"It's just lovely to take a trip like this," said Nan, as she leaned
back in the automobile.
"Swell, I call it," declared Bert.
Flossie and Freddie said nothing just then. They were too busy looking
from the windows.
Mr. Bobbsey owned a large, closed automobile, which even had an
arrangement for heating, and it was just the proper vehicle for a trip
like this. It easily held all the Bobbseys and their baggage, which had
been piled in to go with them.
It had not taken long to make preparations for the trip. Dinah and Sam
would be left in charge of the Lakeport house, and would care for Snoop
and Snap.
"I wish we could take our cat along," sighed Flossie.
"And Snap would be just right for the woods," said Freddie. "Everybody
has a dog in the woods."
"We haven't time to bother with Snoop and Snap now," said Mrs. Bobbsey,
so the dog and cat had been left at home, as much to their sorrow as to
that of the Bobbsey twins.
Cedar Camp was in what was called the "North Woods," about forty or
fifty miles from Lakeport. It was a wild, desolate region, especially in
the winter. In summer many camping parties made the place more lively.
Mr. Bobbsey owned some timberland there, from which was cut some of the
lumber he used in his business. And it was only this year that he had
decided to go into the Christmas tree trade. He had ordered many
hundreds of the small cedars, spruce, and hemlocks cut and shipped to
him, some to Lakeport and others to a more distant and larger city.
But something had gone wrong with the carloads of trees. They had
started from Cedar Camp all right, but that was the last heard of them.
"I can trace them from the North Woods end better than from down here,"
Mr. Bobbsey had said, as a reason for making the trip.
The men who went into the woods to cut timber and Christmas trees had to
stay in winter camps. They lived in log or slab cabins, and there were
many of them scattered through the North Woods. It was in one of these
cabins, which had formerly been used by a foreman and his family, that
Mr. Bobbsey planned to have his wife and children stay for about a week.
It would take him that long, he thought, to locate the missing Christmas
trees.
And so now the Bobbsey twins were on the first part of their journey in
the large, closed automobile. It was almost as comfortable as traveling
in a Pullman railroad car, and it was much more fun, the children
thought.
They had brought with them plenty of lunch, some extra wraps, and some
blankets and bed-clothes.
"What shall we eat when we get to the North Woods?" asked Freddie, as he
munched some cookies his mother passed to him and Flossie. "Shall we
have any--chicken?"
"If we could 'a' brought the one in the trolley car we could," suggested
Flossie. "Wasn't she funny, an' the rooster, too?"
"I wish we could 'a' caught them," Freddie murmured.
"Oh, I think we'll have enough to eat without those fowls," said their
mother.
"They will if they like baked beans," said Mr. Bobbsey. "The lumbermen
have plenty of those. They bake big pans of them."
"I'll help mother cook," offered Nan.
"There will be a woman at the camp to cook," Mr. Bobbsey explained. "I
wrote up and engaged the wife of one of the lumbermen," he said. "I
thought you'd like a little rest from looking after housework even in
camp," he said to his wife.
"Thank you, I will," she said. "It will be quite nice to be in the woods
in winter; especially the Christmas tree woods, where there is so much
greenery."
On went the automobile, driven by Mr. Bobbsey. Lakeport was left behind
and they were on a country road. The weather was fine, with hardly a
cloud in the sky, and Mr. Bobbsey was glad that he had taken his family
on this little trip.
It looked as though they were going to have good luck all the way. Noon
came and saw them more than half over their journey, and as yet no
mishaps had befallen them. There was no tire trouble and the engine of
the big automobile seemed glad to work as hard as it could going up hill
and on the level with the Bobbsey twins.
Mr. Bobbsey planned to get to Cedar Camp before dark, and he would have
done so but for a little accident. They had left the town of Bunkport,
which was the last village before the North Woods was reached, when the
motor began to chug in a queer manner.
"What's that?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "One of the cylinders seems to be
missing."
The Bobbsey twins knew what this meant. That one of the parts of the
automobile engine was not working properly.
"Oh, Daddy!" exclaimed Freddie.
"I guess the spark plug needs cleaning," said Mr. Bobbsey. "But we won't
stop for that now. I think we can reach Cedar Camp, and then I'll have
plenty of time to take it out and look at it."
But the automobile continued to go more and more slowly, and once, on a
hill, it almost stopped.
"If we can get over the top we can coast down and soon be in Cedar
Camp," said Mr. Bobbsey, in answer to an anxious look from his wife.
The car did manage to climb the hill, and then it was easy to go down
the other side. But there was still a farther distance to go than Mr.
Bobbsey had thought. The night settled down, it became dark, and then,
suddenly, when the car was on a rough road in a sort of lane cut through
the evergreen trees, the engine, with a sort of cough and chug, stopped
altogether.
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "We're stalled!"
"Looks like it," said Mr. Bobbsey, preparing to get out and see what the
trouble was.
"Where are we?" asked Bert, getting ready to follow his father and help
if he could.
"We're in the North Woods," answered Mr. Bobbsey. "Several miles from
Cedar Camp, I'm afraid."
"It--it's awful dark!" whispered Flossie. "Aren't they going to turn on
the lights?"
"There aren't ever any lights in the woods 'ceptin' fireflies, are
there, Daddy?" asked Freddie.
"Only our auto lights," answered his father. "Well, we may be able to
travel soon."
As he was getting out of the car into the dark road, a mournful, shrill
cry that echoed all about sounded through the forest.
"What's that?" gasped Nan, shrinking close to her mother. "Oh, what is
it?"