“Oh, Bert!” cried Nan. “It’s a blizzard! Oh, shall we ever get back to Cedar Camp and to mother?”
CHAPTER XI—OLD MRS. BIMBY
“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.