“I’ll soon be at Cedar Camp,” he said to himself, “and then I’ll be all right. I’ll send ’em back to get Nan and take something to eat to Mrs. Bimby. I’ll be glad to see Flossie and Freddie again.”
Had Bert only known it, Flossie and Freddie were nearer to him than if they had been in Cedar Camp, though the small Bobbsey twins were still some distance from their brother.
And while Mr. Bobbsey was forging ahead through the snow with Old Jim Bimby and Tom Case, knowing nothing, of course, about his little boy and girl having followed him, Mrs. Bobbsey was having worries of her own about the absence of the small children from the cabin.
She and Mrs. Baxter had missed Flossie and Freddie soon after the men had started on the searching trip, but, for a time, the mother of the two small twins was not at all worried. She thought Flossie and Freddie had merely run out to play a little, as it was the first chance they had had since the big storm began.
But when, after a while, they had not come back to the cabin, and she could see nothing of them, Mrs. Bobbsey said:
“Mrs. Baxter, have you seen Flossie and Freddie?”
“No, Mrs. Bobbsey, I haven’t,” answered the cook. “But it looks as if they had been in the pantry, for things there are all upset.”
Mrs. Bobbsey looked around the kitchen and pantry, and she at once guessed part of what had happened.
“They’ve packed up lunch for themselves,” she said to the housekeeper, “and they’ve gone out to play. Well, they’ll be all right as long as they stay around here and it doesn’t storm again. I’ll go and look for them in a few minutes.”
But when she did look and call Flossie and Freddie, they were not to be found. Indeed, they were more than a mile away by this time, and they had just met Rover, as I have told you.