The Bobbsey Twins at Cedar Camp Part 15

"Bert, I believe it's going to storm! Look at the clouds! And it's getting ever so much colder, too!"

Indeed there was a chill in the air that had not been present when the Bobbsey twins started out that morning.

"Well, we'll go back in a few minutes," Bert suggested. But a little while after he had said this, there was a quick darkening of the air, the wind began to blow, and, so suddenly as to startle the children, they found themselves enveloped in such a blinding, driving squall of snow that they could not see ten feet on either side!

"Oh, Bert!" cried Nan. "It's a blizzard! Oh, shall we ever get back to Cedar Camp and to mother?"

CHAPTER XI--OLD MRS. BIMBY

"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 pus.h.i.+ng 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.