Heartily urged to remain, for there was now something just under a blizzard developing, he said No; he had a great deal of "cirriculum work" to get done before the morrow, and passed from the sound of the professor's hospitable voice and into the storm. He had a tedious struggle against the wind and thickening snow, but finally came in sight of the town, not long before dark. Here the road led down into a depression, and, lifting his head as he began the slight ascent on the other side, Fred was aware of two figures outlined upon the low ridge before him. They were dimmed by the driving snow and their backs were toward him, but he recognized them with perfect assurance.
They were Dora Yocum and Ramsey Milholland.
They were walking so slowly that their advance was almost imperceptible, but it could be seen that Dora was talking with great animation; and she was a graceful thing, thus gesticulating, in her long, slim fur coat with the white snow frosting her brown fur cap.
Ramsey had his hands deep in his overcoat pockets and his manner was wholly that of an audience.
Fred murmured to himself, "'What did you say to her?' 'Nothin'. I started to, but'--" Then he put on a burst of speed and passed them, sweeping off his hat with operatic deference, yet hurrying by as if fearful of being thought a killjoy if he lingered. He went to the "frat house," found no one downstairs, and established himself in a red leather chair to smoke and ruminate merrily by a great fire in the hall.
Half an hour later Ramsey entered, stamped off the snow, hung up his hat and coat, and sat himself down defiantly in the red leather chair on the other side of the fireplace.
"Well, go on," he said. "Commence!"
"Not at all!" Fred returned, amiably. "Fine spring weather to-day.
Lovely to see all the flowers and the birds as we go a-strolling by.
The little bobolinks--"
"You look here!" That's the only walk I ever took with her in my life. I mean by--by asking her and her saying she would and so forth. That other time just sort of happened, and you know it. Well, the weather wasn't just the best in the world, maybe, but she's an awful conscientious girl and once she makes an engagement--"
"Why, of course," Fred finished for him, "She'd be too pious to break it just on account of a mere little blizzard or anything. Wonder how the weather will be next Sunday?"
"I don't know and I don't care," said Ramsey. "You don't suppose I asked her to go ~again~, do you?"
"Why not?"
"Well, for one thing, you don't suppose I want her to think I'm a perfect fool, do you?"
Fred mused a moment or two, looking at the fire. "What was the lecture?" he asked, mildly.
"What lecture?"
"She seemed to me to be--"
"That wasn't lecturing; she was just--"
"Just what?"
"Well; she thinks war for the United States is coming closer and closer--"
"But it isn't."
"Well, she thinks so, anyhow," said Ramsey, "and she's all broken up about it. Of course she thinks we oughtn't to fight and she's trying to get everybody else she can to keep working against it. She isn't goin' home again next summer, she's goin' back to that settlement work in Chicago and work there among those people against our goin' to war; and here in college she wants to get everybody she can to talk against it, and--"
"What did you say?" Fred asked, and himself supplied the reply:
"Nothin'. I started to, but--"
Ramsey got up. "Now look here! You know the 'frat' passed a rule that if we broke any more furniture in this house with our scrappin' we'd both be fined the cost of repairs and five dollars apiece.
Well, I can afford five dollars this month better than you can, and--"
"I take it back!" Fred interposed, hastily. "But you just listen to me; you look out--letting her think you're on her side like that."
"I don't--"
"You ~don't?~"
Ramsey looked dogged. "I'm not goin' around always arguin' about everything when arguin' would just hurt people's feelings about something they're all excited about, and wouldn't do a bit o' good in the world--and you know yourself just ~talk~ hardly ever settles anything--so I don't--"
"Aha!" Fred cried. "I thought so! Now you listen to me--"
"I won't. I--"
But at this moment they were interrupted. Someone slyly opened the door, and a snowball deftly thrown from without caught Ramsey upon the back of the neck and head, where it flattened and displayed itself as an ornamental star. Shouting fiercely, both boys sprang up, ran to the door, were caught there in a barrage of snowballs, ducked through it in sipte of all damage, charged upon a dozen besweatered figures awaiting them and began a mad battle in the blizzard. Some of their opponents treacherously joined them, and turned upon the ambushers.
In the dusk the merry conflict waged up and down the snow-covered lawn, and the combatants threw and threw, or surged back and forth, or clenched and toppled over into snow banks, yet all coming to chant an extemporized battle-cry in chorus, even as they fought the most wildly.
"Who? Who? Who?" they chanted. "Who? Who? ~Who~ says there ain't goin' to be no war?"
