"I'll be there before you," promised Bert, and he was, for he took a short cut. He said on the way he had stopped at the police station to ask if there was any news about the missing Snap, but the trick dog had not been seen, and so the Bobbseys went to camp without him.

If there had not been so much to see and to do, they would have been more lonesome for Snap than they were. As it was, they missed him very much, but Bert held out a little hope by saying perhaps they might find their pet on Blueberry Island, though why he said it he hardly knew.

"All aboard!" called the steamboat men as the Bobbseys settled themselves in comfort, their goods having been put in place. The goat wagon was left on the lower deck where stood the horses and wagons that were to be taken across the lake, for the steamer was a sort of ferryboat. "All aboard!" called the deck hands.

There was a tooting of whistles, a clanging and ringing of bells, and the boat slowly moved away from the dock.

"Oh, it's just lovely to go camping!" sighed Nan.

"We haven't really begun yet," said Bert. "Wait until we get to the woods and have to go hunting for what we want to eat, and cook it over an open fire--that's the way to live!"

"I guess there won't be much hunting on Blueberry Island," said Mr.

Bobbsey, with a laugh.

"Well, we can make-believe, can't we?" asked Freddie.

"Oh, yes, you can make-believe," said his mother. "And that, sometimes, is more fun than having real things."

I will not tell you all the things that happened on the steamboat, for so much more happened on Blueberry Island that I will have to hurry on to that. Besides, the trip to the middle of the lake did not take more than an hour, and not much can take place in an hour.

I say not much, and yet sometimes lots of things can. But not a great deal did to the Bobbseys this time, though, to be sure, a strange dog tried to get hold of Snoop in his crate, and Freddie nearly fell overboard reaching after his hat, which blew off.

"But I could swim even if I did fall in," he said, for Mr. Bobbsey had taught all four twins how to keep afloat in water.

"Well, we don't want you falling in," his mother answered. "Now you sit by me."

This Freddie did for a short time. Then he got tired of sitting still and jumped down from his chair, at the same time calling to his little sister:

"Say, Flossie, let's go and watch the engine."

"All right," answered the little girl, ready, as always, to do anything her brother suggested.

As Flossie jumped from her chair to join her brother, she accidently kicked an umbrella belonging to a man who was sitting near by, and the umbrella fell to the floor and slipped out under the railing right into the water.

"Oh--oh--oh!" gasped Flossie.

But Freddie turned and ran as fast as he could to the stairs that led to the lower deck.

"Here! where are you going?" cried his father, and started after his son.

"Goin' after that umbrella!"

"I think not!" and Mr. Bobbsey caught up with Freddie and picked him up in his arms.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Bobbsey told the man how sorry she was, and said that they would replace the umbrella. But the man returned that he would not allow that.

"No one needs an umbrella on such a lovely day, anyway," he said.

But a deckhand who was cleaning some mops in the water had already rescued the umbrella.

"Blueberry Island!" called a man on the steamer, after the boat had made one or two other stops. "All off for Blueberry Island!"

"Oh, let us off! Let us off!" cried Flossie, getting up in such a hurry from her deck chair that she dropped her doll. "We're going camping there."

"I guess the pa.s.sengers know it by this time, without your telling them," laughed her father. "But come on--don't forget anything."

Such a scrambling as there was! Such a gathering together of packages--umbrellas--fishing rods--hats, caps, gloves and the crate with black Snoop in it. Sam and Dinah helped all they could, and between them and Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey and the children the family managed to get ash.o.r.e at last.

A gangplank had been run from the boat to the dock, and over this Bert drove Whisker and the goat cart. The goat seemed glad to get off the steamboat.

"Oh, wouldn't Snap just love it here!" cried Nan, as they went on sh.o.r.e and looked at the island. "Isn't it too bad he isn't with us?"

"I'm going to find him!" declared Bert. "Those old gypsies sha'n't have our trick dog!"

Blueberry Island was, indeed, a fine place for a camp. In the winter no one lived on it, but in the summer it was often visited by picnic parties and by those who liked to gather the blueberries which grew so plentifully, giving the island its name.

In fact, so many people came to one end of the island in the berry season that a man had set up a little stand near the sh.o.r.e, where he sold sandwiches, coffee, candy, and ice-cream, since many of the berry-pickers, and others who came, grew hungry after tramping through the woods.

But where Mr. Bobbsey was going to camp with his family, the berry-pickers and picnic parties seldom came, as it was on the far end of the island, so our friends would be rather by themselves, which was what they wanted.

Mr. Dalton, the man who kept the little refreshment stand, had his horse and wagon on the island, and he had agreed to haul the Bobbsey's trunks and other things to where their tents, already put up, awaited them.

"And can't we ride there in the goat wagon?" asked Freddie of his mother, as he saw Bert get up behind Whisker in the little cart.

"Yes, I think you and Flossie may ride now that we are on the island,"

said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Do you want to go, Nan?"

"No, I'll walk with you and daddy. I'll get enough goat rides later."

"Oh, how nice it is!" cried Mother Bobbsey when she and Nan came in sight of the tents of the camp. "I know we shall like it here!"

"I hope you will," said her husband. "And now we must see about something to eat. I suppose the children are hungry."

"Dey's always dat way!" laughed fat Dinah. "I neber seen 'em when dey wasn't hungry. But jest show me whar's de cook-stove an' suffin' t'

cook, an' dey won't be hungry long, mah honey lambs!"

Dinah was as good as her word, and she soon had a fine meal on the table in the dining tent, for the men Mr. Bobbsey had hired to set up the canvas houses had everything in readiness to go right to "housekeeping,"

as Nan said.

There were several tents for the Bobbsey family. One large one was for the family to sleep in, while a smaller one, near the kitchen tent, was for Dinah and her husband. Then there was a tent that served as a dining-room, and another where the trunks and food could be stored. In this tent was an ice box, for a boat stopped at the island every day and left a supply of ice.

The children helped to unpack and settle camp, though, if the truth were told, perhaps they did more to unsettle it than otherwise. But Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were used to this, and knew how to manage.

So the meal was eaten, Whisker was put in his little stable, made under a pile of brush-wood, and the children went out rowing in a boat. They had lots of fun that afternoon, and Bert even did a little hunting for Snap, thinking that, by some chance, the trick dog might be on the island. But Snap was not to be found.

"Though, of course, we didn't half look," Bert said. "We'll look again to-morrow."

And now it was evening in "Twin Camp," as the Bobbseys had decided to call their place on Blueberry Island. There had been quite a talk as to what to name the camp, but when Dinah suggested "Twin," every one agreed that it was best. So "Twin Camp" it was called, and Daddy Bobbsey said he would have a wooden sign made with that on it, and a flag to hoist over it on a pole.