“I’ll bet that Tim Roon threw it!” stormed Meg.  “You wait!”

Meg was very quick to think and to act, and the sight of her favorite brother, one blue eye almost closed, roused her to strong measures.

“Come on, and rush ’em!” she cried, her little arms waving like windmills.  “Don’t stand here, throwing balls.  Let’s capture their old fort!”

For an instant they stared at her, and then, the idea appealing, the whole Black army poured over the side of the fort, and charged on the enemy, shrieking wildly.  Bobby, who could barely see where he was going, was swept along with the rest.

Upstairs in the schoolhouse, the teachers looked at each other in surprise, and Mr. Carter was equally astonished.

“Surrender!” shouted Meg, the first to leap the wall of the Orange fort.

The Orange army simply backed.  It was very funny to see them.  They had not expected an open attack, and they were too taken by surprise to guard their piles of ammunition.  As the opposing forces climbed their wall they dumbly gave way and moved back, back, till, with a cry of joy, the Black fighters swooped upon the orderly mounds of snowballs.  With their ammunition gone, of course the Oranges could do nothing less than give in.

Mr. Carter came up laughing.

“Well, Tim, that was a surprise attack for fair, wasn’t it?” he asked pleasantly.  “I think we’ll have to say the Black side won.  Congratulations, Bobby.  And now, Generals, shake hands, and the biggest fight in Oak Hill school history will be over.”

Tim put out his lip stubbornly.

“I didn’t know it was fair to play like that,” he argued sourly.  “We could have taken their fort easy, if you’d said that was the way to play.  ’Sides Meg Blossom put ’em to it.  Bobby hadn’t a thing to do with that.”

“Yes, Meg did,” said Bobby hurriedly, trying to edge out of the crowd.  “She really won the war.”

“Just one moment,” Mr. Carter spoke coolly, and yet there was an odd little snap in his voice that made every boy and girl turn toward him.  “Look at me, please, Bobby.  What happened to your eye?”

“Oh, gee,” mumbled Bobby unhappily.  He had hoped to get away unnoticed.  “I guess—­I guess a snowball hit it.”

“A packed ball, probably dipped in water first,” announced Mr. Carter, gently touching the poor sore eye.  “Tim, do you know anything about such a ball?”

“No, I don’t,” said Tim hastily.  “Nobody can say our side packed balls.”

“No one can prove your side threw a packed ball,” corrected the principal pointedly.  “Still, it is hardly likely that Bobby’s men would have hit their own general with a frozen ball.  I don’t intend to try to find out any more, Tim.  But I’m sorry that in every game there must always be some one who doesn’t play fair.”

Mr. Carter said that Bobby should go home at once and let his mother put something on his eye.  It was a real victory for the Black’s side, he announced firmly.  And Bobby, going home with Meg, his handkerchief tied over his puffy eye, felt like a real general, wounded, tired, but successful and happy.