_ 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 time with his red tongue. It was Snap, but he was thinner than when at home in Lakeport, and his nice coat of hair was muddy in some places, and not at all neat.
"Oh, but it's Snap! It's our Snap!" cried Freddie in delight.
"And he found us!" added Flossie. "Now the gypsies can't make us stay here," and standing beside the big dog she looked boldly at the dark men who were now standing about the table.
A man came running out of the darkness of what seemed to be a small cave inside the larger one, and cried:
"He broke away! I couldn't keep him any longer. He seemed to hear some one calling him."
"Keep still!" sharply ordered the gypsy who had had the lantern.
"Oh!" exclaimed the other man, as he saw Flossie and Freddie. "Is it their dog?"
There was no need to answer him. Any one could see that Snap belonged to the Bobbsey twins. He was so happy with them.
"Did you--did you have our dog all the while?" asked Freddie, as he played with Snap's long ears.
The gypsy who had had the lantern said something in his strange language and no one answered. Probably he had told them not to speak.
"Oh, I'm so glad to see you!" cried Flossie. "We looked everywhere for you, Snap. Didn't we, Freddie?"
"Yes, we did. And now we've got him we can go home. Snap knows the way home. He can take us there."
"Oh, no, he can't," said Flossie.
"Why?" asked her brother.
"'Cause he's never been in our tent-camp. He doesn't know where it is. But maybe you know, Freddie."
"Yes, I know the way--if--if we can get out of this cave," and he looked at the gypsies. They were talking among themselves. One of them walked toward Snap and held out his hand toward a broken rope around the dog's neck. But the animal growled in such a fierce way that the gypsy drew back in fear.
Then there was more talk among the dark-faced men about the children and the dog. The men seemed to be worried. Snap barked and ran a little way ahead, as though to lead the way out of the cave. Again a man tried to catch him, but the dog's savage growl made him draw back.
"I guess Snap wants us to come with him," said Flossie. "Let's go, Freddie."
"All right--come on;" and Freddie, taking Flossie's hand, started out of the cave. They were afraid, the children were, that the gypsies might stop them, but the man who had had the lantern said:
"Come on. I'll show you two the way out and you can go to your camp. No use keeping you, now that your dog is loose. He'd make trouble for us. Hurry up, you fellows, get things out of the way!" he called to the other gypsies, and they began taking things off the table as though they were going to leave.
But Flossie and Freddie did not care about that. All they knew was that they had found Snap, and that they were going home with him to Twin Camp. And Snap was as glad as were they.
"There you are!" said the gypsy in rather a growling voice, as he led the children to where a big patch of sunlight shone into the cave. "I guess you can find your way home from here."
Flossie and Freddie ran on, Snap going ahead, and, to the surprise of the twins they found themselves at the mouth of the cave--the same place where they had taken shelter from the rain the day they were in the drifting boat.
"Why, look here!" cried Freddie. "Isn't this funny, Flossie? We've come out of the same cave we were in before. How did we get in?"
"I don't know," answered the little girl, "'cept maybe it's a fairy cave an' changes."
But it was not that kind at all. The children had only fallen down a hole at one end of the cave, and when the gypsy man led them through they came out at the other end, where they had first gone in. Snap barked and ran down to the edge of the lake to get a drink of water.
"He's glad to come out," said Flossie.
"Awful glad," agreed Freddie. "So'm I."
"Me, too," added the little girl. "I wonder how he got in there?"
"I guess the gypsies took him," said Freddie. "They liked him 'cause he is such a good dog. I'm so glad we've got him back. Now if we could get Snoop back we'd be all right, wouldn't we, Snap?" and he put his arms around the dog's shaggy neck, while Flossie patted his back.
Happy because they had found their dog, and not worrying at all about having been so nearly kept prisoners by the gypsies in the cave, the two little Bobbsey twins hurried away from the cavern. They were anxious to get back to camp to tell the others how they had found Snap. And the dog seemed just as anxious to get away from the cave as were the little boy and girl.
Every once in a while Freddie would turn and look back, and when his sister asked him why he did this he told her he was looking to see if he could see the black cat.
"She ought to be easier to find than Snap," he said, "'cause she was with us here on Blueberry Island, and Snap must have been taken by the gypsies in Lakeport." Afterward they found that this was so.
As the children, with their dog, walked along through the woods, keeping close to the lake shore, as they knew that path led to their camp, Flossie and Freddie heard a shout among the trees.
"There's Nan!" Freddie said.
"Yes, and Bert," added his sister. "I guess they're looking for us."
They were sure of this a little later, for they heard the cry:
"Flossie! Freddie! Where are you?"
"Here we are!" they answered, and then sounded a noise of some one coming toward them. The next moment Nan and Bert came into view. Both stopped in surprise at the sight of the dog.
"Where'd you get him?" asked Nan.
"Is he really Snap?" cried Bert.
"Yep! He really is," answered Freddie. "We found him!"
"In a cave," added Flossie.
"In a cave?"
"And there were gypsies there," went on the little girl.
"An' they wanted to keep us," said Freddie.
"But they didn't," added Flossie.
"No. But Snap was there."
"And he growled at the gypsy man."
"And he came away with us."
"Snap was awful glad to see us, Nan."
"And here we are now," said Freddie, putting an end to this duet.
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Nan. "This is dreadful! Gypsies on this island, and they almost kidnapped you! You must tell daddy right away. We've been looking everywhere for you. We thought you were lost again. And you're all dirty and sandy!" she cried.
"That's where we fell down a hole into the cave," said Freddie, and he told Nan and Bert what had happened. Mr. Bobbsey was much surprised when the twins came home with the long-missing Snap. So was Mrs. Bobbsey, as well as Sam and Dinah.
"Gypsies here, are there?" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey. "Well, I'll have to see about that. We don't want them hiding in a cave and stealing our things. I guess I'll get some police officers and pay the tribe a visit."
But when Mr. Bobbsey got to the cave with the officers the gypsies were not there. They must have known that when the children went out they would tell what had happened and that the police would come. So there was nothing for the police to do. The gypsies had run away. They went to the mainland in boats, some of the blueberry pickers said who had seen them.
"And now that the island is free from the gypsies we'll have lots more fun," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "The thought of them made me nervous."
"Hark!" suddenly exclaimed Nan. She, as well as all the other members of the Bobbsey family, had followed the police to the cave, even Flossie and Freddie going along, riding to the place in the goat wagon drawn by Whisker.
"Hark to what?" asked Bert.
"I thought I heard a noise," said the little girl. "Yes, there it goes again, a sort of squeaky noise."
"It's a--it's a cat!" cried Flossie. "Oh, if it should be----"
Before she could finish one of the policemen flashed his lantern around the sides of the cave, and then, from a dark corner, some animal came slowly out.
"It is a cat!" cried Flossie.
"And it's our Snoop!" added Freddie. "Oh, we've got him back again!"
"Oh, goody!" cried Nan.
"Well, well," said Mr. Bobbsey, "everything is turning out right for you children now."
"And Snoop really was in this cave!" exclaimed Bert.
And so it proved. Whether he had wandered off and had become lost in some little hole of the cave, where he could not get out, or whether the gypsies had stolen him, as they had Snap, the Bobbseys never heard. But they knew they had their black cat again, and they were happy, especially the little twins.
"I want to hug him!" cried Flossie, as the cat rubbed up against her legs.
"So do I!" cried Freddie. "And I want to hug the head part. You can hug the tail end!"
"That end doesn't purr!" exclaimed Flossie. "I want the end that purrs."
"You must take turns," said Mrs. Bobbsey, laughing. "You ought to be glad you have Snoop back instead of quarreling about him. Well, we have found nearly everything we wanted now, except that bacon some one took the first night."
"I guess the gypsies got that," said Mr. Bobbsey. "It must have been one of them who was sneaking around in the night, and who awakened the children. They probably wanted to have something to eat in their cave. But they've gone now."
"Yes, and they seem to have left something behind them," observed one of the policemen. "I see something white over on one of the boxes they used for a table. Maybe it's only some old papers, though."
Bert hurried over and picked up the white thing.
"It's a doll!" he cried. "Flossie, did you leave your doll here?"
"Nope," answered the little twin.
"A doll!" cried Nan. "Oh, maybe it's Helen's talking doll! Let me see, Bert!"
But Bert had already pressed a spring and the doll began to call in a queer phonographic voice:
"Mamma! Papa!"
Flossie and Freddie looked at one another.
"That's the noise we heard when we fell into the cave," they said.
"Then the gypsies did take Helen's doll after all, and brought it with them to this island," said Mr. Bobbsey. "My, but they are great rascals! They took our dog, our cat, our bacon, and Helen's doll."
"But we've got everything back except the bacon," said Bert. "The doll seems to be all right, too, except she hasn't a dress."
"Oh, Helen found that the day she was here on the island," said Flossie. "She found it in an old stump, you know, and I guess maybe the gypsies hid it there, or dropped it."
"I guess so," agreed her mother. "Well, now, isn't this just wonderful! We've found Helen's doll, and your dog and cat. It's a good thing we came to Blueberry Island."
"But I'm sorry the gypsies came here," said Nan. "They made a lot of trouble."
"They've gone now, though," remarked Bert. "It's queer that they brought our dog and Helen's doll here with them."
"Maybe the little gypsy girl, whose papa took away Helen's doll, brought it here to play with," said Nan.
And perhaps that is how it had happened. But the gypsies had gone away, and no one knew just how they came to leave the doll in the cave. They may have been afraid to take it away for fear a policeman would see them have it. And then, too, it might suddenly speak when they had it, as it spoke in the cave when Flossie and Freddie heard it.
"Well, everything's come out all right," said Mr. Bobbsey, "and now for some happy days on Blueberry Island, with nothing to worry about." And, indeed, the Bobbsey twins did have very happy times.
Snoop and Snap were back with them again, and with Whisker, the goat, played with the children. Helen was told about her lost doll having been found, and she came to the island to get it. The go-around bugs were not found. Maybe the gypsies took them. But Mr. Bobbsey bought new ones for the little twins.
The police said the gypsy man who had picked the doll up from the yard where Helen had left it for a moment, must have taken it for his little girl, and have hidden it in one of the wagons. Then, some one of the band, going about Lakeport before the Bobbseys went to the island, saw Snap about the house and enticed him away. They probably took him over from the mainland in a rowboat. Snap was a friendly dog. As for Snoop he either wandered away or was stolen. But now no more fear need be felt about the gypsies, for they were far away, and when it rained the Bobbsey twins used to play in the gypsy cave, as they called it.
"Oh, but I just love it on Blueberry Island!" said Flossie, as they all came back to camp from a little picnic in the woods one day.
"So do I," said Freddie. "Now let's hitch up Whisker and have a ride." And they did.
And so I must bring this story about the adventures of the Bobbsey twins to an end. They had many other good times, some on Blueberry Island, and others when they went back to their Lakeport home, and I may tell you about them later. Snap and Snoop had a large part in the good times, and the dog and cat were none the worse for having been kept in the gypsy cave. Nor was Helen's doll, which the little girl was very glad to get back. It talked as well as ever.
And now I will say good-bye for you to the Bobbsey Twins.
[THE END]
Laura Lee Hope's fiction/novel: Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island
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