looks like a real New Year's Day, and no mistake," remarked Randy.
"Look outside! Isn't it just like a picture on a New Year's card?"

"It is assuredly a spectacle to fill one with awe and reverence," came
from Spouter. "Just gaze upon that magnificent stretch of snowy mantle
and those tall cedars bending low before the wintry blasts! Can you
imagine what this must be in the solemn depth of the mighty forest,
where not a footfall is heard nor a--"

"Jack rabbit can get as much as a turnip to eat?" finished Randy gayly.
"Spouter, if you are going to orate, why don't you stand on the table
when you turn on the spigot?"

"Let us have a regular New Year's dinner!" cried Gif, "and then Spouter
can do the speech-making--"

"While we do the eating," finished Randy. "Say, Spout, how about it?"

"Nothing doing," was the prompt reply. "I want my share of the eats
every time."

"We'll make a regular rabbit potpie to take the place of turkey,"
announced Gif.

"And for dessert, how about that canned plum pudding we brought along?"
queried Fred.

"Great thought, Fred!" answered Randy. "And we can have some of those
nuts, too. And to-night we'll try our hand at some candy making."

"One thing you fellows are forgetting," remarked Gif. "And that is that
we have Werner and Glutts with us. They'll certainly want their share of
the good things."

"What! Plum pudding and all?" questioned Fred, with a gloomy look
settling over his face.

"We can't deny them anything that we have ourselves, Fred," replied
Jack.

"I don't think Glutts or Werner deserve it!" exclaimed Randy. "I think
as soon as this storm clears away they ought to be sent about their
business. It isn't so very far to that Tony Duval's place, and with
their horse and sleigh they ought to be able to make it somehow."

Randy had scarcely finished speaking when the door to the bedroom the
two bullies occupied was flung open and Werner strode into the living
room.

"Fine way you have of talking about us, Rover!" he said, with a sour
look on his face. "We didn't come here because we wanted to. We came
because it was necessary."

"And we said we would pay for whatever we had to eat or drink," added
Glutts, who had followed his crony.

"I told you before that you wouldn't have to pay a cent," broke in Gif.
"Just the same, Glutts, we might as well come to an understanding. You
know as well as I do that there is no love lost between you fellows and
our crowd. You a