“Jump on him when he comes along,” advised Tim, who was not a fair fighter.

So when Bobby came running by, for he did not know how far up the street the boys had gone, Tim and Charlie pounced on him and rolled him in the snow.

“None of that,” said a strange voice.  “Two to one’s no fair.  One of you leave off, or I’ll stop the fight.”

The strange voice belonged to a high-school boy, Stanley Reeves, and both Tim and Charlie knew he was a member of the gymnasium wrestling team and quite capable of stopping any small-boy fight.

“You’re too old to fight a boy of that size, anyway,” declared Stanley, surveying Tim with disgust.

“But I’m going to punch him,” announced Bobby heatedly.

“Oh, you are?” said Reeves with interest.  “Go ahead, then, and I’ll sit here and keep an eye on this chicken to see that he doesn’t pitch in at the wrong moment”

Reeves took a firm hold on Charlie’s coat collar and backed him off to one side.

“Wash his face for him—­it needs it,” the high-school lad went on to Bobby.

Like a small but angry bumble bee, Bobby flew at Tim.  They clinched and plunged head-long into the snow, where they pounded and wrestled and grunted and gasped as all boys do when they are fighting a thing out.  Tim was not a fair fighter, nor a very brave one, and most of his victories had been won over smaller boys or by using unfair methods.  Now with Stanley Reeves looking on, he did not dare cheat, and so Bobby unexpectedly found himself, after perhaps five minutes of tussling, sitting on Tim’s chest, with Tim breathless and beaten.

“Wash his face,” insisted Stanley, suddenly scooping up a handful of snow and beginning to rub it thoroughly into Charlie’s eyes and mouth.

CHAPTER XIII

THE TWINS HAVE A SECRET

Bobby seized a double handful of snow and began to give Tim the same treatment.

“Quit!” yelled Tim in anguish.  “Quit, I tell you, Bobby!  Ow, now you’ve cut my nose!”

A small twig in the snow had scratched poor Tim rather violently on his small pug nose, but it was not cut.

“Say you’ve had enough,” ordered Bobby, thumping about on the fallen lad’s chest like a particularly well-packed bale of hay.  “Say you’ve had enough!”

“Had enough,” murmured Tim obediently.

Bobby got up at once, and Tim rose and shook himself.  At the same moment Stanley Reeves let go of Charlie.  The two boys slouched off without a word.

“Now that ought to last them for some time,” said Stanley cheerfully.  “Any time you need any advice on training up Tim Roon in the way he should go, you just apply to me, Bobby.”

Bobby grinned, showing his even, white teeth, and said he would.  Then Stanley went on to join the other high-school boys who were bob-sledding, and Bobby ran home to tell his family the result of his chase.