He was not satisfied with simply piling up mounds of snow. He built
regular works on a scientific plan. The snow "packed well," and the
boys worked like beavers. With spades and brooms and hands and homemade
wooden shovels, they built under Napoleon's directions a snow fort that
set all Brienne wondering and admiring. There were intrenchments and
redoubts, bastions and ramparts, and all the parts and divisions and
defences that make up a real fort.

It took some days to build this wonderful fort. For the boys could only
work in their hours of recess. But at last, when all was ready, Napoleon
divided the schoolboys into two unequal portions. The smaller number
was to hold the fort as defenders; the larger number was to form the
besieging force. At the head of the besiegers was Napoleon. Who was
captain of the fort I do not know. His name has not come down to us.

But the story of the Snow-ball Fight has. For days the battle raged. At
every recess hour the forces gathered for the exciting sport. The rule
was that when once the fort was captured, the besiegers were to become
its possessors, and were, in turn, to defend it from its late occupants,
who were now the attacking army, increased to the required number by
certain of the less skilful fighters in the successful army.

Napoleon was in his element. He was an impetuous leader; but he was
skilful too; he never lost his head.

[Illustration: "_As leader of the storming-party
he would direct the attack_"]

Again and again, as leader of the storming-party, he would direct
the attack; and at just the right moment, in the face of a shower