o," said the first man, pointing to the little Bobbsey twins.
"They answered my call and I found them. They fell down a hole at the
far end of the cave, near the sand. I never knew it was there."
"It is an old entrance," put in a gypsy who was eating some bread and
tomato, cutting first a slice of one and then of the other with a big
knife. "That entrance was overgrown with grass long ago," he added.
"Well, these two stumbled on it," grumbled the man who had found Flossie
and Freddie. "We'd better stop it up. And now what's to be done with
'em?"
"We'll have to keep 'em here for a while," said two or three at once,
and hearing this the hearts of Flossie and Freddie were sad.
"Yes," went on the first gypsy, "we'll have to keep 'em here until we're
ready to go, and that won't be for two or three days yet. The only
trouble is that some of their folks may find where we have hidden 'em
and----"
"Hi!" suddenly cried an old gypsy, and then he said something very
quickly, but in words the children could not understand. It was gypsy
talk. After that all the men spoke in this queer way, but Flossie and
Freddie felt sure they were being talked about, for the men looked at
them many times in the light of the lantern and candles.
Suddenly, when there came a lull in the talk, and the twins were
wondering what was coming next, they heard a dog barking. Now,
ordinarily, this would not have surprised them, for they knew the
gypsies kept many dogs, and some might be in the cave. But there was
something different about this bark.
In wonder Flossie and Freddie looked at each other. Then Freddie cried
out:
"That sounds like Snap!"
All at once there came a regular chorus of barks, and with them a man's
voice could be heard shouting. Then came a dog's growl and yells from a
man's voice, then more barks.
"Look out!" shouted some one in the cave. "The dog's loose!"
Flossie and Freddie saw a big dog spring into view from somewhere out of
the darkness of the cave, and as the eyes of the twins lighted on him,
Freddie cried:
[Illustration: "OH, FLOSSIE! HERE COMES SNAP!"
_The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island._ _Page 230_]
"Here comes Snap! Here comes Snap! Oh, Flossie! our dog that was lost is
found! Here's Snap!"
CHAPTER XXII
HAPPY DAYS
There was no doubt about it. There was Snap, alive and happy, if one
could tell that last by the way he barked and tried to kiss both Flossie
and Freddie at the same
|