really seem to Fred as though Bobby "gloomed about" altogether too much.

"It's all right for a fellow to feel badly about his folks," said Ginger to Sparrow, who had become his confidant for the time being, "but you can't get him out of his grouch."

"He's trying to be too good," scoffed Sparrow. "I bet he's aiming to get the medal."

"Scubbity-_yow_!" ejaculated Fred. "That would be great!"

"Pshaw! he can't get it. No Lower School boy ever got it. I expect Barry Gray will be medal man _this_ year."

"He won't get _my_ vote," declared Fred, shaking his head.

"Why not, Ginger?"

Fred was used to this nickname now, and did not get mad at it, but he shook his head, and said:

"Just for _that_. Barry nicknamed me. He's too fresh."

"Aw, pshaw! you're prejudiced," laughed Sparrow.

None of the boys realized what the matter was with Bobby. And he would not tell Fred that he had anything to do with forming the cloud under which Bobby suffered.

The silence of his father and mother--the uncertainty about them--_did_ trouble Bobby continually. Yet he had a deep-seated hope that all would come out right about them. Barry Gray's comforting words regarding the shipwreck had fired his imagination.

The thought, however, that no matter how well he stood in his classes, or how high his marks of deportment were, he could not win the Medal of Honor, disturbed the boy's mind.

Christmas week came. Bobby and Fred had intended to go home to Clinton for the short holiday, but the very day the term closed a great snowstorm set in. It snowed so heavily the first night that the railroads were blocked. Dr. Raymond would not let any of the boys leave the school, save two or three who lived near and whose people came for them in sleighs.

The good doctor telegraphed to the parents of his boys instead, and great preparations were made for a dinner and celebration at the school which would make the boys forget their disappointment.

Presents could arrive by express, too, by New Year's, and Dr. Raymond said that the actual distribution of gifts at Rockledge would be advanced one week. New Year's should be celebrated like Christmas.

The two and a half days' snow covered the lake two feet deep on a level. The ice had been more than a foot thick when it began to snow. In fact, the Rockledge and Belden icemen had been getting ready to cut, but would now have to put it over until after New Year's, because of the scarcity of labor.

There was no danger on the ice. There was not one airhole anywhere between the shore-fronts of the two schools--a stretch of nearly four miles of level, glistening snow.

The boys of the Rockledge Lower School had had much fun, on half holidays, up the lake at the island where the winter camp had been built; but that was a long way to go over the snow. Nobody had ever tried snowshoeing and skiing, and the authorities at the school rather frowned upon these sports. However, the field of snow between the bluffs on which the rival schools were built was a vast temptation for a hundred active boys.

There was a snowball skirmish between the larger boys of the two schools the very first day after the storm ceased. Captain Gray and his crowd had met a bunch of Beldenites ("Bedlamites," the Rockledge boys called their rivals) near the first island--a little, rocky cone, now a snowy mound, and with only a few trees upon it.

The fight had been fast and furious as long as it lasted, but it was rather a good-natured one, after all. Finally Captain Gray and the captain of the Belden School met for a few minutes' conversation. In that few minutes a challenge was given and accepted. Unless the teachers interfered, it was arranged to have a general snow battle between the schools.

Free from lessons, and with most of the ordinary rules relaxed, Captain Gray could plan a coup that the enemy would not possibly expect. It had been agreed that the coming battle should be fought near the island, which was about in the middle of the lake between the two schools.

That night, after supper, Captain Gray picked a dozen boys to help him--and not all big boys, for Bobby and Fred were among them--and they slipped out of the house.

"We'll get the bulge on those Bedlamites," chuckled the captain. "Come on, now. Run!" and he set off in the lead.

He would not tell what was afoot, but every boy was excited enough to follow and obey.

They crossed the campus and went down the long flight of stairs to the boathouse. The cold was so intense, and the wind had blown so hard while it was snowing, that they crunched along right on top of the drifts, and the walking was easy.

There was no moon, but the stars gave them light enough. Besides, it is never really dark when the snow covers the ground.

The twelve boys speeded across the white expanse. Bobby and Fred were proud that they had been chosen by the bigger fellows to take part in this mysterious adventure.

Captain Gray insisted upon several snow-shovels being brought along, and as soon as they reached the island, he put them all to work. The idea was to fortify the islet and hold it against the expected attack next day of the Belden School.

"This will be a surprise to them," declared Gray, proudly. "I saw right off that whichever side could get this island and hold it, would have an advantage.

"Building breastworks down on the pond is all right, but from this height we can throw snowballs right into any breastworks that those fellows can build.

"A bunch of us will come out here to-morrow morning with our breakfasts in our hands (I've fixed it all up with Mary, the cook) and we'll hold this island till the crowd on both sides gets here."

Two hours' work under the direction of Barry turned the island (which was barely ten yards long) into a veritable fort. Within that time, the twelve boys had built the fortress, partly of bowlders that had been well placed by Nature, and pieced out the rock buttresses with thick walls of snow.

The party got back to school just before the retiring bell rang, and escaped a scolding only because the rules were relaxed for the holidays. In the cold, chilly dawn, half a dozen of the boys of Dormitory Two were awakened by the bigger fellows. Bobby and Fred were among them.

"Aw, crickey!" gaped Fred, burrowing in the pillow. "I don't want to get up now."

Bobby was out of bed in a moment. "Come along! It's going to be fun, Fred," he said.

Fred was lazy. He burrowed deeper. In about thirty seconds a large, juicy snowball, scooped off the window sill by Max Bender, was thrown into the back of Fred Martin's neck.

"Yee-ow!" yelled the startled Ginger, and rose up to fight back. The big boy ran, however, chuckling, and all Fred could do was to dress, grumblingly.

"All these big fellows are fresh," he confided to Bobby.

"I wonder what _we'll_ be when we are as big as they are, and boss the school?" returned his more thoughtful chum.

That feazed Fred a little. By and by--as he finished his dressing--he admitted:

"Well, Bobby, I'd never thought of that!"

The guard thus called to duty by Captain Gray gathered, shivering, in the kitchen. Good natured Mary had risen an hour earlier than usual and made a big can of coffee, and there were sandwiches and doughnuts.

"Worth getting up early for, that's sure," announced Fred, becoming more content. "Won't Pee Wee be sore because he's not in this?"

They marched away with shovels and sleds. Overnight the smaller boys had made a lot of snowballs and they had been packed in boxes and put on the sleds. But before the early procession started, Barry examined all the boxes, and finding that somebody had made "soakers," he dumped them out.

"Let me catch any of you boys icing the ammunition, and I'll tend to you," he promised, angrily.

"Aw, those Bedlamites busted Frankie Doane's head open with a soaker last winter," complained Sparrow Bangs.

"We won't be mean just because they've been," declared Captain Gray. "You see that you're not guilty, Sparrow."

"Gosh!" muttered Fred, in Sparrow's ear, "don't that sound just like Bobby?"

"You bet! They're a pair. Guess Bobby's a copy-cat. He's following in Barry's 'feet-prints.'"

"Don't you say that!" flamed up Ginger, at once. "Bobby has _always_ been like that. He's the fairest chap that ever was. If anybody's the copy-cat, it's old Captain Gray!"

Neither of the boys in question beard this, and it was just as well perhaps that they didn't.

It was scarcely daylight when the party reached the island. They did not see a Belden boy stirring on the farther bank of the lake. After setting the tasks to be done by these guards, Barry went back to the school, leaving Max Bender in charge of the fortress.

Max was rather a lazy fellow, and he always let the smaller boys do his work--if they would agree. He was good natured enough about it.

He sat down in a sheltered place, and had Bobby and Fred cut the under branches of the firs for firewood, and they soon had a nice little fire going.

This might attract the attention of the enemy to the fort, but Max did not care for that.

"You boys keep on making snowballs. You'll have to make them outside the fort--down on the ice, there, and then you can draw them in on the sleds. Get busy now."

"What are _you_ going to do?" demanded Ginger Martin, rather perkily.

"Never you mind, youngster," returned Max. "You never read of the officers in authority getting on the firing line, do you? I've got to stay up here and keep watch, and plan the defense of the island."

"Oh, crickey!" exclaimed Ginger, scornfully. "You're a regular Napoleon--_not_!"

And it was a fact that, had the younger boys holding the fort depended upon Bender's watchfulness, the Beldenites would have been upon them unannounced.

Naturally the boys making snowballs did so on the side of the island facing Rockledge School. The island hid from them the Belden side of the lake.

But suddenly Bobby, who had dragged in a heavy sled load of snowballs, and was packing them securely in a pile behind an upper fortification, chanced to stand up to stretch his limbs and looked over the breastwork.

"Oh, look here!" he yelled. "Here's the Bedlamites right onto us!"

And it was true. The captain of the rival school had seen what the Rockledge boys were about--or he had suspected it, seeing the smoke of Max Bender's fire.

He had brought out his whole crew, and the vanguard of Belden boys was now but a few yards from the shore of the snow-covered and embattled island. They were making the attack in silence, and hoped to take the garrison of the fort by surprise.