“It can’t be a tramp!” Nan spoke with scorn. “That sounded like a little girl crying.”

“It surely did,” Mrs. Bobbsey said. “Wait a minute, Bert. Don’t go out just yet.”

“But I want to see what it is, Mother!” and Bert paused, half way to the door, out of which Mr. Bobbsey had hurried a few seconds before.

“Your father will do whatever needs to be done,” said Bert’s mother. “Perhaps it may be a strange dog, fighting with Snap, and you might get bitten.”

“Snap wouldn’t bite me.”

“Nor me!” put in Nan.

“No, but the strange dog might. Wait a minute.”

Flossie and Freddie had also started to leave the room to go out into the yard and see what was going on, but when they heard their mother speak about a strange dog they went back to their chairs by the table.

Then, from the yard, came cries of:

“Make him give her back to me, Mr. Bobbsey! Please make Snap give her back to me!”