"Nope, we couldn't!" declared Flossie, while Freddie nodded his head in agreement with her.
"But you could get us some new go-around bugs," the little girl went on. "We haven't found ours yet."
"That's so," remarked Mr. Bobbsey. "It's queer where they went to. Well, I'll see if I can get any more, though I may have to send to New York. But you two little ones must not go off by yourselves again, looking for Snoop."
"Could we go to look for Snap?" asked Freddie, as if that was different.
"No, not for Snap either. You must stay around camp unless some one goes with you to the woods."
It was a few days after this, when Mrs. Bobbsey, with the four twins, went out to pick blueberries, that they met a number of women and children who also had baskets and pails. But none of them was filled with the fruit which, now, was at its best.
"What is the matter with the berries?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "We have been able to pick only a few. The bushes seem to have been cleaned of all the ripe ones."
"That's what they have," said Blueberry Tom, who was with the other pickers. "And it's the gypsies who's gettin' the berries, too."
"Are you sure?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "We haven't seen any gypsies on the island."
"They don't stay here all the while," said Tom. "They have their camp over on the main shore, and they row here and get the berries when they're ripest. That's why there ain't any for us—the gypsies get 'em before we have a chance. They're pickin' blueberries as soon as it's light enough to see."