"Yes, we--we're twins!" stammered Flossie.

"Twins are always two," Freddie added, thinking, perhaps, that the gypsy man did not know that.

"Twins, eh?" remarked the man in a questioning voice.

"The Bobbsey Twins," said Freddie. "We came from our camp, and we----"

"How'd you get in this cave? That's what I want to know!" cried the man, and he spoke harshly. "Tell me, how did you get here?" he asked, and he held the lantern in front of the faces of the two little children.

"We--we fell in here!" said Freddie, pushing Flossie behind him. He felt that he must look after his little sister and protect her.

"Fell in?" cried the man.

"Yes, through a hole. We slid down a sandy hill, and we couldn't climb back again. We saw a little light over this way and we walked to it and then we heard some one cry: 'Mamma!' Are there any more little children here?" Freddie asked.

"Hum! Yes, some," half-grunted the gypsy. "But not your kind. I don't see how you came here," he went on, speaking to himself, it seemed, for he did not glance at Flossie or Freddie and there was no one else near by. The man looked all about the cave.

"Which way did you come?" he asked.

"Back there," and Freddie, who was doing most of the talking, pointed toward the place where he and Flossie had tried so hard to climb up.

"Come and show me," the man ordered them, and when they walked back with him, the lantern making queer shadows on the side walls of the cave, Flossie and Freddie pointed to the place down which they had slid.

"Hum!" murmured the gypsy. "I never knew there was a way into the cave from there. I must see about that. It wasn't open before. Well, now you're here I've got to make up my mind what I'll do with you," he went on, as he motioned for Flossie and her brother to walk back in front of him. He held the lantern so they could see where to step, but the earthen floor of the cave was smooth, and the children did not stumble.

"Will you take us back to Twin Camp, where we live?" asked Freddie.

"We're the Bobbseys you know, and we didn't mean to run away again, though I guess we're lost. My mamma and my papa will be looking for us, and if you'll take us to the camp----"

"Well, maybe I will after a bit, but not now," said the gypsy, shaking his head so that his earrings jiggled. "You'll have to stay here with us awhile. If you went out now, and told your folks you had found us here we'd all be sent to jail, most likely. I'll see what the others say."

Flossie and Freddie wondered what others he meant, but he did not tell them. He kept walking close behind them, and there was nothing for them to do but to keep on.

Suddenly they turned a sort of corner of the cave, and then the children saw something that surprised them. Seated around a table, on which some candles, stuck in bottles, were burning, were a number of men. They were all gypsies, like the man who had met the children farther back in the cave, and as he walked forward, behind Flossie and Freddie, the other gypsies looked up.

"Who was calling?" asked one of the dark men at the table.

"These two," said the first man, pointing to the little Bobbsey twins.

"They answered my call and I found them. They fell down a hole at the far end of the cave, near the sand. I never knew it was there."

"It is an old entrance," put in a gypsy who was eating some bread and tomato, cutting first a slice of one and then of the other with a big knife. "That entrance was overgrown with gra.s.s long ago," he added.

"Well, these two stumbled on it," grumbled the man who had found Flossie and Freddie. "We'd better stop it up. And now what's to be done with 'em?"

"We'll have to keep 'em here for a while," said two or three at once, and hearing this the hearts of Flossie and Freddie were sad.

"Yes," went on the first gypsy, "we'll have to keep 'em here until we're ready to go, and that won't be for two or three days yet. The only trouble is that some of their folks may find where we have hidden 'em and----"

"Hi!" suddenly cried an old gypsy, and then he said something very quickly, but in words the children could not understand. It was gypsy talk. After that all the men spoke in this queer way, but Flossie and Freddie felt sure they were being talked about, for the men looked at them many times in the light of the lantern and candles.

Suddenly, when there came a lull in the talk, and the twins were wondering what was coming next, they heard a dog barking. Now, ordinarily, this would not have surprised them, for they knew the gypsies kept many dogs, and some might be in the cave. But there was something different about this bark.

In wonder Flossie and Freddie looked at each other. Then Freddie cried out:

"That sounds like Snap!"

All at once there came a regular chorus of barks, and with them a man's voice could be heard shouting. Then came a dog's growl and yells from a man's voice, then more barks.

"Look out!" shouted some one in the cave. "The dog's loose!"

Flossie and Freddie saw a big dog spring into view from somewhere out of the darkness of the cave, and as the eyes of the twins lighted on him, Freddie cried:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "OH, FLOSSIE! HERE COMES SNAP!"

_The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island._ _Page 230_]

"Here comes Snap! Here comes Snap! Oh, Flossie! our dog that was lost is found! Here's Snap!"

CHAPTER XXII

HAPPY DAYS

There was no doubt about it. There was Snap, alive and happy, if one could tell that last by the way he barked and tried to kiss both Flossie and Freddie at the same time with his red tongue. It was Snap, but he was thinner than when at home in Lakeport, and his nice coat of hair was muddy in some places, and not at all neat.

"Oh, but it's Snap! It's our Snap!" cried Freddie in delight.

"And he found us!" added Flossie. "Now the gypsies can't make us stay here," and standing beside the big dog she looked boldly at the dark men who were now standing about the table.

A man came running out of the darkness of what seemed to be a small cave inside the larger one, and cried:

"He broke away! I couldn't keep him any longer. He seemed to hear some one calling him."

"Keep still!" sharply ordered the gypsy who had had the lantern.

"Oh!" exclaimed the other man, as he saw Flossie and Freddie. "Is it their dog?"

There was no need to answer him. Any one could see that Snap belonged to the Bobbsey twins. He was so happy with them.

"Did you--did you have our dog all the while?" asked Freddie, as he played with Snap's long ears.

The gypsy who had had the lantern said something in his strange language and no one answered. Probably he had told them not to speak.

"Oh, I'm so glad to see you!" cried Flossie. "We looked everywhere for you, Snap. Didn't we, Freddie?"

"Yes, we did. And now we've got him we can go home. Snap knows the way home. He can take us there."