"A snake! I saw a big snake!" cried Flossie again.
"Where is it?" asked Nan, for, as yet, she had caught no sight of any serpent.
"I—I almost sat on it," explained Flossie, clinging to Nan, and looking down over her shoulder.
Nan glanced toward where her sister had been sitting just before the alarm. She saw no wiggling snake crawling over the ground.
"Are you sure, Flossie?" Nan asked. "Are you sure you saw a snake?"
"Course I did. He almost put his head in my lap."
"Maybe he was hungry and wanted your sandwich," suggested Freddie. As he spoke he stepped forward to look at the place Flossie had pointed to as being the spot where she had seen the snake. And no sooner did Freddie take a step than Flossie cried:
"There it is again! Oh, the snake! The snake! Don't let him get me, Nan!"
Nan, too, saw something round and black moving near the place where Flossie had been sitting, and, fearing for the safety of her sister, the older Bobbsey girl lifted Flossie in her arms.
But no snake glided across the brown pine needles, and there was no hissing sound nor any forked tongue playing rapidly in and out, as Nan had once seen in a little snake Bert and Charlie Mason had caught.