The Bobbsey Twins at Cedar Camp Part 24

So, as they had done more than once before, they said nothing of their plans, but went about them secretly and quietly. While their mother and Mrs. Baxter were packing two large baskets with food for Old Jim's wife, and while Daddy Bobbsey was talking to the men about the coming trip through the snow-filled woods, Flossie and Freddie took their boots, coats, caps and mittens to the back door of the log cabin.

"We can slip out and put 'em on there when n.o.body is looking," said Freddie.

"We've got to take the bear skin out, too," Flossie remarked.

But when they tried to bundle the skin of the bear up so they could carry it, they found it so heavy and slippery to lift that they had to give it up.

"What'll we do?" asked Flossie, as, after several trials she had to admit that the skin could not be carried. "Mrs. Bimby'll be so disappointed!"

"We can tell her it's here, and Mr. Jim can come and get it," suggested Freddie.

"Oh, that'll be nice!" his sister agreed. "We'll leave the skin."

How to pack up a lunch for themselves was also a hard matter. But, as it happened, Mrs. Bobbsey was so busy getting things ready for her husband and the other men that she did not pay much attention to what Flossie and Freddie did. She saw them moving about, now in the pantry and now in the kitchen and again stepping to the back door, but she did not dream they were getting ready to set off on a search by themselves.

However, this is just what Flossie and Freddie were going to do, and, after a while, they managed to pack into a pasteboard box what they thought would be lunch enough for them until they came back with Bert and Nan.

"Put in lots of cake," whispered Freddie to Flossie, on one of the little girl's trips to the pantry. "Cake tastes awful good in the woods."

"I will," Flossie whispered back. "And I got some pie, too!"

"Oh, that's fine!" Freddie exclaimed. "Now we must slip out when they don't see us."

This the small Bobbsey twins managed to do. While Mr. Bobbsey, with Old Jim and Tom Case, was making ready to start on his searching expedition, to find and bring back Bert and Nan, as well as to take food to lonely Mrs. Bimby, Flossie and Freddie slipped quietly to the back door with their queer package of lunch.

They soon donned their boots, coats and caps, and with their little hands covered with warm, red mittens, they started off, keeping behind the cabin so they would not be seen by those in front who were getting ready to start on the main searching trip. It was snowing a little, but not nearly so hard as at first, and the wind was not so strong or cold.

"It'll be fun!" said Flossie to Freddie.

"Lots of fun!" agreed her twin. "We'll wait until daddy and Mr. Jim and Mr. Case get in the woods, and then we'll follow 'em. They won't send us back!"

"No," agreed Flossie, "I don't guess they will."

The plan of the little Bobbsey twins was to follow their father on the search. They did not want to go through the woods alone, even though it was now daylight, though the sun did not s.h.i.+ne because of the snow clouds.

And so, a little while after Mr. Bobbsey and the two men started away from the log cabin, Flossie and Freddie set out on their own little searching party. Mrs. Bobbsey and Mrs. Baxter were so busy "cleaning up"

after the men left that they gave no thought to the children for a time.

"There they go!" whispered Flossie to Freddie, as, hiding behind a woodpile, they saw their father, Mr. Bimby and Tom Case start off.

"Wait a little, and then we'll go after 'em," advised Freddie.

As soon as the main party had marched off along the trail that led through the woods toward the chestnut grove that Bert and Nan had set out to visit two days before, the small Bobbsey twins set forth. They went around behind a clump of trees so they would not be seen from the cabin.

Flossie and Freddie expected soon to catch up to their father, but the snow was so deep and the men traveled so fast that, after trudging along for half an hour, Freddie and his sister had not yet come within sight of the others.

"Do you s'pose they ran away from us?" asked Flossie, as she stopped a moment to rest.

"Course not," answered Freddie. "They don't even know we're comin' after 'em."

"That's so," Flossie said. "Well, anyhow, I hope we don't get lost."

"I do, too," agreed Freddie. "But we have something to eat, anyhow," and he patted the box of lunch he carried.

The children looked around them. They were in a lonely part of the woods, a place they had never been before, but they felt sure they would soon catch up to their father. They had been following the tracks in the snow left by the men who had gone to find Bert and Nan and take food to Mrs. Bimby.

Suddenly, however, there came a harder flurry of snow, and for a time Flossie and Freddie could not see very well. And when the little squall, as sudden storms are called, had pa.s.sed, the two Bobbsey twins found they had wandered off to one side of the trail.

No longer could they see the footprints of their father and the others in the snow. They had nothing to guide them!

"Freddie! Look!" cried Flossie, "Where's the path?" She called her father's snow-track a "path."

"Why, it--it's gone!" Freddie had to admit.

And then, as the two little children stood in the lonely snow-filled woods, they heard, near a bush, a noise that made them suddenly afraid.

It was a growl that they heard!

CHAPTER XIX--THE WILDCAT

Bert Bobbsey started off bravely enough from the cabin of Mrs. Bimby to go for help for the old woman, so that food might be taken to her bare cupboard.

"And I'll have daddy bring a sled or something so Nan can ride home to camp on it," thought Bert, as he trudged along through the snow. "It's hard walking. I wish I had a pair of snowshoes."

He had started away from the lonely cabin, as I told you two chapters back. With him he took a little package of lunch, not very much, for he felt sure he would soon reach Cedar Camp by following the line of the brook, nor was there much to be got from Mrs. Bimby's bare cupboard.

Even though much snow had fallen, Bert hoped the bed of the brook could be made out once he came to it. It lay some distance from the cabin, he thought.

The Bobbsey twin boy turned, after trudging a little way from the cabin, and waved his hand at Mrs. Bimby and Nan, who stood near a window watching him.

"Your brother is a brave little chap," said Mrs. Bimby. "I do hope he finds help and brings it back to us."

"I hope so, too; 'specially something for you to eat," said Nan.

"Oh, well, we've a little of the rabbit left yet," said the old woman.

"But my tea is 'most gone, and I need it strong on account of my nerves.

If it wasn't for my rheumatiz I'd put on my things and go with Bert. I'd take you along, though I fear it's going to snow more."

"I hope it doesn't before Bert gets back to camp," Nan said. "I shouldn't want him lost all alone."

"Nor I, dearie," crooned Mrs. Bimby. "But he's a brave lad, and I trust he gets along all right. Though it has been a bad storm--a bad storm!"

she muttered.

She put more wood on the fire, for, though the wind had gone down a little and the snow was not falling so rapidly, it was still cold. But the blazing wood threw out a grateful heat, and Nan and Mrs. Bimby sat about the stove, waiting for the help Bert was to send.

Bert felt a little lonely as he plunged into the woods and lost sight of the cabin. Though it was daylight, and the woods were not dark because of the white snow, still Bert felt a little lonesome. He wished Nan had come with him.