The Bobbsey Twins at Cedar Camp

Freddie was so surprised at the sudden and unexpected coast that he just had to hold fast to Nick and he could say nothing more. But when the bottom of the hill was reached, Freddie, being on top, began to pound Nick’s back with his two sturdy fists.

“Hey! Quit! Let me up!” begged the bad boy.

“Not till you give me my sister’s sled!” insisted Freddie.

“Well, how can I give it to her when you’re sittin’ on me?” yelled Nick.

With that Freddie got off the other lad’s back, allowing him to get up. The other boys gathered around, thinking there might be a fight. But Nick had had enough. He found Freddie braver than he had thought, and turned away, muttering:

“Aw, I only wanted a ride an’ I got it!”

“Yes, and Freddie had one too!” laughed Sam Miller.

Nick walked away, and then the younger Bobbsey twins again started coasting, Freddie taking Flossie’s sled back to her.

It was still snowing when noon came, and Flossie and Freddie had to go home to lunch. They found Bert and Charlie busy making a bobsled in the back yard. The older boys were fastening together their sleds by a long plank, and Nan was helping by tacking some strips of carpet on the plank.

“Oh, can we ride on that?” asked Freddie.

“Maybe,” said his brother. “How’s the little hill?”

“Nice,” Freddie answered.

“An’ you ought to’ve seen Nick Malone take my sled and Freddie jump on his back!” cried Flossie.

“Is that fellow bothering you two again?” demanded Bert, looking up with a hammer in his hand. “I’ll get after him, that’s what I will!”

“Freddie got after him,” explained Flossie. “Oh, I’m so glad it snows! We’re going coasting some more after dinner.”

“Sure!” added Freddie.

At the dinner table Bert and Nan noticed that their father seemed worried over something. He went to the window several times to look out at the storm.

“If this keeps up the shipment will never arrive,” he said to his wife.

“You mean the Christmas trees?” she asked.

“Yes,” answered Mr. Bobbsey. “They are late now, and something seems to be wrong up there in the woods.”

“Shan’t we have any Christmas tree?” asked Freddie, who did not know just what was being talked about.

“Oh, I guess so,” his father said, and again he went to look at the snow.

“Are you going to sell Christmas trees?” Bert asked. He had caught the word “shipment,” and knew it had to do with some part of his father’s lumber business.

“Yes, I am going into the Christmas tree business this year,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “That is, I have bought a large shipment of them to be sent here to me from the North Woods. If they get here in time I can sell them and make some money. But if this snow keeps up, the carloads of trees, or the shipment, will be delayed, and if they don’t get here at least a week before Christmas they will be of little use to me. But perhaps the snow will not be as heavy as I fear.”

“I didn’t know you sold Christmas trees,” remarked Nan.

“I never did before,” her father said. “It’s a new business for me, and I may make a failure of it.”

Then the older Bobbsey twins began to understand how it is that snow can bring pleasure to boys and girls, but may often mean trouble for older people in business.

“Well, we’ll hope for the best,” said Mr. Bobbsey, as he started back to the office after dinner, when the white flakes were still falling steadily. “I may have to go up to the North Woods to see about that shipment of trees if they don’t get here soon.”

“Could we go?” asked Bert, having a joyful vision of a mid-winter trip to one of his father’s lumber camps.

“Well, I’ll see,” answered Mr. Bobbsey, and Nan and Bert looked at each other in delight.

Some strange adventures were ahead of them, though they did not know it.

CHAPTER VI—OFF TO CEDAR CAMP

“And I suppose we ought to be glad there isn’t a big storm,” went on Nan, when it had been decided to give up coasting and the older Bobbsey twins were dragging home the new bobsled.

“Why ought we be glad?” Bert wanted to know.

“Because if it doesn’t storm so much daddy can get his shipment of Christmas trees here and make some money.”

“Oh, that’s so—I forgot!” exclaimed Bert. “But if the trees do come we can’t make that trip with him to the North Woods to see what the matter is. And I wanted to go on a trip like that, for we don’t have much school now, on account of the holidays.”

“It would be nice to go off somewhere in the winter,” agreed Nan. “Remember what fun we had at Snow Lodge?”

“I should say so!” cried Bert. “But there isn’t much use talking about snow when it thaws like this,” and he stepped into a puddle of slush.

“Oh, be careful!” cried Nan. “You’ll get your feet wet!”

“I have rubbers on,” said Bert.

There was nothing to do but to leave the bobsled and the other sleds in the shed attached to the garage. There they would stay until more snow came. When Bert went into the house, after putting away the bobsled and helping Flossie and Freddie store away their smaller sleds, he found his mother waiting for him.

“Bert,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, “here is a special delivery letter that just came for your father. It should have been delivered at the office, but they sent it here by mistake, and Dinah took it in before I could call to the boy to take it back with him. I called your father up about it on the telephone and he said, if you came in, to have you bring it down.”

“I’ll go,” replied Bert cheerfully.

“Oh, may we go along?” begged Flossie.

“We’ll be good!” promised Freddie.

“Shall I take them?” asked Bert of his mother.

“If you want to,” she answered. “Does Nan want to go?”

But Nan, as it happened, had some sewing she wanted to do on a Christmas gift for one of her girl friends, so she said she would stay in the house and busy herself with needle and thread. Thus it came about that Bert took the smaller Bobbsey twins down to his father’s office.

They went in a trolley car, and, as they always did, Freddie and Flossie became very much interested in everything that happened, from the fat lady who could hardly get on to the scenes in the streets.

There were many trucks and wagons in one street, as the car came nearer that part of Lakeport in which Mr. Bobbsey’s lumberyard and office were situated. Finally the street became so crowded with wagons and automobiles that the car had to proceed slowly.

“Oh, Freddie, look!” suddenly called Flossie, pointing out of the window. A big auto-truck, piled high with crates, in which were chickens and ducks, had come to a stop alongside of the trolley car, and so close that, had the window been open, the Bobbsey twins could have reached out their hands and touched some of the fowls.

“I guess they’re getting in big shipments of ducks, turkeys and chickens ready for Christmas,” said Bert. “Look out there, Freddie!” he suddenly called, and, leaping from his place beside Flossie, Bert made a grab and pulled Freddie off the seat.

Only just in time, too, for at that moment the auto-truck, which had started off after being stalled, lurched to one side, and a corner of one of the chicken crates crashed through a car window, breaking the glass.

Bert had seen the crate of chickens shifting around as the truck started, and had guessed that it was going to slide over and crash against the trolley car, just as it did. So he pulled Freddie away in time.

Some of the passengers in the car screamed, and there was a shout by the conductor and motorman as the glass crashed in the electric vehicle.

And then a funny thing happened. One of the slats of the chicken crate on the auto-truck came loose, and in through the broken window fluttered a hen and a rooster. Right into the trolley they flew, the hen cackling and the rooster crowing!

“Oh, look! Look!” cried Flossie.

“Catch ’em!” shouted Freddie, pulling away from Bert and grabbing for the rooster.

But the rooster did not intend to be caught. Half running and half flying, he “scooted,” as Freddie called it, down to the end of the car, and, as the conductor had just opened the door to look out and see what was causing the blockade, the rooster made his escape.

The hen, however, did not seem to know how to get out. She fluttered around, cackling and making a great fuss. The men in the car laughed, and the women held their hands over their hats so the chicken would not light on them.

“Maybe she came in here to lay an egg!” suggested Flossie, laughing.

“I’m goin’ to catch her!” shouted Freddie.

“Get her and have a chicken dinner,” said the motorman.

By this time the car was in an uproar, most of the passengers enjoying the queer excitement. As for the hen, I do not think she liked it at all, though she had more room than in the crate.

The driver of the auto-truck was talking to a policeman about whose fault it was that the trolley window had become broken, and the motorman and conductor now joined in.

“I’ve got to get that chicken and rooster back,” said the truck driver. “I’ll be blamed for letting them get away.”

“And we’ll be blamed for having a window in our car broken,” said the conductor. “It was your fault.”

“It was not!” insisted the driver.

Cackling and fluttering, the hen raced about inside the trolley car, and Freddie tried to catch her, but could not. Several of the men made grabs for the lively fowl, but finally she saw the same open door by which the rooster had gotten out, and away she flew.

“She didn’t like it in here,” observed Flossie.

“I don’t blame her,” said a woman passenger, laughing. “Poor thing! Her nerves must be all on an edge.”

“Let’s go and see if they catch ’em,” suggested Freddie. But Bert said they had no time for that.

The slipping crate, which had broken the window, was finally pulled back on the truck. The slat was nailed fast so no other fowls could get out, and then the trolley car moved along. The conductor picked up the larger pieces of broken glass and pulled the curtain down over the window to keep out the cold air.

“My, you must have had some excitement,” said Mr. Bobbsey, when the children finally reached his office and told him of the accident. “I’m glad Freddie wasn’t cut by the broken glass.”

“I’m glad, too,” said the little Bobbsey boy.

Mr. Bobbsey read the letter Bert had brought him, and then the same worried look Bert had seen before came over his father’s face.

“Do you want me to tell mother anything?” asked Bert.

“No, except to thank her for sending me down this letter. Still, you might say to her that I think I shall have to go to Cedar Camp in a day or two.”

“Where’s Cedar Camp?” asked Bert.

“Where the Christmas trees grow,” his father answered, with a smile. “It’s where the Christmas trees grow that I hope to have to sell. I haven’t got them yet, and I’m going there to see what the trouble is. This letter is about the trees.”

“Oh, can’t we go and see where the Christmas trees grow?” begged Flossie.

“We like it in the woods,” said Freddie.

“I suppose you do,” his father answered, smiling. “But the woods in winter are very different from in summer. However, we shall not have any bad storms or severe weather for another month, I think. Perhaps I might be able to take my Bobbsey twins to Cedar Camp,” and he playfully pinched Flossie’s fat cheek.

“It would be nifty to go!” said Bert. “Do you really think you’ll take us?”

“We’ll talk it over to-night at home,” said his father. “Here, take Flossie and Freddie to the store and get them some hot chocolate,” he added, giving Bert some money.

The little Bobbsey twins liked the chocolate very much, but they were so excited, thinking about a possible trip to the North Woods, that they talked of nothing else.

“Do you really think you will have to go?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey of her husband that evening.

“Yes,” he answered. “Those Christmas trees have been lost somewhere between Cedar Camp and here, and I must find them, or I shall lose a lot on them. I will go to Cedar Camp in a few days.”

“And take us?” asked Bert.

“All of us!” cried Freddie.

Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey looked at one another.

“Would you like to go?” asked Mr. Bobbsey of his wife.

“Where could we stay?” she inquired.

“There is a large log cabin that one of my foremen used to live in,” Mr. Bobbsey answered. “The cabin is empty, and we could stay there as long as the weather did not get too cold, and as long as there were no bad storms. I really ought to go right to the woods, so that if I cannot get on the track of the lost shipment of Christmas trees I can start the men to cutting others. So we might as well all go.”

“Oh, what fun!” cried the Bobbsey twins.

Since that first fall of snow, which did not last very long, there had been no storms in the region of Lakeport, and Mr. Bobbsey thought he could get to Cedar Camp and return with his family before the really severe winter weather set in. He did not believe it would take long to look up the matter of the delayed shipment of the Christmas trees and straighten it out.

So it was settled, and a few days later, when plans had been completed, the Bobbsey family started for Cedar Camp.

CHAPTER VII—IN THE NORTH WOODS

“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?”

CHAPTER VIII—A NUTTING PARTY

He grunted in such a funny way, and he looked so odd sitting there in the dusk, as if he did not know what had happened, that Flossie and Freddie laughed. And this laughter seemed to make them less afraid of the queer call of the woods.

“Hurt yourself, Bert?” asked his father, looking up from his task of throwing the gleams of a flashlight in among the parts of the automobile motor.

“No, sir,” Bert answered. “I just sat down sudden, that’s all. But what was that noise, Daddy? Is it——”

As if finding fault because the Bobbsey twins had come to Cedar Camp, once more the warning call came.

“There it goes again!” exclaimed Nan.

Flossie and Freddie shrank closer to their mother, and even Nan seemed a little afraid, but Mr. Bobbsey only laughed.

“That’s a hoot owl—or a screech owl, I don’t know which,” he said. “Anyhow, it’s only a bird with feathers and big, staring eyes. And, very likely, it’s looking down at us now and wondering what we’re doing in his woods.”

“Is the owl looking at us now?” asked Freddie, climbing away from his mother and venturing to the door of the car.

“Very likely,” his father said. “But the chances are you can’t see it. Owls keep pretty well hidden when there’s any daylight left.”

“Well, the light is fast fading,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “It’s getting dark very fast, Dick. And unless we get to camp soon—well, you know what may happen,” she said to her husband. “Do you think you can get the motor to going?”

“I think so,” he answered. “Bert, please come here and hold the light for me.”

Glad to be of help to his father, Bert arose from the ground, to which he had slipped when the sudden noise of the owl startled him, and went to hold the flash lamp. As he sent the beam moving about, in order to direct it just where his father wished it, there was a whirr and a flutter in the almost leafless branches of the trees overhead, and Flossie cried:

“There it is!”

“Yes, that’s Mr. Owl,” laughed her father. “He came up to look at us, but he doesn’t like our bright light, because it hurts his eyes. So he flew away. Now come on, Bert, and we’ll get the motor to running again. They’ll be anxious at Cedar Camp if we don’t get there soon.”

“Do they expect us?” asked Nan.

“Oh, surely,” said her father. “Hold the light steady, Bert.”

The Bobbsey twin lad did as requested, and after a little examination, his father exclaimed:

“I see what the trouble is—a loose wire on a spark plug! That’s easily fixed. We’ll be traveling on again in a few minutes.”

And so they were. Once the wire was fastened in place, the automobile could go again. Bert and his father got back in, there was a chugging and throb of the motor, and off they went through the woods, the two headlights gleaming along the dark road in the midst of the trees.

“I wish we could have arrived by daylight,” said Mr. Bobbsey, as he carefully steered the car. “Cedar Camp looks ever so much better then.”

“I’m glad to get here at all—so we don’t have to stay out in the woods all night,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.

“It would be fun to be out in the woods all night—if owls didn’t bite you—wouldn’t it, Flossie?” asked Freddie.

“Yes, I guess maybe,” answered the little girl. “But I’d rather be in our camp an’ have something to eat.”

“I guess I would, too,” agreed Freddie.

“Well, here we are, then. Cedar Camp!” suddenly cried Mr. Bobbsey, and, almost before the twins knew it, the car had turned from the dense woods and was in a clearing, or place where many trees were chopped down.

Around the clearing were many log cabins, and inside some of them, and outside others, lanterns were glowing, so the place was quite light, compared to the darkness of the forest.

“Cedar Camp!” cried Bert. “Is this it?”

“Yes,” his father answered. “Here we are—a little late, but better late than never! Now to find our cabin.”

He guided the car into the midst of the clearing, and the children could see the various cabin doors opening and men and women looking out.

“That you, Mr. Bobbsey?” a voice called.

“Yes, Jim Denton,” was the answer. “We’re here!”

“Thought maybe you’d given up and wouldn’t get here until to-morrow,” the voice went on.

As the car stopped the Bobbsey twins saw a tall, lanky man, wearing rough clothes, but whose face had a kind smile and whose blue eyes looked laughingly at them. He stood at the side of the car, peering in.

“We did have a little trouble,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “And one of your owls seemed to think we hadn’t any right in the woods. But here we are!”

“One of the owls, eh?” laughed Jim Denton, the foreman of the Christmas tree and lumber camp. “Well, they sure are queer birds! Make an outlandish racket, sometimes. But come on in. Your place is all ready for you, and Mrs. Baxter has had supper ready for some time.”

“That’s good!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. “The children are half starved, I fancy.”

“Run your car over to the shed,” said the foreman to Mr. Bobbsey. “It’ll be safe there if it snows.”

“Had any snow up here yet?” asked the father of the twins.

“Not yet, but it may come any day. I heard you had a little down your way.”

“But it didn’t last very long,” Freddie chimed in. “We didn’t have much coasting at all!”

“You didn’t, eh?” laughed Jim, as he lifted out Flossie and Freddie, Bert and Nan being too big for this attention. “Well, when we do get snow up here we generally get a lot, and it may come any time. But the longer it holds off the better we can get out lumber and Christmas trees.”

“What about my Christmas trees?” asked Mr. Bobbsey. “That’s what I came up about.”

“It is queer about those trees,” said the foreman, as he helped Mrs. Bobbsey out. “We sent a lot off from here, but they must be stuck somewhere on the railroad down below. However, if they’re lost we can cut more. There’s plenty in the woods.”

Mrs. Bobbsey and the children waited until Mr. Bobbsey had put the car under a shed, and then, when he joined them, the family, led by the foreman, walked toward the largest cabin in the clearing. This was to be the home of the Bobbseys while they were at Cedar Camp.

“Well, I am glad to see you folks!” exclaimed Mrs. Baxter, who was to do the cooking and help Mrs. Bobbsey during the stay in camp. “I began to be afraid that something had happened.”

“A wire came loose,” said Freddie. “But daddy soon fixed it. And we heard an owl hoot. Do you like owls?”

“Well, not specially,” answered Mrs. Baxter, with a laugh.

“I don’t, either,” said Flossie.

The Bobbsey twins looked about the cabin that was to be their home for a time. It was a large one, and had been used by a former foreman with a large family. There were several bedrooms and it had many of the comforts of life, even though it stood in the North Woods.

Mrs. Baxter was the wife of one of the men employed in cutting down trees, and she had agreed to cook for the Bobbseys during their stay. She and her husband lived in one of the smaller cabins, and her grown daughter would cook for Mr. Baxter while his wife was with the Bobbseys.

“Now get your things off and sit right up to the table,” cried Mrs. Baxter. “The supper’s sort of spoiled, keeping so long.”

“I fancy the twins are hungry enough to eat almost anything,” said their mother. “I know I am!”

In spite of what Mrs. Baxter said, the supper proved to be very good indeed, and Flossie and Freddie passed their plates back so often to be filled again that their father said:

“My goodness! there won’t be anything left for breakfast.”

“Won’t there, Mother?” asked Freddie anxiously, pausing with his fork half way to his mouth.

“Oh, yes! Of course! Your father’s only joking!” she said, with a laugh. “But don’t eat too much.”

“I want just a little more,” begged Flossie.

“Can we go out and look at the camp after supper?” Bert wanted to know.

“You can’t see much by lantern light,” his father told him. “You’ll have plenty of chances to-morrow and the next few days.”

Bert found it too dark out of doors when he took a look after leaving the table, and decided to wait until morning.

The cabin was warm and cosy, and the Bobbsey twins thought they had never come to a more delightful place than Cedar Camp. They sat and talked a little while after the meal, and then, when Flossie and Freddie began to show signs of being sleepy, their mother said it was time for them to go to bed. Bert and Nan soon followed.

It seemed to be the middle of the night when Flossie, awakened from a sound sleep, heard a great noise and loud shouting outside the log cabin.

“Mother! Mother! What’s that?” she whispered.

“Only the lumbermen going to work,” Mrs. Bobbsey answered.

“Do they go to work in the night?” Flossie wanted to know.

“It’s almost morning—the sun will soon be up,” her mother told the little girl. “Keep quiet and don’t awaken Freddie.”

Flossie turned over and closed her eyes, thinking it strange that men should have to get up and go to work in the night. It was dark, and the stars were shining, as she could see by a glimpse through her window.

“I guess maybe they’re like Santa Claus,” thought Flossie. “They have to go out to cut Christmas trees in the dark, same as St. Nicholas comes to our house in the dark on Christmas Eve.”

Content with this thought, the little girl fell asleep, not to awaken again until it was broad daylight. She found that all were up save Freddie and herself, but the youngest Bobbsey twins soon joined the others at the breakfast table.

“Oh, goodie!” cried Freddie, when he understood that Mrs. Baxter was baking buckwheat cakes and had maple syrup to pour over them. “That’s what I like!”

“He can’t like ’em all, can he, Mother?” cried Flossie. “I can have some pancakes, can’t I?”

“Hush! There’ll be plenty for all of you!” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “What will Mrs. Baxter think?”

“I’ll think they’re good and hungry; and that is what I like to see when I’m baking cakes,” laughed the good-natured cook. She was almost as nice as Dinah, Freddie whispered to Flossie.

“An’ if she has a birthday we—we’ll give her something,” whispered Flossie.

“Yes,” agreed Freddie, holding out his plate for another cake.

After breakfast Mrs. Bobbsey took the children for a walk in the woods around the camp, while Mr. Bobbsey went to talk with some of his lumbermen about the missing Christmas trees.

“Don’t go too far away,” he called to his wife.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because the woods here are rather wild, and you and the children might get lost. There aren’t many trails, paths, or roads. Keep close to camp.”

“I will,” she promised.

It was wonderful and beautiful in the North Woods, even though winter was at hand. Most of the birds had gone, and about the only trees that had any leaves on were the oaks. An oak tree holds many of its leaves all winter, the old ones being pushed off in the spring as the new ones come on. But there were so many spruce, pine, hemlock, and cedar trees growing all about—trees which remain green from one year to the other—that the woods were not as bare and dreary as are most forests. Cedar Camp was indeed a green Christmas camp, and a most lovely place.

“We’ll have lots of fun here!” cried Freddie, running to the edge of a little hill.

“Lots of fun!” agreed Flossie. “We’ll——” and then she stopped suddenly, for Freddie did a queer thing—or at least a queer thing happened to the little fellow. His feet seemed to slide out from under him, and down the hill he went, almost as though sliding on the ice!

“Oh, look! Look!” cried Flossie. “What made him do that?”

“I slid! I slid! Oh, I had a slide! I’m going to slide it again!” cried Freddie, jumping up and scrambling to the top of the hill again. “Come on, Flossie!”

“What makes him slide, Mother?” asked Flossie, as she saw her little brother go down the hill standing up, just as he and his small sister had often done on a snowy, icy slope.

“It’s the pine needles,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “The ground is covered with the long, brown, smooth pine needles, and they make a slippery carpet. You may slide on them. If you fall you won’t be hurt.”

Soon the two smaller Bobbsey twins were having great fun sliding down the slippery pine-needle-covered hill, and Bert and Nan also took their turns.

But after two or three slides Bert found something on the ground that made him exclaim in delight and run to his mother to show her.

“Look!” he cried. “A chestnut! Are there chestnuts in these woods?”

“Yes, I did hear your father say something about them,” Mrs. Bobbsey replied.

“Oh, let’s hunt for some!” cried Nan.

“We’ll help!” added Flossie and Freddie, deserting the pine-needle slide for the joys of nutting.

But though the twins looked in all directions they found only a few scattered chestnuts.

“The squirrels have picked up most of them,” said Jim Denton, coming along a little later. “But there’s a chestnut grove not far away, up Pine Brook, and there ought to be plenty left if you don’t wait too long.”

“Oh, Mother! may Nan and I go chestnutting?” asked Bert. “I want to get a lot!”

“Will it be safe for them?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey of the foreman.

“Oh, yes,” answered Jim. “It isn’t more than a mile and the trail is plain. I’ll tell ’em how to go and show ’em the way.”

And so, the next morning, Bert and Nan started off on a chestnut party, little dreaming of the strange things that were to happen to them and the other Bobbsey twins.

CHAPTER IX—SAWMILL FUN

“Yes,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, “perhaps they would. You can take them some other time, I suppose.” Then, as she knew Flossie and Freddie would be disappointed, Mrs. Bobbsey called to them:

“Come, little twins, we’ll go down to the sawmill and see the big logs sawed up into boards. Maybe you can ride on the log carriers.”

Flossie and Freddie knew what this was, and to them there was no better fun. Also they liked to see the big, jagged-tooth saw whizzing about and cutting its way through the logs with such a queer, ripping, buzzing sound.

“Oh, if we can go to the sawmill that will be ’most as much fun as nutting,” agreed Freddie.

“Will you bring us some nuts?” asked Flossie.

“Yes,” promised Nan. “And next time we go we’ll take you.”

So the nutting party was arranged. Taking lunch was a sort of afterthought on the part of Bert.

“What’ll we do if we get hungry?” he had asked his mother.

“We’ll take something to eat in our pockets,” Nan had said.

“I’m going to eat mine outside—sitting on a log!” laughed Bert.

“Smarty!” laughed Nan. “I’ll catch you next time!”

Mrs. Baxter put up for the children a good lunch, more than enough for two meals, Mrs. Bobbsey said.

“But we’ll get awful hungry in the woods,” Bert remarked. “And we don’t want to have to eat the nuts we get.”

True to his promise, Jim Denton, the foreman, showed the older Bobbsey twins where to take the path that led up along Pine Brook and deeper into the forest about Cedar Camp, where the chestnut trees were growing.

“Good-bye!” called Flossie and Freddie, as they stood on the porch of the log cabin, waving to Bert and Nan, who started off with their lunch to be gone the rest of the day on the nutting party.

“Good-bye,” echoed the older Bobbsey twins, and then they were soon lost to sight in the turn of the path along Pine Brook, which led deeper into the North Woods.

“Now for some sawmill fun!” called Mrs. Bobbsey. “We’ll go down and see the little saw chew up the big logs.”

In addition to sending to market logs for telegraph poles and the masts of ships, Mr. Bobbsey’s men in the North Woods also sawed up trees into planks and boards which were sold in the neighborhood. Besides this there was the Christmas tree trade, but that only took place at this time of year, around the holidays.

Flossie and Freddie were too small to think much about the missing Christmas trees, which their father had come to camp to see about. All they were anxious for was to have some fun, and going to the sawmill was part of this.

The sawmill was farther down on Pine Brook, where that stream widened out and was dammed up to make a waterfall. Part of the waterfall went through a flume, or sort of wooden canal, and the water, falling down a shaft, or wooden tunnel standing on end, turned a turbine wheel.

A turbine wheel is quite different from the ordinary mill wheel you may have seen. In fact you can not see the turbine wheel at all, for it is closed in at the bottom of the water shaft. It is small, but very powerful, and it was this kind of wheel which turned the saw machinery in Mr. Bobbsey’s Cedar Camp mill.

Before the smaller Bobbsey twins reached the mill they could hear the ripping, tearing sound of the saw as it cut its way through the logs, slicing them into boards as your mother slices the loaf of bread with the carving knife.

“Good morning, Mrs. Bobbsey—also little twins!” called Foreman Tom Case, who had charge of the sawmill. “Did you come to buy some lumber this morning?”

Flossie and Freddie knew Tom Case, for he had, at one time, worked in the lumberyard of their father in Lakeport, so it was meeting an old friend to see him here.

“Do you want one or two million feet this morning, Flossie?” asked the jolly sawman. “And will you take it with you or have it sent?”

“I guess we’ll just take some sawdust for Flossie’s doll,” laughed Freddie. This was a standing joke between the sawmill man and the little twins. Tom Case was always trying to sell a big lot of lumber to Flossie and Freddie, and they always said all they wanted was a little sawdust.

“Oh, shucks! you aren’t any kind of customers to have around a lumber camp,” laughed Mr. Case. “Where’s the rest of the family?” he asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

“Bert and Nan have gone nutting,” their mother answered. “So we came down here to see what was going on.”

“Well, we’re sawing up a lot of logs to-day,” said the head man of the mill. “Here, you twins sit right down on this soft place, and you can watch everything.” Mr. Case spread a horse blanket on top of a pile of soft, fragrant sawdust, and on this Mrs. Bobbsey and the smaller twins sat down.

They saw the lumber men float logs down into the pond at one side of the dam and near the flume through which the water dropped to turn the turbine wheel. Into these logs a big iron hook was driven. The hook was fast to a chain, and the chain was wound around a drum, or big roller.

When a man threw over a lever that started the machinery, the drum turned, the chain was wound up and the log was pulled from the water up on land and ready to be put on the moving carriage which fed it into the teeth of the saw.

“Could we ride on the logs?” cried Flossie, as she saw them pulled, or “snaked,” as it is called, out of the pond and up on shore.

“Yes! Yes!” chimed in Freddie.

“Oh, no,” his mother answered. “You might roll off, and if the log turned over, and got on your legs, it would break them. It wouldn’t be safe—see there!”

One of the lumbermen had jumped on top of a log that was being pulled along by the chain. For a time he kept his balance, and was given a ride. But as Mrs. Bobbsey cried out, the log struck a stone and turned over, and if the lumberman had not jumped he would have been thrown.

He leaped to one side with a laugh, and ran into the mill.

“That’s what might have happened to you, only you might not have gotten off so easily,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.

“I’d like to ride,” sighed Flossie.

“So would I!” added Freddie.

“Let ’em ride on the log carriage. That’s safe if they don’t get too near the saw, and you can ride with them and watch,” said Tom Case.

“All right,” agreed Mrs. Bobbsey.

The log carriage was a movable platform of framework, on which the logs rested as they were sawed into boards. The logs were rolled up on the carriage by men, when the machinery had been stopped and the big buzz saw was no longer whirring around. Once a log was fastened in place, Tom Case pulled a lever, and the turbine wheel began to turn the saw, and also move forward the carriage. The carriage, or framework carrying the log, moved slowly forward by means of cogwheels underneath, so that it fed the log into the teeth of the saw which ripped off wide planks and boards.

Mrs. Bobbsey and the little twins sat on the far end of the carriage, and began to ride forward with it. Of course if they had stayed on too long they would have been carried up against the dangerous saw just as the log was. But before this would happen they could step off, as the carriage moved slowly, like an automobile just before it stops.

“Oh, this is fun!” cried Flossie, as she dragged her feet through little piles of sawdust.

“’Most as much fun as nutting!” agreed Freddie. “I’m going to be a lumber-saw man when I grow up.”

“Then you aren’t going to be a fireman?” asked his mother, for that had been Freddie’s great ambition.

“Nope; I’m going to have a sawmill,” he decided. But as he changed his mind about every other day concerning what he intended to do when he grew up, his mother did not take him seriously this time.

She and the twins rode on the log carriage until the big tree length was almost sawed through, and then she helped Flossie and Freddie off. With a final zip and clatter the board was sawed off the side of the log. Then the carriage would move back its full length, the log would be shifted over to enable the saw to cut a new place, and the work would start over again.

The log carriage moved backward, when no sawing was being done, much faster than it moved forward. And the little Bobbsey twins liked this backward ride very much, as they went fairly whizzing along.

“All aboard!” called Tom Case, as he prepared to send the carriage on its return trip. Mrs. Bobbsey and Flossie and Freddie took their places.

There was a rattle and a rumble, and back they shot, the twins shouting in glee and kicking aside the piles of sawdust. Thus they had great fun at the sawmill, and they did not want to come away when the noon whistle blew and it was time for lunch. For there was a steam engine in Cedar Camp, as well as the turbine wheel, and this steam engine had a whistle which the engineer blew to tell the men to stop for dinner.

After dinner Mrs. Bobbsey went to lie down, and after cautioning Flossie and Freddie not to go near the sawmill without her, she left the smaller twins to amuse themselves near the cabin. Their father was out with some of his men looking after Christmas trees, and as Bert and Nan had gone nutting, Flossie and Freddie looked about to find some amusement of their own.

“Let’s play sawmill!” proposed Freddie, as he and Flossie wandered down near Pine Brook, where it ran over the dam, making a waterfall.

“All right,” agreed the little girl. “But what’ll we have for a saw?”

Freddie looked around and noticed a wheelbarrow not far off.

“That’ll do,” he said. “We’ll turn it downside up, and I’ll turn the wheel for a saw and you can hold sticks against it and make believe they’re being sawed up.”

“All right,” agreed Flossie. “That’ll make a fine saw.”

They went over to the wheelbarrow, and then a new idea came to Freddie.

“Oh, Flossie!” he cried, “you sit in it and I’ll wheel you down to the edge of the brook. We’ll have our sawmill there, and make believe to snake logs out of the water like Mr. Case did.”

This suited Flossie exactly, and soon she had taken her place in the wheelbarrow. Freddie grasped the handles, but his sister was almost more of a load than he had bargained for. Still he was a sturdy little chap, and he managed to stagger on, wheeling Flossie toward the brook.

There was a smooth place on a little knoll near the brook where Freddie intended to set up his wheelbarrow sawmill. Toward this place he wheeled Flossie, and all might have gone well had it not been for the fact that the ground was covered with those slippery pine needles.

Freddie managed to wheel his sister up the slope, and he was just going to set the barrow down and tell Flossie to get out so he could turn it over and make a saw of it, when his feet slipped. He lurched forward, gave the wheelbarrow a push, and, an instant later, it turned over, and Flossie, sliding on the slippery, brown pine needles, began to go down the slope and straight toward the brook, just back of the dam.

Freddie, too, sat down hard and suddenly, but though the breath was knocked out of him for a moment, he managed to pick himself up and to cry:

“Mother! Mother! Come quick! Flossie’s fallen into the brook and she’ll be carried over the dam!”

And, as he called, into the water at the foot of the pine needle hill splashed poor Flossie Bobbsey!

CHAPTER X—A SUDDEN STORM

“I hope we get a lot,” went on Bert, kicking aside the pine cones and dried leaves. “We’ll want some for Flossie and Freddie.”

“Yes, and for daddy and mother,” added Nan. “They like chestnuts, too.”

The day had started as a bright and sunny one, though it was colder up here in the North Woods than down in Lakeport. But Bert and Nan were warmly dressed, and they were so accustomed to being out of doors that a little cold did not bother them.

But though the sun had shone brightly when they had started on their nutting trip, they had not gone far before the sky began to be overcast with clouds. Not that Bert and Nan minded this. They were too busy looking for chestnut trees and thinking what a good time they were having to mind the weather.

For it was fun just to walk through the woods and breathe the sweet, spicy odors of the pine and cedar trees. The ground underfoot was thickly carpeted with dried leaves and pine needles, so that the footfalls of the older Bobbsey twins made scarcely any sound as they walked along.

It was so quiet that the children heard many sounds in the forest which was all about them. They were following a path that led along Pine Brook, and Jim Denton had said that if they kept to this path they would come after about a mile’s walk to a grove of chestnut trees.

“And if you don’t find any nuts there, keep on a little farther,” the lumberman had said. “The squirrels and chipmunks can’t have taken all of them.”

So interested were Bert and Nan that they paid little attention to the weather. In fact, they could scarcely see the sky at times. This was because the cedar and other trees were so thick overhead.

As they were going along the path where the pine needles made a thicker carpet than usual, Bert, who was in the lead, came to a sudden stop.

“What’s the matter?” asked Nan, shifting from one hand to the other the bundle of lunch she carried.

“I thought I heard something,” said Bert in a low voice.

A moment later there was no doubt of this, for both he and his sister heard a grunting noise in the bushes, and then they heard the rustle of dried leaves and the snapping of twigs.

“Oh, Bert! Maybe it’s a bear!” cried Nan, clinging to her brother.

“A—a bear!” gasped Bert. He hardly knew what else to say.

“Oh, look!” gasped Nan. She pointed toward a bush, and, coming out from under it, was a little animal, somewhat larger than a rabbit, but with different kind of fur, small ears, and with a tail that seemed to have rings of fur around it.

“It’s a little bear!” gasped Nan. “Oh, Bert! we’d better run back to camp before the big bear comes.”

Bert looked at the furry animal, whose bright eyes peered at the Bobbsey twins, and then Nan’s brother laughed.

“I know what it is!” he said. “It’s a raccoon. I can tell by the rings on its tail.”

“A raccoon!” gasped Nan. “Will it—will it hurt us?”

“No,” answered Bert, and this was borne out a moment later, for with a snorting grunt the raccoon turned and scurried away into the bushes.

“There!” said Bert. “He’s gone!”

“I’m glad of it,” returned Nan, with a sigh of relief. “I don’t like raccoons when I’m chestnutting.”

“They’re nice!” declared Bert. “I wish I could see him again.”

But the raccoon did not show itself, probably being just as much frightened at having seen the Bobbsey twins as Nan was at getting a glimpse of the ring-tailed creature.

Over this little fright, the Bobbsey twins walked on again, and soon they had reached the grove that the foreman had told them about.

“This must be the place—there are chestnut trees here,” said Bert. His father had taught him how to tell the more common sorts of trees by means of their leaves and bark.

“Well, let’s look for chestnuts,” proposed Nan.

With sticks the children began poking among the leaves, turning them over, for the little brown nuts, when the frost has popped them out of their prickly shells, have a great trick of hiding under the leaves.

“Oh, I’ve found one!” cried Nan. “Two—three! Oh, Bert, I’ve found three!”

She held out her hand with three shining brown nuts in it.

“Ought to be a lot more than that here,” said Bert, still poking away among the leaves. “There’s lots of trees and fresh burrs here. I guess the squirrels and chipmunks have been here too.”

“Oh, I’ve found two more! I’m beating you!” laughed Nan, as she picked up more nuts.

“I’ve found one, anyhow, and it’s a big one,” cried Bert, as he picked up his first. “But there aren’t as many as I thought there would be.”

The children continued to pick up a few nuts at a time, but there were not so many scattered over the ground as the lumberman had led them to expect.

“There’s the chap who’s been taking the nuts!” suddenly cried Bert.

“Who?” asked Nan, looking up after stooping to pick two of the brown prizes from a bursted burr.

“That squirrel!” cried Bert, pointing to one of the big-tailed gray fellows, sitting on a tree and looking down at the Bobbsey twins. “He and the chipmunks can soon clean up a chestnut grove.”

Just then a red squirrel, one of the most noisy chatterers of the woods, caught sight of the children and began to “scold” them. Oh, what a racket he made, his thin tail jerking from side to side as he gave his shrill cries! Bert and Nan laughed at him.

“He’s had his share of nuts,” said Bert, “and he’s mad ’cause we’re taking some, I guess. But we aren’t getting as many as we’d like.”

“No,” agreed Nan. “Maybe if we go on a little farther we’ll find more.”

“We’ll try,” agreed Bert and, almost before they knew it, the two children had wandered some distance from the place where Mr. Denton had told them to stop.

“Oh, look! There’s a pile of nuts here!” cried Nan, reaching another grove of chestnut trees. “The squirrels haven’t been here yet! Goodie!”

This was evident, for it did not take long, poking among the dried leaves, to show that the chestnuts were quite thick on the ground. In a short time Bert and Nan had half filled the salt bags they had brought with them to hold their spoils of the woods.

“Oh, this is great!” cried Nan, straightening up after four or five minutes of picking nuts from the ground.

“A little more of this and we’ll have enough,” said her brother.

But just then Nan looked up at the sky, which she could see through the overhead trees, and what she saw in the heavens made her exclaim:

“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?”