With the first cries of alarm, Bert Bobbsey had jumped to his feet, one arm had gone out toward his sister Nan, and the other toward Flossie and Freddie. But no boy has arms long enough to reach for three relatives at once, especially when two of them, as Flossie and Freddie happened to be, were some distance away.
Bert did, however, manage to put one arm around Nan, and he pulled her toward him, though just why he hardly knew. As he did so there was a frightened movement on the part of all the other children aboard the truck, for they seemed to be sliding down toward the front of it.
"Oh, Bert! what has happened?" cried Nan. "Get hold of Flossie and Freddie, can't you?"
"What's the matter?" Flossie called to Nan and Bert. "We're all slipping down!"
And this was just what was happening. The bridge over the stream seemed to have broken in the middle, just as the heavy truck got to that spot, and the auto's front wheels being lower than the rear ones, had slid the load of picnic merrymakers into a heap.
"Oh! Oh!" screamed Grace Lavine. "What is going to happen?"
"You'll be all right if you just keep quiet!" called the driver of the auto in a loud voice. "The bridge has only sagged a little! It isn't going to fall!"
This was good news provided it was true.
"All of you get off, and do it quietly," advised the driver. "You'll be all right."