"Pooh!" exclaimed Bert Bobbsey, as he ran through the half-blinding
snowstorm toward Nan. "This isn't anything! It's only what they call a
squall. I s'pose they call it that because the wind howls, or squalls,
like a baby. Anyhow, I'm not afraid! It's fun, I think!"
By this time he had reached Nan's side, the two having been separated
when the sudden storm burst. And now that Nan saw Bert near her and
noticed that he had his bag of lunch, as she had hers, she took heart
and said:
"Well, maybe it won't be so bad if we can find a place to stay, and can
eat our dinner."
"Of course we can!" cried Bert. "There's lots of places to stay in these
woods. We can find a hollow tree! I'll look for one!"
"Oh, don't!" cried Nan, as Bert moved away from her. "I don't want to go
into a hollow tree. There might be owls in 'em!"
"Well, that's so," admitted Bert. "I'm not afraid of owls," he said
quickly, "but of course their claws could get tangled in your hair. I'll
look for another place--or I can make a lean-to. That's what the
lumbermen and hunters do."
"I think it would be just as easy to get under one of the big, green
Christmas trees," suggested Nan. "Look, hardly any snow falls under
them."
She pointed to a large cedar tree near them, and, as you may have
noticed if you were ever in the woods where these trees grow, scarcely
any snow drifts under their low-hanging branches.
"That would be a regular tent for us," said Nan.
"Yes," agreed Bert, peering through the storm at the tree toward which
his sister pointed. "We could get under one of those. But I think maybe
we'd better not stand still. Let's walk on."
"But toward home!" suggested Nan. "We oughtn't to go any farther
gathering nuts, Bert."
"No, I guess not," he agreed. "Anyhow, we have quite a lot. We'll start
back for Cedar Camp. And when we get hungry we'll stop under a Christmas
tree and eat. I'm beginning to feel hungry now," and Bert felt in his
overcoat pocket to make sure that the lunch, which he had put there, was
still safe. It was, he was glad to find, and Nan had hers.
"Yes, we'll eat in a little while," she said. "But we'd better start
back to camp."
So the two older Bobbsey twins started off in the blinding snowstorm,
little realizing that they were going directly away from camp instead of
toward it. The wind whipped the snow into their faces, so that they
could see only a little way in advance. And as they were in a strange
woods, with only a small path leading back to camp, it is no wonder they
became lost.
But we must not forget that we have left Flossie and Freddie, the
smaller Bobbsey twins, in trouble. In playing sawmill Freddie had tipped
Flossie out of the wheelbarrow, and the little girl had rolled down the
slippery pine-needle hill into the stream just above the dam.
"Come quick! Come quick!" Freddie had cried. "Flossie'll go over the
waterfall! Oh, hurry, somebody!"
He knew enough about waterfalls to understand that they were dangerous;
that once a boat or a person got into the current above the falls they
would be pulled along, and cast over, to drop on the rocks below.
Poor Flossie was too frightened to cry. Besides, as she fell in her head
went under the water, and you can't call out when that happens. Flossie
could only gurgle.
Luckily, however, there were several lumbermen on the bank of the
stream, floating the logs down to be snaked out by the hook and chain,
and sawed into boards. One of these men, Jake Peterson, was nearest to
Flossie when the little girl tumbled into the stream.
"I'll get you out!" cried Mr. Peterson.
He dropped the big iron-pointed pole with which he was pushing logs and
ran toward the little girl, while Freddie, trying to do all he could,
slid down the slippery hill, as it was a quicker way down than by
running.
Into the water with his big rubber boots waded Mr. Peterson, and it was
not a quarter of a minute after Flossie had fallen in before she was
lifted out.
"Oh! Oh!" she managed to gasp and gurgle, as she caught her breath,
after swallowing some of the ice-cold water. "Oh, am I dr-dr-drowned?"
"I should say not!" answered Mr. Peterson. "You'll be all right. I'll
take you to mother."
By this time Mrs. Bobbsey and Mrs. Baxter had rushed out of the log
cabin, and Tom Case came from his sawmill. Several other lumbermen,
hearing Freddie's excited cries, came running up, but there was nothing
for them to do, as Flossie was already rescued.
"What has happened?" cried Mrs. Bobbsey, as she saw her little girl,
dripping wet, in the arms of Mr. Peterson.
"She fell in," explained the lumberman. "She wasn't in more than a few
seconds, though. All she needs is dry clothes!"
"I--I dumped her in!" sobbed Freddie. "But I didn't mean to. We were
playin' sawmill with the wheelbarrow, and I gave Flossie a ride, an' I
slipped on the pine needles, and she rolled down the hill."
"Never mind, dear! You didn't mean to," answered his mother, soothingly.
"We must get Flossie to bed and keep her warm so she won't take cold."
With Mrs. Baxter's help, this was soon done, and in a short time after
the accident Flossie was sitting up in a warm bed, sipping hot lemonade
and eating crackers, while Freddie sat near her, doing the same.
Unless Flossie caught cold there would be no serious results from the
accident. But Mrs. Bobbsey used it as a lesson for Freddie, telling him
always to be careful when on a pine-needle-covered hill, near the water
especially.
Flossie was enjoying her importance now, and she was begging her mother
to tell her a story, in which request Freddie joined, when Mrs. Bobbsey,
looking out of the window, was surprised to see how dark the clouds had
become all of a sudden.
"I believe we are going to have a snowstorm," she said. And a few
minutes later the snow came down so thick and fast that the lumbermen
had to stop work, because they could not see where to drive the horses,
nor to guide the logs down the stream to the mill.
"My, what a storm!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, as she went to the window to
look out. "A regular blizzard!"
"We can have fun coasting down hill!" laughed Freddie. "And Flossie can
be out to-morrow, can't she, Mother?"
"Yes, I think so," answered Mrs. Bobbsey, hardly thinking of what she
was saying. "I hope Bert and Nan started back from the chestnut grove
before this storm broke," she said. "If they are out in this it will be
dreadful! I must see if daddy has come back," she added, for her husband
had gone to see about the missing Christmas trees. "If Bert and Nan are
out in this storm they will lose their way, I'm sure."
And this is just what Bert and Nan did. Clutching their bundles of
lunch, and with their bags of chestnuts in their hands, the two older
Bobbsey twins were struggling onward through the storm. They were warmly
dressed, and it was not as cold as weather they had often been out in
before. But they had seldom been out in a worse storm.
"Hadn't we--maybe we'd better stop and rest and eat something, Bert,"
suggested Nan, after a while.
"Maybe we had," he agreed, half out of breath because it was hard work
walking uphill and against the wind. And almost before they knew it the
children were going up a hill, though they did not remember having come
down one on their trip to the chestnut grove.
They found a sheltered place under a big cedar tree, and, crawling
beneath its protecting branches, they sat on the bare ground, where
there was, as yet, no snow. The white flakes swirled and drifted all
about them, but the thick branches of the tree, growing low down, made a
place like a green tent.
"It's nice in here," said Bert, as he opened his bundle of lunch.
"Yes, but we ought to be at home," said Nan.
"We'll go home as soon as we eat a little," said her brother.
But after they had each eaten a sandwich and some cookies, and Bert had
cracked a few chestnuts between his teeth and had found them rather too
cold and raw to be good, the twins decided to go on.
Out into the storm they went, away from the shelter of the friendly
tree. The storm was worse, if anything, and, without knowing it, Bert
and Nan had become completely turned around. Every step they took
carried them farther and farther away from their home camp. And they had
journeyed quite a distance from the cabin before finding any chestnuts.
"Oh, Bert!" Nan exclaimed after a while, half sobbing, "I can't go a
step farther. The snow is so thick, and it's so hard to walk in. And the
wind blows it in my face, and I'm cold! I can't go another step!"
"That's too bad!" Bert exclaimed. "Maybe we're almost back to camp,
Nan."
"It doesn't look so," his sister answered, trying to peer about through
the swirling flakes.
"Wait a minute!" suddenly cried Bert, as there came a lull in the blast
of wind. "I think I see something--a cabin or a house."
"Maybe it's our cabin," suggested Nan, "though I don't remember any of
the trees around here. There aren't any cut down here as there are in
camp."
"Well, I see something, anyhow," and Bert pointed to the left, off
through the driving flakes. "Let's go there, Nan."
Through the storm the children struggled, hand in hand. They reached a
log cabin--a lonely log cabin it was, standing all by itself in the
midst of a little clearing in the woods.
"This isn't our camp, Bert!" said Nan.
"No," the boy admitted. "But somebody lives here. I see smoke coming
from the chimney. I'm going to knock."
With chilled fingers Bert pounded on the cabin door.
"Who's there?" asked a woman's voice above the racket of the storm.
"Two of the Bobbsey twins!" answered Nan, not stopping to think that
everyone might not know her and her brother by this name.
"Please let us in!" begged Bert. "We're from Cedar Camp! Who are you?"
"I'm Mrs. Bimby," was the answer, but neither Bert nor Nan recognized
the name. A moment later the cabin door was opened, and an old woman
confronted them. She looked at the two children for a moment; then, "Did
you bring any news of Jim?" she asked.