"Don't you think Bert and Nan will be along in a little while?" asked
Mrs. Bobbsey of her husband, as she crossed the big front room in the
log cabin to meet him.
"Be in _soon_!" he exclaimed. "Why, they've been gone too long now,
and----"
Mrs. Bobbsey, not letting Flossie and Freddie see her, made a motion
with her hands toward her husband. Then he understood that his wife did
not want him to frighten the smaller twins by letting it become known
how worried he was about Bert and Nan.
"Oh--yes," said Mr. Bobbsey, as he understood his wife's idea. "Oh, yes,
Bert and Nan will be along soon now."
"I'll be glad!" exclaimed Freddie.
"So will I," added Flossie, from her place on one of the bunks in a
bedroom opening out of the living room. "I want some chestnuts."
"Hello, little Fat Fairy! what's the matter with you?" asked her father,
noticing for the first time that Flossie was in bed. "Sick?" he asked.
"I just fell in the water," Flossie explained.
"I dumped her in, but I didn't mean to," Freddie said.
"Oh! Up to some of your fireman tricks, were you?" laughed Mr. Bobbsey,
for he saw, by a glance at his wife, that the small twins were now in no
danger.
"No, Daddy, I wasn't playing fireman," Freddie answered, though that was
one of his favorite pastimes. "We were going to make a sawmill."
"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey. "Well, whatever you do, keep away from the
big buzz saw," he warned. "And now," he went on in a low voice to his
wife, so Freddie and Flossie would not hear, "we must do something about
Bert and Nan."
"Yes," she agreed. "I'm worried about them, but I didn't want Flossie
and Freddie to know. Oh, to think of their being out in this storm!"
"It is pretty bad," her husband admitted. "I was caught in it, and
hurried back. I didn't think the children would go far away."
"Nor I," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I suppose they didn't find chestnuts where
they expected to, and wandered on. Are there any wild animals in the
woods?"
"Well, no, none to speak of," her husband said slowly. "You don't need
to worry about that. But I'll get Jim Denton, and some of the men, and
we'll start right out after Bert and Nan."
"I wish I could come with you!" exclaimed his wife, as anxious and
worried as was Mr. Bobbsey.
"You'll have to stay here with Flossie and Freddie," he said. "I'll soon
find Bert and Nan and bring them back."
"I hope so," murmured his wife, but as she glanced out of the window and
saw how dark it was getting and how fast the snow still came down and
heard how the wind howled, it is no wonder the mother of the older
Bobbsey twins was worried. So was Mr. Bobbsey.
"I'll go right away and get Jim and some of the men, and we'll start out
on the search," said Mr. Bobbsey, having warmed himself at the stove.
"We must not wait!"
"No," agreed Mrs. Bobbsey. "I'll stay and amuse Flossie and Freddie."
The smaller Bobbsey twins, of course, did not worry because Bert and Nan
had not yet come home. Flossie and Freddie were having too much fun
playing a little game on the foot of Flossie's bed. Mrs. Baxter, the
housekeeper, had started the game for the children by bringing in some
funny wooden blocks her husband had cut out on one of the long winter
evenings that were sometimes so dreary in Cedar Camp.
The blocks could be fitted together to make a house, a bridge, a boat
and many other play objects, and Flossie and Freddie enjoyed playing
with them, for which their mother was glad. She really was so worried
that she could not very well talk to them or tell them stories.
Telling his wife to keep up her courage and not to worry too much, Mr.
Bobbsey went out into the storm again.
"Where is daddy going?" asked Flossie, hearing the door shut.
"He's going to bring back Bert and Nan--and the chestnuts," said Mrs.
Bobbsey, quickly. She knew the smaller twins would think more of the
chestnuts than anything else, just at present.
"Oh, I like chestnuts!" cried Freddie. "I'm going to boast 'em an' roil
'em!" he exclaimed.
"Listen to him, Mother!" laughed Flossie. "He said 'boast an' roil,' an'
he meant roast an' boil 'em, didn't he?"
"I think he did," said Mrs. Bobbsey, trying not to let the small twins
see how worried she was.
"Oh, Freddie Bobbsey, look what you did!" suddenly cried Flossie. "You
knocked over my steamboat!" For Freddie had toppled over the pile of
blocks that Flossie had erected on the foot of her bed.
"Never mind. He didn't mean to," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "You can make
another boat, Flossie."
"An' I'll help," offered Freddie.
Thus the two smaller Bobbsey twins amused themselves, with little
thought of Bert and Nan except, perhaps, to wonder when they would come
home with the chestnuts.
Meanwhile Mr. Bobbsey hurried through the fast-gathering darkness and
the storm to the cabin of Jim Denton. Like the other men in the
Christmas tree and lumber camp, the foreman had stopped work when the
storm came with such blinding snow and a wind that turned bitter cold
toward night.
"What's that?" cried Jim Denton, when Mr. Bobbsey called at his cabin.
"Bert and Nan not back from chestnutting yet? Why, I s'posed they were
back hours ago!"
"So did I, and I wish they were," said Mr. Bobbsey.
"Oh, shucks now! don't worry," said the jolly foreman. "We'll find 'em
all right. We'll start right out."
He put on his big boots and warm coat and went with Mr. Bobbsey to the
cabins of some of the lumbermen. Soon a searching party was organized,
and away they started through the storm along the path that earlier in
the day Bert and Nan had taken to go to the chestnut grove.
"They took their lunch with them," said Mr. Bobbsey, "so they wouldn't
be hungry until now. But they may be lost or have fallen into some hole
and be half snowed over."
"Or they may have found some logger's or hunter's cabin, and have gone
in," said Jim Denton. "There are plenty of cabins scattered through
these woods."
"I hope they have found shelter," said Mr. Bobbsey anxiously.
On through the storm went the father of the Bobbsey twins and his
lumbermen searchers. They stopped now and then and shouted, but no
answers came back.
They had been out about an hour, and had gone more than a mile along the
path that it was supposed Bert and Nan had taken, when one of the men
called:
"Wait a minute! I think I heard someone call."
They all stopped and listened. Above the blowing of the wind and the
swishing of the fast-falling snowflakes, a faint and far-off voice could
be heard.
"Help! Help!" it called.
"There they are!" shouted one of the lumbermen.
"That doesn't sound like either Bert or Nan," said Mr. Bobbsey. "But it
may be someone who started to bring them back to camp and he, too,
became lost."
They all listened again, and once more came the call, but still faint
and far away.
"Help! Help!"
"It's over here!" cried Jim Denton. "Over to the right!"
Through the storm and darkness the rescue party hurried, sending out
calls to tell that they were on the way. Now and again they heard the
cry in answer, and it sounded nearer now.
At last Mr. Bobbsey saw a dark figure huddled in a heap near a pile of
snow, which had drifted around a large rock.
"Here's someone!" cried Mr. Bobbsey.
A moment later he and the lumbermen were standing over the figure of a
man, partly buried in the snow.
"Why, it's Jim! Old Jim Bimby!" exclaimed Jim Denton. "I know him. He
lives several miles from here. He must have been lost in the storm, too.
Jim! Jim!" he cried. "What you doing here?"
"I--I started to town for victuals," said old Jim Bimby, in faint tones.
"The storm was too much for me. I was about giving up."
"We heard you call," said Tom Case.
"Did you see anything of two small children?" eagerly asked Mr. Bobbsey.
"Twins, a boy and a girl! Did you see them?"
Anxiously he bent over to catch the old logger's answer.