"And I'm coming, too!" added Freddie. "I can call Snap and you can whistle for him, Bert."
"And I'll take Snoop, and Snoop can miaou for him," said Flossie.
"No, you two little ones stay here," directed Mrs. Bobbsey. "I want to wash and dress you for dinner. Let Bert and Nan hunt for Snap."
"Then can't we go in the goat cart?" Freddie asked.
"We'll all have a ride when we come back," promised Bert. "We first want to find Snap, if we can, to see if he'll hitch up with Whisker," the boy told his mother.
So while Flossie and Freddie went into the house to get freshened up after their play, Nan and Bert went from house to house asking about Snap. But though the big, trick dog sometimes went to play with the neighbors' children, this time there was no sign of him. One after another of the families on the block said they had not seen Snap.
Several servants had noticed the gypsy woman "peddler," as they called her, for she had made a number of calls on the block, trying to sell her lace, but no one had seen Snap with her.
"Oh, I guess Snap just ran away for a change, as Flossie and Freddie sometimes do," said Mr. Bobbsey when he came home that evening and had been told what had happened. "He'll come back all right, I'm sure."
But Nan and Bert were not so sure of this. They knew Snap too well. He had never gone away like this before. Flossie and Freddie, being younger, did not worry so much. Besides, they had Snoop, and the cat was more their pet than was the dog, who was Bert's favorite, though, of course, every one in the Bobbsey family loved him.
Several times that evening Bert went outside to whistle and call for his pet, but there was no answering bark, and when bedtime came Bert was so worried that Mr. Bobbsey agreed to call the police and ask the officers who were on night duty to keep a lookout for the missing animal. This would be done, the chief said, since nearly all the officers in Lakeport knew Snap, who often visited at the police station.