“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.
Bert and Nan Bobbsey stood on the step of the log cabin, while Mrs. Bimby, the old woman, held open the door. The snow blew swirling in around her, and a wave of grateful warmth seemed to rush out as if to wrap itself around the cold twins. For a moment they stood there, and Bert was just beginning to wonder if the old woman was going to shut the door in the faces of his sister and himself.
“Did you bring any news of Jim?” asked old Mrs. Bimby.
“Jim?” repeated Bert.
“Do you mean Jim Denton, the foreman at Cedar Camp?” asked Nan.
“No, child! I mean my Jim—Jim Bimby. He went off to town just before this awful storm. But land sakes! here I am talking and keeping you out in the cold. Come in!”
It was cold. Bert and Nan were beginning to feel that now, for the storm was growing worse, and it was now late afternoon. The sun was beginning to go down, though of course it could not be seen on account of the snow and clouds. The Bobbsey twins had wandered farther and longer than they had thought. But at last they had found a place of shelter.
“It’s just like me to keep you standing there while I talk,” said Mrs. Bimby. “I’m sorry. But I’m so worried about Jim that I reckon I don’t know what I’m doing. Come in and get warm, and I’ll give you something to eat.”
“We’ve got something to eat, thank you,” said Nan. “But we would like to get warm,” and she followed Bert inside the log cabin, as Mrs. Bimby stepped aside to make room for them to enter.
“Got something to eat, have you?” questioned the old woman. “Well, you’re lucky, that’s all I’ve got to say. I’ve only a little, but I expect Jim back any minute with more, though a dollar don’t buy an awful lot these days.”
“Does Jim live here?” asked Bert, as he walked over to a stove, in which a fire of wood was burning, sending out a grateful heat.
“Of course he lives here,” said Mrs. Bimby. “He’s my husband. He’s a logger—a lumberman.”
“Oh, maybe he works for my father!” exclaimed Nan. “Mr. Bobbsey, you know. He owns part of Cedar Camp.”
“No, I don’t know him,” said Mrs. Bimby, “though I’ve heard of Cedar Camp. They got a lot of Christmas trees out of there.”
“That’s what we came up about,” explained Bert. “Some Christmas trees my father bought to sell didn’t come to Lakeport, and he came up here to see about them. We came with him—and my mother and the other twins.”
“Good land! are there more of you?” asked Mrs. Bimby in surprise. “You two are twins, for a fact. But——”
“There’s Flossie and Freddie,” interrupted Nan. “We left them back in camp while we went after chestnuts.”
“We got some, too,” added Bert. “But we sort of got lost in the storm. Do you s’pose your husband could take us back to Cedar Camp?” he asked Mrs. Bimby. “My father will pay him,” he said, quickly, as he saw Mrs. Bimby shaking her head.
“Maybe Mr. Bimby works at the sawmill,” suggested Nan.
“No,” said the old woman, “Jim is a logger and wood cutter, but he doesn’t work at Cedar Camp. That’s too far off for him to go to and get back from.”
“Too far off!” echoed Nan, and she began to have a funny feeling, as she told Bert afterward.
“Yes,” resumed Mrs. Bimby. “Cedar Camp is away over on the other side of the hills. You’re a long way from home. You must have taken the wrong road in the storm.”
“I—I guess we did,” admitted Bert. “But couldn’t your husband take us back?”
Again Mrs. Bimby shook her head.
“Jim, my husband, isn’t home,” she said. “He went over to town just before the storm to get us something to eat. But now I don’t see how he’s going to get back,” and she went to a window to look out at the storm.
It was getting much worse, as Bert and Nan could see. The wind howled around the corners of the log cabin of Jim Bimby, the logger, and the blast whistled down the chimney, even blowing sparks out around the door of the wood-burning stove.
“Yes, it’s a bad storm,” went on the old woman. “I wish Jim was back, and with some victuals to eat. When you twins knocked I thought it was Jim. I wish he’d come back, but he’s an old man, and he may fall down in the snow and not be able to get up. He isn’t as strong as he used to be. I’m certainly worried about Jim!”
“Oh, maybe he’ll come along all right,” said Nan, trying to be helpful and comforting.
“If he doesn’t pretty soon it’ll be night, and in all this storm he never can find his way after dark. But you children take your things off and sit up and have a cup of tea with me. I’ve got some tea and condensed milk left, anyhow.”
“We can’t take tea unless it’s very weak,” said Nan, remembering her mother’s rule in this respect.
“All right, dearie, I’ll make it weak for you twins, though I like it strong myself,” said Mrs. Bimby. “My, what a storm! What a storm!” and she drew her shawl more closely around her shoulders as the wind howled down the chimney.
Bert and Nan took off their warm things, laying their packages of lunch and the bags of chestnuts on the table. Nan saw the old woman go to a closet, and the glimpse the Bobbsey girl had of the shelves showed her that they contained only a little food.
“Bert and I have some of our lunch left,” said Nan.
“And you can have some, if you want to,” went on Bert. “We put up a pretty good lunch, and there’s more’n half of it left.”
“Bless your hearts, my dears,” said Mrs. Bimby. “I wouldn’t take your lunch. You’ll need it yourselves. I’ve a little victuals left in the house, though if my Jim doesn’t get back soon there won’t be much for to-morrow. My, what a storm! What a storm!”
The small log cabin seemed to shake and tremble in the wind, as though it would blow away. And the snow was now coming down so thickly that Bert and Nan could see only a short distance out of the window. There was little to see, anyhow, save trees and bushes, and these were fast becoming covered with snow.
Mrs. Bimby busied herself about the stove, putting the kettle on so she could make tea, and Bert and Nan watched her. The Bobbsey twins were wondering what would happen, how they could get home, and whether or not their father and mother would worry. Nan looked about the cabin. She did not see any beds, but a steep flight of stairs, leading up to what seemed to be a second story, might provide bedrooms, Nan thought. The cabin was clean and neat, and she was glad of that.
“I do hope Jim comes,” murmured Mrs. Bimby, as she poured the boiling water on the dry tea leaves in the pot. “I do hope he isn’t storm-bound!”
Bert and Nan hoped the same thing, for, somehow, Bert thought if Mr. Bimby came along he would take the twins back to Cedar Camp.
“Now sit up, dearies, and have some weak tea, and I’ll take mine strong. I need it for my nerves,” said the old woman.
And while Bert and Nan had thus found shelter from what turned out to be one of the worst storms ever remembered in the country around Cedar Camp, the other Bobbsey twins, Flossie and Freddie, were safe at home with their mother. Flossie was now cozy and warm after her dip into the water.
“There’s your father!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, as she heard someone stamping off the snow at the front door. “I hope he has Bert and Nan with him.”
But when Mr. Bobbsey came in alone and heard that the older twins had not come back from their nutting trip, a worried look came over his face.
“Not back yet!” he exclaimed. “Why, it’s getting dark and the storm is growing worse! I must start out after them with some of the lumbermen. They must be lost!”
“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.
Having been out in the cold and storm so long, Jim Bimby seemed to have become half frozen. He did not appear to understand what Mr. Bobbsey asked him. The old logger staggered to his feet, helped by some of the men from Cedar Camp, and looked about him.
“What’s the matter?” asked Old Jim in a faint voice. “Did something happen? I remember startin’ off to get—to get something to eat for my wife and me. Then I fell down, tired out, I guess.”
“I guess you did!” exclaimed Tom Case. “And if we hadn’t found you, you’d have been done for. We must get you to shelter.”
“Take him around behind this big pine tree a minute,” suggested Jim Denton. “He’ll be out of the wind there, and we can give him a drink of the hot tea we brought along.”
Some hot tea, mixed with milk, had been put in a thermos bottle and taken with the party to have ready for Nan and Bert, should the Bobbsey twins be found. Now this hot drink would do for poor old Jim Bimby.
Some of the men managed to light lanterns they carried, though it was hard work on account of the wind and snow, and the whole party, including the rescued man, went to the side of the big pine tree, which kept off some of the storm.
“There! I feel better,” said Old Jim, as he swallowed the warm drink.
“And now can you tell us whether or not you saw my two children, Nan and Bert—the Bobbsey twins?” again asked their father anxiously.
Old Jim shook his head.
“No,” he answered. “I didn’t see any children. I came straight from my cabin, over the hill trail, to go to the village to get some food. The cupboard is almost bare at my house. I didn’t think it was goin’ to storm, and I was all taken aback when it did. I kept on, but I must have lost my way.”
“Guess you did,” said Mr. Peterson. “And you’re not likely to get back on it in this storm, either.”
“What!” cried Old Jim. “You mean to say I can’t keep on to the store and take some food back to my wife?”
“Not in this storm!” said Tom Case. “You’re miles from the store now, and more miles from your cabin. You’d best come to Cedar Camp with us, and in the morning, when the storm is over, you can go on again. Your wife has enough food to last until morning, hasn’t she?”
“Yes, I guess so,” answered Mr. Bimby.
“But what has become of Bert and Nan?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.
“Now look here, Mr. Bobbsey,” said Tom Case, “don’t go to worrying about those children. They’re all right. Bert and Nan are smart, and when they saw this storm coming on they went to some shelter, you can depend on that. They’d know better than to try to make their way back to camp.”
“Well, perhaps they would,” admitted the father of the missing twins. “And perhaps, when we get back to camp, we’ll find them there. Some logger or hunter may have found them and taken them to our cabin.”
“Of course,” agreed Mr. Peterson.
By this time “Old Jim,” as he was called, to distinguish him from Jim Denton, the lumber foreman, was feeling much better. He was still weak, and he leaned on the arm of one of the lumbermen as they turned back. The storm was still fierce, and it was now night, but lanterns gave light enough to see the way through the forest.
Had it not been that the lumber and Christmas tree men knew their way through the woods, the party might never have reached Cedar Camp. As it was they lost the trail once, and had hard work to find it again. But finally they plunged through several drifts of snow that had formed, and broke out into the clearing around the sawmill.
“Did you find them?” cried Mrs. Bobbsey, when her husband came to the cabin, knocking the snow off his feet.
“No,” he answered, and he tried to make his voice as cheerful as possible. “We didn’t find them, but they’re all right. They were probably taken in by some hunter or logger.”
Even as he said this Mr. Bobbsey was disappointed that Bert and Nan had not been brought back to camp during his absence, for he had half hoped that he would find them there on his own return.
“Oh, I do hope they’re all right!” said Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Of course they are!” her husband told her. “They’ll be here in the morning.”
“With chestnuts?” asked Flossie, who, with Freddie, had been awakened from an early evening sleep by the return of their father.
“Yes, they’ll bring chestnuts,” replied Mr. Bobbsey, trying to smile, though it was hard work, for he was really very much worried, as was his wife.
However, they did not let Flossie and Freddie know this. And as Mr. Bobbsey ate the warm supper which Mrs. Baxter set out for him, he told about the finding of Mr. Bimby, who had been taken to the cabin of Tom Case, there to spend the night.
“Can we see him?” cried Flossie, who did not seem any the worse for having fallen into the water.
“Maybe he can tell us a story about a real bear,” added Freddie, for he had been rather disappointed, since coming to Cedar Camp, because no one could tell him where to find a bear.
“Maybe he can,” said his father. “You shall see Old Jim, as the boys call him, in the morning.”
Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey did not pass a very happy night. They were much worried about the missing Nan and Bert, and though he tried to sleep, after Flossie and Freddie had gone to Slumberland, Mr. Bobbsey found it hard work. So did his wife.
More than once during the night, as they awakened after fitful naps and heard the wind howling around the cabin and the snow rattling against the windows, one or the other would say:
“Oh, I hope Bert and Nan are all right!”
And the other would say:
“I hope so!”
Morning came at last, but it was not such a morning as all in Cedar Camp had hoped for. They had expected the storm to be over, so that a searching party could again set out to find Bert and Nan.
But instead of the storm being over, it was even worse than the night before. A regular blizzard had set in, the snow coming out of the north on the wings of a cold wind. Great drifts were piled high here and there through the camp clearing, and when Freddie and Flossie looked from the window they could hardly see the sawmill.
“Oh, oh!” squealed Freddie. “Look, Flossie! Just look!”
“We’re snowed in!” cried Flossie. “Oh, what fun we’ll have!”
“It’s just like Snow Lodge!” added Freddie, remembering a time spent there, when several adventurous happenings had taken place.
“Yes, I’m afraid we are snowed in,” said Mr. Bobbsey, with an anxious look out of the window. “But I hope it will not last long. Well, here come Tom Case and Old Jim. I must see what they want,” and he went to the door to let them in.
Meanwhile the snow came down steadily, and as Flossie had said, that part of the Bobbsey family at Cedar Camp was fairly snowed in. As for the other members of the family, Bert and Nan, we must now try to find out what had happened to them.
Having finished drinking the weak tea which Mrs. Bimby brewed for them, eating with it some of the lunch they had brought along, Bert and Nan sat in the lonely cabin in the woods wondering what would happen next. There was no other cabin or house near them, and as they heard the wind howl down the chimney and moan around the corners, and heard the rattle of hard snow against the window, the older Bobbsey twins were glad they had found this shelter.
“Do you think we’ll be able to start back soon, Mrs. Bimby?” asked Nan, as she helped the old woman clear the tea things off the table.
“Back where, dearie?”
“Back to our camp.”
“Oh, not to-night, surely,” said Mrs. Bimby. “You won’t dare venture out in this storm. It’s getting worse, and black night is coming on. You just stay here with me. I can make up beds for you, and I’ll be glad to have you, since my Jim isn’t coming back, I reckon.”
“What do you think has become of him?” asked Bert, who was interested in looking at a gun that hung over the mantel.
“Well, I reckon he got to the village, but found the storm so bad he didn’t dare to start back,” answered Mrs. Bimby.
Of course she did not know what had happened to Old Jim any more than Jim knew that the older Bobbsey twins were in his own cabin.
“But Jim’ll be here in the morning,” said his wife. “And I do hope he’ll bring in something to eat. If he doesn’t——”
She did not finish what she started to say, and Nan asked:
“Will you starve, Mrs. Bimby?”
“Well, not exactly starve, for I s’pose a body could keep alive on tea and condensed milk for a while. But we’ll be pretty hungry. There’ll be three to feed instead of just one,” the old woman went on.
“We’ve some food left,” said Bert. “And we can cook our chestnuts. We got quite a few before the storm came.”
“Bless your hearts, dearies!” exclaimed Mrs. Bimby. “You may be able to eat chestnuts, but my old teeth are too poor for that. But I dare say we’ll get along somehow, even if the cupboard is almost bare. Don’t you want to go to bed?”
“Oh, it’s too early,” objected Bert.
“Have you any games we could play?” asked Nan.
She and her brother were in the habit of playing simple games at home before going to bed, and it seemed natural to do it now. After the first shock of feeling that they were lost in the snow storm had passed, the Bobbsey twins were quite content. They felt that their father and mother must realize that they were safe.
“Games, dearie?” asked Mrs. Bimby. “Well, seems to me there’s some dominoes around somewhere, and I did see a checker board the other day. Jim used to play ’em when the loggers came in. I’ll see if I can dig ’em out.”
She rummaged through an old chest and brought to light a box of battered dominoes. But as several were missing it was hard to play a good game with them. As for the checkers, the board was there but the pieces, or men, were not to be found.
“But you can take kernels of corn,” said Mrs. Bimby. “I’ve often seen my Jim do that.”
“Checker men have to be of different color,” said Nan, “and corn is all one color, isn’t it?”
“There are red ears,” suggested Bert. “Don’t you remember we saw some when we were in the country?”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Nan.
“That’s what I was going to say,” remarked Mrs. Bimby. “I can give you some yellow kernels and some red ones, and you can play checkers if you like.”
This suited Nan and Bert, and though it was hard to make “kings” by placing one grain of corn on top of another, they managed to go on with the game, using pins to fasten two red or two yellow kernels one on top of the other when the king row was reached.
Grains of corn or some other cereal, or perhaps colored stones, were, very likely, the first sort of “men” used in the ancient game of checkers, and Bert and Nan got along very well in this way. Mrs. Bimby kept stoking the fire, putting on stick after stick of wood as it burned away, and the cabin was kept warm and cozy.
Outside the storm raged, the wind blew, and the snow came pelting down. But at times the older Bobbsey twins were so interested in their checker game that they hardly heard the sounds outside the log cabin.
At last Mrs. Bimby, with a look at the clock, said:
“It’s after nine, dearies; hadn’t you better go to bed? My Jim won’t come to-night, that’s sure, and I don’t believe any of your folks will come for you.”
“They don’t know where we are,” said Nan.
“No more they do, dearie. Well, I’ll show you where you’re to sleep. I’m glad I’ve got covers enough for two extra beds.”
There were three rooms in the second story of the log cabin. Two of the rooms were small, each one containing a little single cot. The other room was larger, and had a bed in it. Mrs. Bimby slept there, and she gave Bert and Nan each one of the smaller rooms. There was a window in each of the bedrooms, and being above the warm downstairs room, where a hot fire had been blazing all evening, the sleeping chambers were more comfortable than one would have supposed.
Bert and Nan were so sleepy that they did not lie awake long after getting to bed. As there were no pajamas for Bert and no night-gown for Nan, the children slept in their underclothes, taking off only their shoes and outer garments.
In spite of the fact that he fell asleep soon after going to bed, because he was tired from the day’s tramp after chestnuts, Bert was awakened in the middle of the night by hearing Nan call:
“Mother, please give me a drink!”
It was a request Bert had often heard his sister make before, and now he realized that she was either half awake, and did not remember where she was, or else she was talking in her sleep. He raised up on his elbow and listened. Again Nan said:
“I want a drink!”
Bert knew how hard it was to try to go to sleep when thirsty, so he got up and, having noticed on coming to bed the evening before a pail of water on a chair in the upper hall, he brought Nan a dipper full. Mrs. Bimby had left a lantern burning, so it was not dark in the cabin.
“Oh, Bert! I dreamed I was back home,” said Nan, as she took the drink her brother handed her. “Thank you!”
“Welcome,” he said, struggling to keep his sleepy eyes open.
“Is it still snowing?” asked Nan.
“Hard,” answered Bert, looking out of the window, though, truth to tell, he could see nothing, it was so pitch dark outside. But he could hear the rattle of snow against the glass.
“I hope it stops by morning,” sighed Nan.
“So do I—long enough for us to get back to camp, anyhow,” added Bert.
He got himself a drink and went back to bed, there to sleep soundly until morning, when Mrs. Bimby called him and Nan to get up.
“Come, dearies,” said the kind old woman. “We’ll have breakfast, such as it is.”
For a few moments after awakening Bert and Nan could not quite remember where they were. Bert afterward said that he hoped there would be hot buckwheat cakes for breakfast, with maple syrup, such as they had had in the cabin where Mrs. Baxter acted as cook. But there was no such appetizing smell as that of pancakes coming up from Mrs. Bimby’s kitchen.
“I’m sorry I haven’t any more to offer you,” she said to the children, as she set before them some more weak tea and a few pieces of bread and butter. “If my Jim had come back we’d have had enough to eat. But as it is, I’m afraid you’ll go hungry soon.”
“We’ll eat what’s left of our lunch,” said Bert.
“And cook some chestnuts,” added Nan. “We’ll pretend we’ve been shipwrecked. Were you ever shipwrecked, Mrs. Bimby?” Nan asked, as cheerfully as she could.
“No, dearie, but I’ve had the rheumatiz, and I reckon that’s ’most as bad. But let’s eat what we’ve got and we’ll hope for more before the day is over.”
“It’s still snowing, isn’t it?” remarked Nan, as she hungrily ate some of the dry food and swallowed some of the weak, but warm, tea.
“Yes, and it’s likely to keep up all day,” said Mrs. Bimby. “It’ll be hip-deep by night, and we’ll be completely snowed in. I declare, I don’t know what we’ll do!”
“Maybe it’ll stop,” suggested Bert, trying to look on the bright side.
“Or maybe it won’t be so bad but what we can go out,” added Nan. “And if we get back to camp we can send you something to eat by one of the men in a sleigh, Mrs. Bimby.”
“I wouldn’t let you go out in this storm—not for anything!” declared the kind old woman. “The only safe place is this cabin when it snows this way. You can’t starve to death as quickly as you can freeze to death, that’s a comfort. And we’ve got enough for one more meal, anyhow.”
But when noon came, after a long morning, during which the Bobbsey twins played more checker games with grains of corn, and when almost all there was in the cupboard had been eaten, Mrs. Bimby opened the doors, looked at the bare shelves and said:
“I declare, I don’t know what we’re going to do! Almost everything is gone!”
The cupboard, indeed, was nearly bare.
For some reason or other, Bert’s eyes rested on the gun on the wall over the mantel.
“Is that gun loaded, Mrs. Bimby?” he asked.
“Yes, I reckon ’tis,” she answered. “Jim always keeps it loaded, for he goes hunting sometimes.”
“What after?” asked Bert.
“Oh, squirrels and rabbits.”
“That’s what I’m going to do, then!” cried Bert. “If I could shoot some squirrels or rabbits we’d have a potpie and we wouldn’t be hungry. Will you please get that gun down for me, Mrs. Bimby?”
She looked at Bert and smiled.
“You’re pretty small to handle a gun,” she said. “But maybe you could fire it if I showed you how. I’ve shot it more ’n once, and I brought down a cawing crow last winter. Sometimes the rabbits come close up to our cabin here. Wait till I take a look.”
She went to the window to peer out into the storm, and Nan did likewise, while Bert continued to gaze at the gun on the wall. It was a shotgun, not very heavy, and he felt certain he could aim it at a rabbit and pull the trigger.
Mrs. Bimby shook her head as she turned away from her window.
“There’s no game here,” she said. “Guess we’ll have to go without a potpie.”
But Nan suddenly uttered an exclamation.
“Oh, I see one!” she cried. “I see a big rabbit! Two of ’em! Oh, Bert, it’s a shame to shoot the bunnies, but we can’t starve! Get the gun!”
Just about the time that Bert was getting ready to try for a rabbit potpie by firing the gun from the door of Mrs. Bimby’s cabin, in the other and larger cabin at Cedar Camp the smaller Bobbsey twins were having a good time. There was no danger there of starving, for the cupboard was far from being bare.
But of course Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were worried because, after their long night of worry, neither Bert nor Nan had come back, and there was no news of them.
“But we’ll surely hear from them to-day,” said Tom Case, as he came over through the storm after breakfast to learn if Mr. Bobbsey had any special plans.
“How’s Old Jim?” asked Mr. Bobbsey, as the head of the sawmill workers came in out of the storm, for it was still snowing.
“Oh, Jim’s all right,” was the answer. “But he’s worrying about his wife not having any food. I came over to say that if the storm lets up a little maybe we’d better try to take something to eat to the old lady. She’s all alone in her cabin.”
Of course neither he nor Old Jim knew that the two older Bobbsey twins were at that very moment with Mrs. Bimby.
“All right, it would be a good idea,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “And we must make another search for Bert and Nan.”
“I have a sort of feeling that they’re safe,” said Mr. Case. “And, really, it wouldn’t be wise for you to start out in this storm to look for them. I think it may moderate a little by to-morrow.”
“Let us hope so!” sighed Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Can’t Old Jim come over and play with us?” asked Flossie.
“We want to have some fun,” added Freddie.
The two smaller twins had been as good as possible, but they were not used to being cooped up in the house, and there really was not much to do in the cabin. No toys had been brought along, for Mr. Bobbsey had not expected to stay very long in looking after his Christmas trees. And he certainly never counted on being snowed in.
“Yes, I’ll bring Old Jim over,” said Mr. Case. “He’s pretty good at making things with his pocket knife. Shouldn’t wonder but what he could cut you out a doll, Flossie.”
“Can he make boats?” asked Freddie.
“Sure he can!” said the sawmill foreman.
“Where you going to sail a boat in the snow, Freddie Bobbsey?” asked Flossie.
“I—I’ll have him make me a snow-boat!” the little fellow said.
“Pooh!” laughed Flossie. “There are ice-boats, ’cause we rode in one once, but there aren’t any snow-boats, are there, Daddy?”
“Well, perhaps Old Jim can make one,” her father said. “Bring him over, Tom. I want to talk to him and find out where would be the most likely place for Nan and Bert to have found shelter.”
The old logger, who seemed to have gotten over his exposure to the storm, came to the Bobbsey cabin, and he somewhat relieved the worries of Bert’s father and mother by saying there were a number of cabins of loggers and trappers scattered through the woods, and he had an idea that Bert and his sister might have reached one of these.
“Well, we’ll start out and look for them as soon as the storm lets up a little,” said Mr. Bobbsey.
Freddie and Flossie made great friends with Old Jim. They took to him at once, and when he cut out of a piece of wood a queer doll for Flossie, and made for Freddie a thin wooden wheel, which would turn around in the waves of heat arising from the hot stove, the children were delighted.
They climbed all over Old Jim, and laughed and shouted as though they had no cares in the world. And, as a matter of fact, they were not old enough to worry about Bert and Nan. They thought their older brother and sister would come along sooner or later.
Slowly the day of storm passed, but with no let-up in the falling snow. The wind, while it did not blow as violently as at first, was high and cold, so that the little Bobbsey twins could not go out.
And it was about the time that Flossie and Freddie were having such fun with Old Jim that, back in this same logger’s lonely cabin, Bert and Nan were wondering whether they would have anything to eat for supper.
As Nan had said, she did see two large rabbits when she looked from the window. And she called to her brother to get the gun from its place over the mantel.
“Land sakes!” exclaimed Mrs. Bimby, “there are two right in plain sight. Now Bert, if you’re any kind of a shot, maybe we’ll have rabbit stew for supper. Here, take the gun, but be careful!”
Bert knew a little about firearms, and he was not at all afraid as Mrs. Bimby put the shotgun into his hands. Then she opened the door for him, very carefully, so as not to frighten the rabbits.
“They’re still there, right on top of the snow!” called Nan, as she peered from the window on her side of the cabin. “I’m not going to watch you shoot them, Bert, though I am terribly hungry. And I’m going to hold my hands over my ears so I won’t hear the gun.”
Bert was quite excited, and did not pay much attention to what his sister was saying, but he was not so excited that he could not hold the gun fairly steady.
“Hold it close against your shoulder, then it won’t kick so hard,” Mrs. Bimby whispered in his ear, as she helped him get the shotgun in place, and pointed it for him out of the open door.
The rabbits were in plain sight now, two wild, gray bunnies, fat and plump. Bert took sight over the little point on the end of the gun. He held this sight as steadily as he could in line with one of the rabbits.
“Better shoot quick!” whispered Mrs. Bimby. “I think they see us and they’ll scoot away in a minute!”
Bert gave a steady pull on the trigger, not a sudden pull, which is not the right way to shoot. A sudden pull spoils your aim.
“Bang!” went the shotgun.
“Oh!” screamed Nan, who, in spite of having held her hands over her ears, heard the report.
“I got one! I got one!” excitedly cried Bert, as he saw one of the bunnies lying on the snow. The other had scampered off.
“Yes, you did get one, child!” said Mrs. Bimby, as she ran out into the storm and came back with the game. “Now we shan’t starve. I’ll make a potpie.”
This she did, stewing the rabbit with some dumplings she made from a little flour she had left in the bottom of the barrel. Bert and Nan thought nothing had ever tasted so good as that rabbit potpie.
“You’ll be quite a hunter when you grow up,” said Mrs. Bimby, when the meal was over. “You shot straight and true, Bert!”
“But you helped me,” said the Bobbsey boy. “I couldn’t have aimed the gun straight if you hadn’t helped me.”
“But I saw the rabbits, didn’t I?” asked Nan.
“Yes, dearie, you surely did,” said the kind old woman. “Now we shan’t starve for a couple of days, anyhow.”
“And then I can shoot more rabbits, or maybe some squirrels,” Bert declared.
“I hope by that time the storm’ll be over,” remarked Mrs. Bimby, “and that my Jim will come back.”
“Will he take us home, or bring our father here?” Nan questioned.
“I guess so,” Mrs. Bimby answered.
But as the snow kept up all the remainder of that day, and as it was still storming hard when night came, there did not seem much chance of the two older Bobbsey twins being rescued.
Again Bert and Nan spent the night in the little rooms of the cabin, but they slept better this time, Nan not even awakening for a drink of water. And in the morning Bert looked from a window and cried:
“Hurray! The snow’s stopping! I’m going to start out and go back to camp!”
“You are?” asked Nan. “Are you going to take me?”
“No,” said Bert. “You’d better stay here. I’ll go to camp and send daddy back in a sled for you. He can hitch a horse to one of the lumber sleds now that the snow is stopping, and he can ride you home. And if I find your husband I’ll send him back with a lot of things to eat,” he told Mrs. Bimby.
“I wish you would, dearie,” said the old woman. “But are you really going to start out, Bert?”
“Yes’m! My father and mother will be worried about us. I can get to camp now, I’m sure, as the storm is almost over.”
Mrs. Bimby, who, though not very wise, was kind, made him take a little lunch with him, packing up some cold boiled chestnuts and part of the cold rabbit meat. It was all there was.
“But maybe I’ll get to camp before I have to eat,” said Bert. “And I’ll send back help to you.”
So Bert started out, Mrs. Bimby showing him the direction he was to take. It was still snowing a little, but he hoped it would soon stop.