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+Project Gutenberg's The Bobbsey Twins on the Deep Blue Sea, by Laura Lee Hope
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Bobbsey Twins on the Deep Blue Sea
+
+Author: Laura Lee Hope
+
+Release Date: November 2, 2011 [EBook #37909]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
+produced from images made available by the HathiTrust
+Digital Library.)
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE BOBBSEYS AND OTHERS WERE ROWED TO THE SHORE.]
+
+
+
+
+THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA
+
+BY
+
+LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE BOBBSEY TWINS," "THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES," "THE OUTDOOR
+GIRLS SERIES," ETC.
+
+ILLUSTRATED
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+Made in the United States of America
+
+Copyright, 1918, by Grosset & Dunlap
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+
+    CHAPTER I--ON THE RAFT
+    CHAPTER II--TO THE RESCUE
+    CHAPTER III--STRANGE NEWS
+    CHAPTER IV--GETTING READY
+    CHAPTER V--OFF FOR FLORIDA
+    CHAPTER VI--IN A PIPE
+    CHAPTER VII--THE SHARK
+    CHAPTER VIII--THE FIGHT IN THE BOAT
+    CHAPTER IX--IN ST. AUGUSTINE
+    CHAPTER X--COUSIN JASPER'S STORY
+    CHAPTER XI--THE MOTOR BOAT
+    CHAPTER XII--THE DEEP BLUE SEA
+    CHAPTER XIII--FLOSSIE'S DOLL
+    CHAPTER XIV--FREDDIE'S FISH
+    CHAPTER XV--"LAND HO!"
+    CHAPTER XVI--UNDER THE PALMS
+    CHAPTER XVII--A QUEER NEST
+    CHAPTER XVIII--THE "SWALLOW" IS GONE
+    CHAPTER XIX--AWAY AGAIN
+    CHAPTER XX--ORANGE ISLAND
+    CHAPTER XXI--LOOKING FOR JACK
+    CHAPTER XXII--FOUND AT LAST
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ON THE RAFT
+
+
+"Flossie! Flossie! Look at me! I'm having a steamboat ride! Oh, look!"
+
+"I am looking, Freddie Bobbsey!"
+
+"No, you're not! You're playing with your doll! Look at me splash,
+Flossie!"
+
+A little boy with blue eyes and light, curling hair was standing on a
+raft in the middle of a shallow pond of water left in a green meadow
+after a heavy rain. In his hand he held a long pole with which he was
+beating the water, making a shower of drops that sparkled in the sun.
+
+On the shore of the pond, not far away, and sitting under an apple tree,
+was a little girl with the same sort of light hair and blue eyes as
+those which made the little boy such a pretty picture. Both children
+were fat and chubby, and you would have needed but one look to tell that
+they were twins.
+
+"Now I'm going to sail away across the ocean!" cried Freddie Bobbsey,
+the little boy on the raft, which he and his sister Flossie had made
+that morning by piling a lot of old boards and fence rails together.
+"Don't you want to sail across the ocean, Flossie?"
+
+"I'm afraid I'll fall off!" answered Flossie, who was holding her doll
+off at arm's length to see how pretty her new blue dress looked. "I
+might fall in the water and get my feet wet."
+
+"Take off your shoes and stockings like I did, Flossie," said the little
+boy.
+
+"Is it very deep?" Flossie wanted to know, as she laid aside her doll.
+After all she could play with her doll any day, but it was not always
+that she could have a ride on a raft with Freddie.
+
+"No," answered the little blue-eyed boy. "It isn't deep at all. That is,
+I don't guess it is, but I didn't fall in yet."
+
+"I don't want to fall in," said Flossie.
+
+"Well, I won't let you," promised her brother, though how he was going
+to manage that he did not say. "I'll come back and get you on the
+steamboat," he went on, "and then I'll give you a ride all across the
+ocean," and he began pushing the raft, which he pretended was a
+steamboat, back toward the shore where his sister sat.
+
+Flossie was now taking off her shoes and stockings, which Freddie had
+done before he got on the raft; and it was a good thing, too, for the
+water splashed up over it as far as his ankles, and his shoes would
+surely have been wet had he kept them on.
+
+"Whoa, there! Stop!" cried Flossie, as she came down to the edge of the
+pond, after having placed her doll, in its new blue dress, safely in the
+shade under a big burdock plant. "Whoa, there, steamboat! Whoa!"
+
+"You mustn't say 'whoa' to a boat!" objected Freddie, as he pushed the
+raft close to the bank, so his sister could get on. "You only say 'whoa'
+to a horse or a pony."
+
+"Can't you say it to a goat?" demanded Flossie.
+
+"Yes, maybe you could say it to a goat," Freddie agreed, after thinking
+about it for a little while. "But you can't say it to a boat."
+
+"Well, I wanted you to stop, so you wouldn't bump into the shore," said
+the little girl. "That's why I said 'whoa.'"
+
+"But you mustn't say it to a boat, and this raft is the same as a boat,"
+insisted Freddie.
+
+"What must I say, then, when I want it to stop?"
+
+Freddie thought about this for a moment or two while he paddled his bare
+foot in the water. Then he said:
+
+"Well, you could say 'Halt!' maybe."
+
+"Pooh! 'Halt' is what you say to soldiers," declared Flossie. "We said
+that when we had a snow fort, and played have a snowball fight in the
+winter. 'Halt' is only for soldiers."
+
+"Oh, well, come on and have a ride," went on Freddie. "I forget what you
+say when you want a boat to stop."
+
+"Oh, I know!" cried Flossie, clapping her hands.
+
+"What?"
+
+"You just blow a whistle. You don't say anything. You just go 'Toot!
+Toot!' and the boat stops."
+
+"All right," agreed Freddie, glad that this part was settled. "When you
+want this boat to stop, you just whistle."
+
+"I will," said Flossie. Then she stepped on the edge of the raft nearest
+the shore. The boards and rails tilted to one side. "Oh! Oh!" screamed
+the little girl. "It's sinking!"
+
+"No it isn't," Freddie said. "It always does that when you first get on.
+Come on out in the middle and it will be all right."
+
+"But it feels so--so funny on my toes!" said Flossie, with a little
+shiver. "It's tickly like."
+
+"That's the way it was with me at first," Freddie answered. "But I like
+it now."
+
+Flossie wiggled her little pink toes in the water that washed up over
+the top of the raft, and then she said:
+
+"Well, I--I guess I like it too, now. But it felt sort of--sort
+of--squiggily at first."
+
+"Squiggily" was a word Flossie and Freddie sometimes used when they
+didn't know else to say.
+
+The little girl moved over to the middle of the raft and Freddie began
+to push it out from shore. The rain-water pond was quite a large one,
+and was deep in places, but the children did not know this. When they
+were both in the center of the raft the water came only a little way
+over their feet. Indeed there were so many boards, planks and rails in
+the make-believe steamboat that it would easily have held more than the
+two smaller Bobbsey twins. For there was a double set of twins, as I
+shall very soon tell you.
+
+"Isn't this nice?" asked Freddie, as he pushed the pretend boat farther
+out toward the middle of the pond.
+
+"Awful nice--I like it," said Flossie. "I'm glad I helped you make this
+raft."
+
+"It's a steamboat," said Freddie. "It isn't a raft."
+
+"Well, steamboat, then," agreed Flossie. Then she suddenly went:
+
+"Toot! Toot!"
+
+"Here! what you blowin' the whistle now for?" asked Freddie. "We don't
+want to stop here, right in the middle of the ocean."
+
+"I--I was only just trying my whistle to see if it would toot,"
+explained the little girl. "I don't want to stop now."
+
+Flossie walked around the middle of the raft, making the water splash
+with her bare feet, and Freddie kept on pushing it farther and farther
+from shore. Yet Flossie was not afraid. Perhaps she felt that Freddie
+would take care of her.
+
+The little Bobbsey twins were having lots of fun, pretending they were
+on a steamboat, when they heard some one shouting to them from the
+shore.
+
+"Hi there! Come and get us!" someone was calling to them.
+
+"Who is it?" asked Freddie.
+
+"It's Bert; and Nan is with him," answered Flossie, as she saw a larger
+boy and girl standing on the bank, near the tree under which she had
+left her doll. "I guess they want a ride. Is the raft big enough for
+them too, Freddie?"
+
+"Yes, I guess so," he answered. "You stop the steamboat, Flossie--and
+stop calling it a raft--and I'll go back and get them. We'll pretend
+they're passengers. Stop the boat!"
+
+"How can I stop the boat?" the little girl demanded.
+
+"Toot the whistle! Toot the whistle!" answered her brother. "Don't you
+'member, Flossie Bobbsey?"
+
+"Oh," said Flossie. Then she went on:
+
+"Toot! Toot!"
+
+"Toot! Toot!" answered Freddie. He began pushing the other way on the
+pole and the raft started back toward the shore they had left.
+
+"What are you doing?" asked Bert Bobbsey, as the mass of boards and
+rails came closer to him. "What are you two playing?"
+
+"Steamboat," Freddie answered. "If you want us to stop for you, why,
+you've got to toot."
+
+"Toot what?" asked Bert.
+
+"Toot your whistle," Freddie replied. "This is a regular steamboat. Toot
+if you want me to stop."
+
+He kept on pushing with the pole until Bert, with a laugh, made the
+tooting sound as Flossie had done. Then Freddie let the raft stop near
+his older brother and sister.
+
+"Oh, Bert!" exclaimed Nan Bobbsey, "are you going to get on?"
+
+"Sure I am," he answered, as he began taking off his shoes and
+stockings. "It's big enough for the four of us. Where'd you get it,
+Freddie?"
+
+"It was partly made--I guess some of the boys from town must have
+started it. Flossie and I put more boards and rails on it, and we're
+having a ride."
+
+"I should say you were!" laughed Nan.
+
+"Come on," said Bert to his older sister, as he tossed his shoes over to
+where Flossie's and Freddie's were set on a flat stone. "I'll help you
+push, Freddie."
+
+Nan, who, like Bert, had dark hair and brown eyes, began to take off her
+shoes and stockings, and soon all four of them were on the raft--or
+steamboat, as Freddie called it.
+
+Now you have met the two sets of the Bobbsey twins--two pairs of them as
+it were. Flossie and Freddie, the light-haired and blue-eyed ones, were
+the younger set, and Bert and Nan, whose hair was a dark brown, matching
+their eyes, were the older.
+
+"This is a dandy raft--I mean steamboat," said Bert, quickly changing
+the word as he saw Freddie looking at him. "It holds the four of us
+easy."
+
+Indeed the mass of boards, planks and rails from the fence did not sink
+very deep in the water even with all the Bobbsey twins on it. Of course,
+if they had worn shoes and stockings they would have been wet, for now
+the water came up over the ankles of all of them. But it was a warm
+summer day, and going barefoot especially while wading in the pond, was
+fun.
+
+Bert and Freddie pushed the raft about with long poles, and Flossie and
+Nan stood together in the middle watching the boys and making believe
+they were passengers taking a voyage across the ocean.
+
+Back and forth across the pond went the raft-steamboat when, all of a
+sudden, it stopped with a jerk in the middle of the stretch of water.
+
+"Oh!" cried Flossie, catching hold of Nan to keep herself from falling.
+"Oh, what's the matter?"
+
+"Are we sinking?" asked Nan.
+
+"No, we're only stuck in the mud," Bert answered. "You just stay there,
+Flossie and Nan, and you, too, Freddie, and I'll jump off and push the
+boat out of the mud. It's just stuck, that's all."
+
+"Oh, don't jump in--it's deep!" cried Nan.
+
+But she was too late. Bert, quickly rolling his trousers up as far as
+they would go, had leaped off the raft, making a big splash of water.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+TO THE RESCUE
+
+
+"Bert! Bert! You'll be drowned!" cried Flossie, as she clung to Nan in
+the middle of the raft. "Come back, you'll be drowned!"
+
+"Oh, I'm all right," Bert answered, for he felt himself quite a big boy
+beside Freddie.
+
+"Are you sure, Bert, it isn't too deep?" asked Nan.
+
+"Look! It doesn't come up to my knees, hardly," Bert said, as he waded
+around to the side of the raft, having jumped off one end to give it a
+push to get it loose from the bank of mud on which it had run aground.
+And, really, the water was not very deep where Bert had leaped in.
+
+Some water had splashed on his short trousers, but he did not mind that,
+as they were the old ones his mother made him put on in which to play.
+
+"Maybe we can get loose without your pushing us," said Freddie, as he
+moved about on the raft, tilting it a little, first this way and then
+the other. Once before that day, when on the "boat" alone, it had become
+stuck on a hidden bank of mud, and the little twin had managed to get it
+loose himself.
+
+"No, I guess it's stuck fast," Bert said, as he pushed on the mass of
+boards without being able to send them adrift. "I'll have to shove good
+and hard, and maybe you'll have to get in here and help me, Freddie."
+
+"Oh, yes, I can do that!" the little fellow said. "I'll come and help
+you now, Bert."
+
+"No, you mustn't," ordered Nan, who felt that she had to be a little
+mother to the smaller twins. "Don't go!"
+
+"Why not?" Freddie wanted to know.
+
+"Because it's too deep for you," answered Nan. "The water is only up to
+Bert's knees, but it will be over yours, and you'll get your clothes all
+wet. You stay here!"
+
+"But I want to help Bert push the steamboat loose!"
+
+"I guess I can do it alone," Bert said. "Wait until I get around to the
+front end. I'll push it off backward."
+
+He waded around the raft, which it really was, though the Bobbsey twins
+pretended it was a steamboat, and then, reaching the front, or what
+would be the bow if the raft had really been a boat, Bert got ready to
+push.
+
+"Push, Bert!" yelled Freddie.
+
+But a strange thing happened.
+
+Suddenly a queer look came over Bert's face. He made a quick grab for
+the side of the raft and then he sank down so that the water came over
+his knees, wetting his trousers.
+
+"Oh, Bert! what's the matter?" cried Nan.
+
+"I--I'm sinking in the mud!" gasped Bert. "Oh, I can't get my feet
+loose! I'm stuck! Maybe I'm in a quicksand and I'll never get loose!
+Holler for somebody! Holler loud!"
+
+And the other three Bobbsey twins "hollered," as loudly as they could.
+
+"Mother! Mother!" cried Nan.
+
+"Come and get Bert!" added Freddie.
+
+"Oh, Dinah! Dinah!" screamed Flossie, for the fat, good-natured colored
+cook had so often rescued Flossie that the little girl thought she would
+be the very best person, now, to come to Bert's aid.
+
+"Oh, I'm sinking away down deep!" cried the brown-eyed boy, as he tried
+to lift first one foot and then the other. But they were both stuck in
+the mud under the water, and Bert, afraid of sinking so deep that he
+would never get out, clung to the side of the raft with all his might.
+
+"Oh, you're making us sink. You're making us sink!" screamed Nan.
+Indeed, the raft was tipping to one side and the other children had all
+they could do to keep from sliding into the pond.
+
+"Oh, somebody come and help me!" called Bert.
+
+And then a welcome voice answered:
+
+"I'm coming! I'm coming!"
+
+So, while some one is coming to the rescue, I will take just a few
+moments to tell my new readers something about the children who are to
+have adventures in this story.
+
+Those of you who have read the other books of the series will remember
+that in the first volume, called "The Bobbsey Twins," I told you of
+Flossie and Freddie, and Bert and Nan Bobbsey, who lived with their
+father and mother in the eastern city of Lakeport, near Lake Metoka. Mr.
+Richard Bobbsey owned a large lumberyard, where the children were wont
+often to play. As I have mentioned, Flossie and Freddie, with their
+light hair and blue eyes, were one set of twins--the younger--while Nan
+and Bert, who were just the opposite, being dark, were the older twins.
+
+The children had many good times, about some of which I have told you in
+the first book. Dinah Johnson, the fat, jolly cook, always saw to it
+that the twins had plenty to eat, and her husband, Sam, who worked about
+the place, made many a toy for the children, or mended those they broke.
+Almost as a part of the family, as it were, I might mention Snap, the
+trick dog, and Snoop, the cat. The children were very fond of these
+pets.
+
+After having had much fun, as related in my first book, the Bobbsey
+twins went to the country, where Uncle Daniel Bobbsey had a big farm at
+Meadow Brook. Later, as you will find in the third volume, they went to
+visit Uncle William Minturn at the seashore.
+
+Of course, along with their good times, the children had to go to
+school, and you will find one of the books telling what they did there,
+and the fun they had. From school the Bobbsey twins went to Snow Lodge,
+and then they spent some time on a houseboat and later again went to
+Meadow Brook for a jolly stay in the woods and fields near the farm.
+
+"And now suppose we stay at home for a while," Mr. Bobbsey had said,
+after coming back from Meadow Brook.
+
+At first the twins thought they wouldn't like this very much, but they
+did, and they had as much fun and almost as many adventures as before.
+After that they spent some time in a great city and then they got ready
+for some wonderful adventures on Blueberry Island.
+
+Those adventures you will find told about in the book just before this
+one you are now reading. The twins spent the summer on the island, and
+many things happened to them, to their goat and dog, and to a queer boy.
+Freddie lost some of his "go-around" bugs, and there is something in the
+book about a cave,--but I know you would rather read it for yourself
+than have me tell you here.
+
+Now to get back to the children on the raft, or rather, to Flossie,
+Freddie and Nan, who are on that, while Bert is in the water, and stuck
+in the mud.
+
+"Oh, come quick! Come quick!" he cried. "I can't get loose!"
+
+"I'm coming!" answered the voice, and it was that of Mrs. Bobbsey. She
+had been in the kitchen, telling Dinah what to get for dinner, when she
+heard the children shouting from down in the meadow, where the big pond
+of rain water was.
+
+"I hope none of them has fallen in!" said Mrs. Bobbsey as she ran out of
+the door, after hearing Bert's shout.
+
+"Good land ob massy! I hopes so mahse'f!" gasped fat Dinah, and she,
+too, started for the pond. But, as she was very fat, she could not run
+as fast as could Mrs. Bobbsey. "I 'clar' to goodness I hopes none ob 'em
+has falled in de watah!" murmured Dinah. "Dat's whut I hopes!"
+
+Mrs. Bobbsey reached the edge of the pond. She saw three of the twins on
+the raft. For the moment she could not see Bert.
+
+"Where is Bert?" she cried.
+
+"Here I am, Mother!" he answered.
+
+Then Mrs. Bobbsey saw him standing in the water, which was now well over
+his knees. He was holding to the edge of the raft.
+
+"Oh, Bert Bobbsey!" his mother called. "What are you doing there? Come
+right out this instant! Why, you are all wet! Oh, my dear!"
+
+"I can't come out, Mother," said Bert, who was not so frightened, now
+that he saw help at hand.
+
+"You can't come out? Why not?"
+
+"'Cause I'm stuck in the mud--or maybe it's quicksand. I'm sinking in
+the quicksand. Or I would sink if I didn't keep hold of the raft. I
+dassn't let go!"
+
+"Oh, my!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "What shall I do?"
+
+"Can't you pull him out?" asked Nan. "We tried, but we can't."
+
+They had done this--she and Flossie and Freddie. But Bert's feet were
+too tightly held in the sticky mud, or whatever it was underneath the
+water.
+
+"Wait! I'll come and get you," said Mrs. Bobbsey. She was just about to
+wade out to get Bert, shoes, skirts and all, when along came puffing,
+fat Dinah, and, just ahead of her, her husband, Sam.
+
+"What's the mattah, Mrs. Bobbsey?" asked the colored man, who did odd
+jobs around the Bobbsey home.
+
+"It's Bert! He's fast in the mud!" answered Mrs. Bobbsey. "Oh, Sam,
+please hurry and get him out!"
+
+"Yas'am, I'll do dat!" cried Sam. He did not seem to be frightened.
+Perhaps he knew that the pond was not very deep where Bert was, and that
+the boy could not sink down much farther.
+
+Sam had been washing the automobile with the hose, and when he did this
+he always wore his rubber boots. He had them on now, and so he could
+easily wade out into the pond without getting wet.
+
+So out Sam waded, half running in fact, and splashing the water all
+about. But he did not mind that. As did Dinah, he loved the Bobbsey
+twins--all four of them--and he did not want anything to happen to them.
+
+"Jest you stand right fast, Bert!" said the colored man. "I'll have yo'
+out ob dere in 'bout two jerks ob a lamb's tail! Dat's what I will!"
+
+Bert did not know just how long it took to jerk a lamb's tail twice,
+even if a lamb had been there. But it did not take Sam very long to
+reach the small boy.
+
+"Now den, heah we go!" cried Sam.
+
+Standing beside the raft, the colored man put his arms around Bert and
+lifted him. Or rather, he tried to lift him, for the truth of the matter
+was that Bert was stuck deeper in the mud than any one knew.
+
+"Now, heah we go, _suah!_" cried Sam, as he took a tighter hold and
+lifted harder. And then with a jerk, Bert came loose and up out of the
+water he was lifted, his feet and legs dripping with black mud, some of
+which splashed on Sam and on the other twins.
+
+"Oh, what a sight you are!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"Oh, but good land of massy! Ain't yo' all thankful he ain't all
+_drown?_" asked Dinah.
+
+"Indeed I am," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Come on away from there, all of you.
+Get off the raft! I'm afraid it's too dangerous to play that game. And,
+Bert, you must get washed! Oh, how dirty you are!"
+
+Sam carried Bert to shore, and Nan helped Freddie push the raft to the
+edge of the pond. And then along came Mr. Bobbsey from his lumberyard.
+
+"Well, well!" exclaimed the father of the Bobbsey twins. "What has
+happened?"
+
+"We had a raft," explained Freddie.
+
+"And I had to toot the whistle when I wanted it to stop," added Flossie.
+
+"We were having a nice ride," said Nan.
+
+"Yes, but what happened to Bert?" asked his father, looking at his muddy
+son, who truly was a "sight."
+
+"Well, the raft got stuck," Bert answered, "and I got off to push it
+loose. Then I got stuck. It was awful sticky mud. I didn't know there
+was any so sticky in the whole world! First I thought it was quicksand.
+But I held on and then Sam came and got me out. I--I guess I got my
+pants a little muddy," he said.
+
+"I guess you did," agreed his father, and his eyes twinkled as they
+always did when he wanted to laugh but did not feel that it would be
+just the right thing to do. "You are wet and muddy. But get up to the
+house and put on dry things. Then I have something to tell you."
+
+"Something to tell us?" echoed Nan. "Oh, Daddy! are we going away
+again?"
+
+"Well, I'm not sure about that part--yet," replied Mr. Bobbsey. "But I
+have strange news for you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+STRANGE NEWS
+
+
+Bert and Nan Bobbsey looked at one another. They were a little older
+than Flossie and Freddie, and they saw that something must have happened
+to make their father come home from the lumber office so early, for on
+most days he did not come until dinner time. And here it was scarcely
+eleven o'clock yet, and Dinah was only getting ready to cook the dinner.
+
+"Is it bad news?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey of her husband.
+
+"Well, part of it is bad," he said. "But no one is hurt, or killed or
+anything like that."
+
+"Tell us now!" begged Bert. "Tell us the strange news, Daddy!"
+
+"Oh, I couldn't think of it while you look the way you do," said Mr.
+Bobbsey. "First get washed nice and clean, and put on dry clothes. Then
+you'll be ready for the news."
+
+"I'll hurry," promised Bert, as he ran toward the house, followed by
+Snap, the trick dog that had once been in a circus. Snap had come out of
+the barn, where he stayed a good part of the time. He wanted to see what
+all the noise was about when Bert had called as he found himself stuck
+in the mud.
+
+"Are you sure no one is hurt?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey of her husband. "Are
+Uncle Daniel and Aunt Sarah all right?"
+
+"Oh, yes, of course."
+
+"And Uncle William and Aunt Emily?"
+
+"Yes, they're all right, too. My news is about my cousin, Jasper Dent.
+You don't know him very well; but I did, when I was a boy," went on Mr
+Bobbsey. "There is a little bad news about him. He has been hurt and is
+now ill in a hospital, but he is getting well."
+
+"And is the strange news about him?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as she walked
+on, with Flossie, Freddie and Nan following.
+
+"Yes, about Cousin Jasper," replied Mr. Bobbsey. "But don't get worried,
+even if we should have to go on a voyage."
+
+"On a voyage?" cried Mrs. Bobbsey in surprise.
+
+"Yes," and Mr. Bobbsey smiled.
+
+"Do you mean in a real ship, like we played our raft was?" asked
+Freddie.
+
+"Yes, my little fireman!" laughed Mr. Bobbsey, catching the little
+bare-footed boy up in his arms. Often Freddie was called little
+"fireman," for he had a toy fire engine, and he was very fond of
+squirting water through the hose fastened to it--a real hose that
+sprinkled real water. Freddie was very fond of playing he was a fireman.
+
+"And will the ship go on the ocean?" asked Flossie.
+
+"Yes, my little fat fairy!" her father replied, as he caught her up and
+kissed her in turn.
+
+"If your mother thinks we ought to, after I tell the strange news about
+Cousin Jasper, we may all take a trip on the deep blue sea."
+
+"Oh, what fun!" cried Freddie.
+
+"I hope we can go soon," murmured Nan.
+
+"But Bert mustn't get off the ship to push it; must he, Daddy?" asked
+Flossie.
+
+"No, indeed!" laughed her father, as he set her down in the grass. "If
+he does the water will come up more than above his knees. But now please
+don't ask me any more questions until I can sit down after dinner and
+tell you the whole story."
+
+The children thought the dinner never would be finished, and Bert, who
+had put on dry clothes, tried to hurry through with his food.
+
+"Bert, my dear, you must not eat so fast," remonstrated his mother, as
+she saw him hurrying.
+
+"Bert is eating like a regular steam engine," came from Flossie.
+
+At this Nan burst out laughing.
+
+"Flossie, did you ever see an engine eat?" she asked.
+
+"Well, I don't care! You know what I mean," returned the little girl.
+
+"Course engines eat!" cried Freddie. "Don't they eat piles of coal?" he
+went on triumphantly.
+
+"Well, not an auto engine," said Nan.
+
+"Yes, that eats up gasolene," said Bert.
+
+But they were all in a hurry to listen to what their father might have
+to say, and so wasted no further time in argument. And when the rice
+pudding was brought in Nan said:
+
+"Dinner is over now, Daddy, for this is the dessert, and when you're in
+a hurry to go back to the office you don't wait for that. So can't we
+hear the strange news now?"
+
+"Yes, I guess so," answered her father, and he drew from his pocket a
+letter. "This came this morning," he said, "and I thought it best to
+come right home and tell you about it," he said to his wife.
+
+"The letter is from my Cousin Jasper. When we were boys we lived in the
+same town. Jasper was always fond of the ocean, and often said, when he
+grew up, he would make a long voyage."
+
+"Freddie and I were having a voyage on a raft to-day," said Flossie.
+"And we had fun until Bert fell in."
+
+"I didn't fall in--I jumped in and I got stuck in the mud," put in Bert.
+
+"Don't interrupt, dears, if you want to hear Daddy's news," said Mrs.
+Bobbsey, and her husband, after looking at the letter, as if to make
+sure about what he was talking, went on.
+
+"Cousin Jasper Dent did become a sailor, when he grew up. But he sailed
+more on steamboats than on ships with sails that have to be blown by the
+wind. Many things happened to him, so he has told me in letters that he
+has written, for I have not seen him very often, of late years. And now
+the strangest of all has happened, so he tells me here."
+
+"What is it?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"Well, he has been shipwrecked, for one thing."
+
+"And was he cast away on a desert island, like Robinson Crusoe?" asked
+Bert, who was old enough to read that wonderful book.
+
+"Well, that's what I don't know," went on Mr. Bobbsey. "Cousin Jasper
+does not write all that happened to him. He says he has been shipwrecked
+and has had many adventures, and he wants me to come to him so that he
+may tell me more."
+
+"Where is he?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"In a hospital in St. Augustine, Florida," was the answer.
+
+"Oh, Florida!" exclaimed Flossie. "That's where the cocoanuts grow;
+isn't it, Daddy?"
+
+"Well, maybe a few grow there, but I guess you are thinking of oranges,"
+her father answered with a smile. "Lots of oranges grow in Florida."
+
+"And are we going there?" asked Bert.
+
+"That's what I want to talk to your mother about," went on Mr. Bobbsey.
+"Cousin Jasper doesn't say just what happened to him, nor why he is so
+anxious to see me. But he wants me to come down to Florida to see him."
+
+"It would be a nice trip if we could go, and take the children," said
+Mrs. Bobbsey. "Though, I suppose, this is hardly the time of year to go
+to such a place."
+
+"Oh, it is always nice in Florida," her husband said, "though of course
+when it is winter here it seems nicer there because it is so warm, and
+the flowers are in blossom."
+
+"And do the oranges grow then?" asked Freddie.
+
+"I guess so," his father said. "At any rate it is now early spring here,
+and even in Florida, where it is warmer than it is up North where we
+live, I think it will not be too hot for us. Besides, I don't believe
+Cousin Jasper intends to stay in Florida, or have us stay there."
+
+"Why not?" Mrs. Bobbsey asked.
+
+"Well, in his letter he says, after he has told me the strange news, he
+hopes I will go on a voyage with him to search for some one who is
+lost."
+
+"Some one lost!" replied Nan. "What does he mean, Daddy?"
+
+"That's what I don't know. I guess Cousin Jasper was too ill to write
+all he wanted to, and he would rather see me and tell me. So I came to
+ask if you would like to go to Florida," and Mr. Bobbsey looked at his
+wife and smiled.
+
+"Oh, yes! Let's go!" begged Bert.
+
+"And pick oranges!" added Flossie.
+
+"Please say you'll go, Mother!" cried Nan. "Please do!"
+
+"I want to go in big steamboat!" fairly shouted Freddie. "And I'll take
+my fire engine with me and put out the fire!"
+
+"Oh, children dear, do be quiet one little minute and let me think,"
+begged Mrs. Bobbsey. "Let me see the letter, dear," she said to her
+husband.
+
+Mr. Bobbsey handed his wife the sheets of paper, and she read them
+carefully.
+
+"Well, they don't tell very much," she said as she folded them and
+handed them back. "Still your cousin does say something strange happened
+when he was shipwrecked, wherever that was. I think you had better go
+and see him, if you can leave the lumberyard, Dick."
+
+"Oh, yes, the lumber business will be all right," said Mr. Bobbsey, whom
+his wife called Dick. "And would you like to go with me?" he asked his
+wife.
+
+"And take the children?"
+
+"Yes, we could take them. A sail on the ocean would do them good, I
+think. They have been shut up pretty much all winter."
+
+"Will we go on a sailboat?" asked Bert.
+
+"No, I hardly think so. They are too slow. If we go we will, very
+likely, go on a steamer," Mr. Bobbsey said.
+
+"Oh, goody!" cried Freddie, while Mrs. Bobbsey smiled her consent.
+
+"Well, then, I'll call it settled," went on the twins' father, "and I'll
+write Cousin Jasper that we're coming to hear his strange news, though
+why he couldn't put it in his letter I can't see. But maybe he had a
+good reason. Now I'll go back to the office and see about getting ready
+for a trip on the deep, blue sea. And I wonder----"
+
+Just then, out in the yard, a loud noise sounded.
+
+Snap, the big dog, could be heard barking, and a child's voice cried:
+
+"No, you can't have it! You can't have it! Oh, Nan! Bert! Make your dog
+go 'way!"
+
+Mr. Bobbsey, pushing back his chair so hard that it fell over, rushed
+from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+GETTING READY
+
+
+"Oh, dear!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey, "I wonder what has happened now!"
+
+"Maybe Snap is barking at a tramp," suggested Bert. "I'll go and see."
+
+"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!"
+
+"Oh, that's Helen Porter!" cried Nan, as she heard the voice of a child.
+"It's Helen, and Snap must have taken something she had."
+
+"I see!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, looking out the door. "It's Helen's
+doll. Snap has it in his mouth and he's running with it down to the end
+of the yard."
+
+"Has Snap really got Helen's doll?" asked Flossie.
+
+"Yes," answered her mother. "Though why he took it I don't know."
+
+"Well, if it's only Snap, and no other dog is there, can't I go out and
+see?" asked Bert. "Snap won't hurt me."
+
+"No, I don't believe he will," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Yes, you may all go
+out. I hope Snap hasn't hurt Helen."
+
+Helen Porter was a little girl who lived next door to the Bobbsey twins,
+and those of you who have the book about camping on Blueberry Island
+will remember her as the child who, at first, was thought to have been
+taken away by the Gypsies.
+
+"Oh, Helen! What is the matter, my dear?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as she
+hurried out into the yard, followed by Bert, Nan, Flossie and Freddie.
+
+"Did Snap bite you?" asked Nan, looking toward her father, who was
+running after the dog that was carrying the little girl's doll in his
+mouth.
+
+"No, Snap didn't bite me! But he bit my doll!" Helen answered.
+
+"It doesn't hurt dolls to bite 'em," said Bert, with a laugh.
+
+"It does so!" cried Helen, turning her tear-filled eyes on him. "It
+makes all their sawdust come out!"
+
+"So it does, my dear," said Mrs. Bobbsey kindly. "But we'll hope that
+Snap won't bite your doll as hard as that. If he does I'll sew up the
+holes to keep the sawdust in. But how did he come to do it?"
+
+"I--I guess maybe he liked the cookie my doll had," explained Helen, who
+was about as old as Flossie.
+
+"Did your doll have a cookie?" asked Nan.
+
+"Yes. I was playing she was a rich lady doll," went on the little girl
+from next door, "and she was taking a basket of cookies to a poor doll
+lady. Course I didn't have a whole basket of cookies," explained Helen.
+"I had only one, but I made believe it was a whole basket full."
+
+"How did you give it to your doll to carry?" asked Nan, for she had
+often played games this way herself, making believe different things.
+"How did your doll carry the cookie, Helen?"
+
+"She didn't carry it," was the answer. "I tied it to her with a piece of
+string so she wouldn't lose it. The cookie was tied fast around her
+waist."
+
+"Oh, then I see what happened," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Snap came up to you,
+and he smelled the cookie on your doll; didn't he?"
+
+"Yes'm," answered Helen.
+
+"And he must have thought you meant the cookie for him," went on Nan's
+mother. "And he tried to take it in his mouth; didn't he?"
+
+"Yes'm," Helen answered again.
+
+"And when he couldn't get the cookie loose, because you had it tied fast
+to your doll, he took the cookie, doll and all. That's how it was," said
+Mrs. Bobbsey. "Never mind, Helen. Don't cry. Here comes Mr. Bobbsey now,
+with your doll."
+
+"But I guess Snap has the cookie," said Bert with a laugh.
+
+"I'll get you another one from Dinah," promised Nan to Helen.
+
+In the meantime Mr. Bobbsey had run down to the lower end of the yard
+after Snap, the big dog.
+
+"Come here, Snap, you rascal!" he cried. "Come here this minute!"
+
+But for once Snap did not mind. He was rather hungry, and perhaps that
+accounted for his disobedience. Instead of coming up he ran out of sight
+behind the little toolhouse. Mr. Bobbsey went after him, but by the time
+he reached the spot Snap was nowhere to be seen.
+
+"Snap! Snap!" he called out loudly. "Come here, I tell you! Where are
+you hiding?"
+
+Of course, the dog could not answer the question that had been put to
+him, and neither did he show himself. That is, not at first. But
+presently, as Mr. Bobbsey looked first in one corner of the toolhouse
+and then in another, he saw the tip end of Snap's tail waving slightly
+from behind a big barrel.
+
+"Ah, so there you are!" he called out, and then pushed the barrel to one
+side.
+
+There was Snap, and in front of him lay the doll with a short string
+attached to it. Whatever had been tied to the other end of the string
+was now missing.
+
+"Snap, you're getting to be a bad dog!" said Mr. Bobbsey sternly. "Give
+me that doll this instant!"
+
+The dog made no movement to keep the doll, but simply licked his mouth
+with his long, red tongue, as if he was still enjoying what he had
+eaten.
+
+"If you don't behave yourself after this I'll have to tie you up, Snap,"
+warned Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+And then, acting as if he knew he had done wrong, the big dog slunk out
+of sight.
+
+"Here you are, Helen!" called Flossie's father, as he came back. "Here's
+your doll, all right, and she isn't hurt a bit. But the cookie is inside
+of Snap."
+
+"Did he like it?" Helen wanted to know.
+
+"He seemed to--very much," answered Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh. "He made
+about two bites of it, after he got it loose from the string by which
+you had tied it to the doll."
+
+Helen dried her tears on the backs of her hands, and took the doll which
+had been carried away by the dog. There were a few cookie crumbs
+sticking to her dress, and that was all that was left of the treat she
+had been taking to a make-believe poor lady.
+
+"Snap, what made you act so to Helen?" asked Bert, shaking his finger at
+his pet, when the dog came up from the end of the yard, wagging his
+tail. "Don't you know you were bad?"
+
+Snap did not seem to know anything of the kind. He kept on wagging his
+tail, and sniffed around Helen and her doll.
+
+"He's smelling to see if I've any more cookies," said the little girl.
+
+"I guess he is," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Well, come into the house, Helen,
+and I'll give you another cookie if you want it. But you had better not
+tie it to your doll, and go anywhere near Snap."
+
+"I will eat it myself," said the little girl.
+
+"One cookie a day is enough for Snap, anyhow," said Bert.
+
+The dog himself did not seem to think so, for he followed the children
+and Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey back to the house, as though hoping he would
+get another cake.
+
+"Heah's a bone fo' yo'," said Dinah to Snap, for she liked the big dog,
+and he liked her, I think, for he was in the kitchen as often as Dinah
+would allow him. Or perhaps it was the good things that the fat cook
+gave him which Snap liked.
+
+"When we heard you crying, out in the yard," said Mr. Bobbsey to Helen,
+as they were sitting in the dining-room, "we didn't know what had
+happened."
+
+"We were afraid it was another dog fighting with Snap," went on Nan.
+
+"Snap didn't fight me," Helen said. "But he scared me just like I was
+scared when the gypsy man took Mollie, my talking doll."
+
+I have told you about this in the Blueberry Island book, you remember.
+
+"Well, I must get back to the office," said Mr. Bobbsey, after a while.
+"From there I'll write and tell Cousin Jasper that I'll come to see him,
+and hear his strange story."
+
+"And we'll come too," added Bert with a laugh. "Don't forget us, Daddy."
+
+"I'll not," promised Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+The letter was sent to Mr. Dent, who was still in the hospital, and in a
+few days a letter came back, asking Mr. Bobbsey to come as soon as he
+could.
+
+"Bring the children, too," wrote Cousin Jasper. "They'll like it here,
+and if you will take a trip on the ocean with me they may like to come,
+also."
+
+"Does Cousin Jasper live on the ocean?" asked Flossie, for she called
+Mr. Dent "cousin" as she heard her father and mother do, though, really,
+he was her second, or first cousin once removed.
+
+"Well, he doesn't exactly live on the ocean," said Mr. Bobbsey. "But he
+lives near it, and he often takes trips in boats, I think. He once told
+me he had a large motor boat."
+
+"What's a motor boat?" Freddie wanted to know.
+
+"It is one that has a motor in it, like a motor in an automobile,
+instead of a steam engine," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Big boats and ships,
+except those that sail, are moved by steam engines. But a motor boat has
+a gasolene motor, or engine, in it."
+
+"And are we going to ride in one?" asked Flossie.
+
+"Well, we'll see what Cousin Jasper wants us to do, and hear what his
+strange news is," answered her father.
+
+"Are we going from here to Florida in a motor boat?" Freddie demanded.
+
+"Well, not exactly, little fireman," his father replied with a laugh.
+"We'll go from here to New York in a train, and from New York to Florida
+in a steamboat.
+
+"After that we'll see what Cousin Jasper wants us to do. Maybe he will
+have another boat ready to take us on a nice voyage."
+
+"That'll be fun!" cried Freddie. "I hope we see a whale."
+
+"Well, I hope it doesn't bump into us," said Flossie. "Whales are awful
+big, aren't they, Daddy?"
+
+"Yes, they are quite large. But I hardly think we shall see any between
+here and Florida, though once in a while whales are sighted along the
+coast."
+
+"Are there any sharks?" Bert asked.
+
+"Oh, yes, there are plenty of sharks, some large and some small," his
+father answered. "But they can't hurt us, and the ship will steam right
+on past them in the ocean," he added, seeing that Flossie and Freddie
+looked a bit frightened when Bert spoke of the sharks.
+
+"I wonder what Cousin Jasper really wants of you," said Mrs. Bobbsey to
+her husband, when the children had gone out to play.
+
+"I don't know," he answered, "but we shall hear in a few days. We'll
+start for Florida next week."
+
+And then the Bobbsey twins and their parents got ready for the trip.
+They were to have many strange adventures before they saw their home
+again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OFF FOR FLORIDA
+
+
+There were many matters to be attended to at the Bobbsey home before the
+start could be made for Florida. Mr. Bobbsey had to leave some one in
+charge of his lumber business, and Mrs. Bobbsey had to plan for shutting
+up the house while the family were away. Sam and Dinah would go on a
+vacation while the others were in Florida, they said, and the pet
+animals, Snap and Snoop, would be taken care of by kind neighbors.
+
+"What are you doing, Freddie?" his mother asked him one day, when she
+heard him and Flossie hurrying about in the playroom, while Mrs. Bobbsey
+was sorting over clothes to take on the trip.
+
+"Oh, we're getting out some things we want to take," the little boy
+answered. "Our playthings, you know."
+
+"Can I take two of my dolls?" Flossie asked.
+
+"I think one will be enough," her mother said. "We can't carry much
+baggage, and if we go out on the deep blue sea in a motor boat we shall
+have very little room for any toys. Take only one doll, Flossie, and let
+that be a small one."
+
+"All right," Flossie answered.
+
+Mrs. Bobbsey paid little attention to the small twins for a while as she
+and Nan were busy packing. Bert had gone down to the lumberyard office
+on an errand for his father. Pretty soon there arose a cry in the
+playroom.
+
+"Mother, make Freddie stop!" exclaimed Flossie.
+
+"What are you doing, Freddie?" his mother called.
+
+"I'm not doing anything," he answered, as he often did when Flossie and
+he were having some little trouble.
+
+"He is too doing something!" Flossie went on. "He splashed a whole lot
+of water on my doll."
+
+"Well, it's a rubber doll and water won't hurt," Freddie answered.
+"Anyhow I didn't mean to."
+
+"There! He's doing it again!" cried Flossie. "Make him stop, Mother!"
+
+"Freddie, what _are_ you doing?" demanded Mrs. Bobbsey. "Nan," she went
+on in a lower voice, "you go and peep in. Perhaps Flossie is just too
+fussy."
+
+Before Nan could reach the playroom, which was down the hall from the
+room where Mrs. Bobbsey was sorting over the clothes in a large closet,
+Flossie cried again:
+
+"There! Now you got me all over wet!"
+
+"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, laying aside a pile of garments. "I
+suppose I'll have to go and see what they are doing!"
+
+Before she could reach the playroom, however, Nan came back along the
+hall. She was laughing, but trying to keep quiet about it, so Flossie
+and Freddie would not hear her.
+
+"What is it?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "What are they doing?"
+
+"Freddie is playing with his toy fire engine," Nan said. "And he must
+have squirted some water on Flossie, for she is wet."
+
+"Much?"
+
+"No, only a little."
+
+"Well, he mustn't do it," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I guess they are so
+excited about going to Florida that they really don't know what they are
+doing."
+
+Mrs. Bobbsey peered into the room where the two smaller twins had gone
+to play. Flossie was trying different dresses on a small rubber doll she
+had picked out to take with her. On the other side of the room was
+Freddie with his toy fire engine. It was one that could be wound up, and
+it had a small pump and a little hose that spurted out real water when a
+tank on the engine was filled. Freddie was very fond of playing fireman.
+
+"There, he's doing it again!" cried Flossie, just as her mother came in.
+"He's getting me all wet! Mother, make him stop!"
+
+Mrs. Bobbsey was just in time to see Freddie start his toy fire engine,
+and a little spray of water did shower over his twin sister.
+
+"Freddie, stop it!" cried his mother. "You know you mustn't do that!"
+
+"I can't help it," Freddie said.
+
+"Nonsense! You can't help it? Of course you can help squirting water on
+your sister!"
+
+"He can so!" pouted Flossie.
+
+"No, Mother! I can't, honest," said Freddie. "The hose of my fire engine
+leaks, and that makes the water squirt out on Flossie. I didn't mean to
+do it. I'm playing there's a big fire and I have to put it out. And the
+hose busts--just like it does at real fires--and everybody gets all wet.
+I didn't do it on purpose!"
+
+"Oh, I thought you did," said Flossie. "Well, if it's just make believe
+I don't mind. You can splash me some more, Freddie."
+
+"Oh, no he mustn't!" said Mrs. Bobbsey, trying not to laugh, though she
+wanted to very much. "It's all right to make believe you are putting out
+a fire, Freddie boy, but, after all, the water is really wet and Flossie
+is damp enough now. If you want to play you must fix your leaky hose."
+
+"All right, Mother, I will," promised the little boy.
+
+One corner of the room was his own special place to play with the toy
+fire engine. A piece of oil cloth had been spread down so water would
+not harm anything, and here Freddie had many good times.
+
+There really was a hole in the little rubber hose of his engine, and the
+water did come out where it was not supposed to. That was what made
+Flossie get wet, but it was not much.
+
+"And, anyhow, it didn't hurt her rubber doll," said Freddie.
+
+"No, she likes it," Flossie said. "And I like it too, Freddie, if it's
+only make believe fun."
+
+"Well, don't do it any more," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "You'll soon have water
+enough all around you, when you sail on the blue sea, and that ought to
+satisfy you. Mend the hole in your fire engine hose, Freddie dear."
+
+"All right, Mother," he answered. "Anyhow, I guess I'll play something
+else now. Toot! Toot! The fire's out!" he called, and Mrs. Bobbsey was
+glad of it.
+
+Freddie put away his engine, which he and Flossie had to do with all
+their toys when they were done playing with them, and then ran out to
+find Snap, the dog with which he wanted to have a race up and down the
+yard, throwing sticks for his pet to bring back to him.
+
+Flossie took her rubber doll and went over to Helen Porter's house,
+while Nan and Mrs. Bobbsey went back to the big closet to sort over the
+clothes, some of which would be taken on the Florida trip with them.
+
+"I'm going to take my fire engine with me," Freddie said, when he had
+come in after having had fun with Snap.
+
+"Do you mean on the ship?" asked Nan.
+
+"Yes; I'm going to take my little engine on the ship with me. But first
+I'm going to have the hose mended."
+
+"You won't need a fire engine on a ship," said Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"Oh, I might," answered Freddie. "Sometimes ships get on fire, and
+you've got to put the fire out. I'll take it all right."
+
+"Well, we'll hope our ship doesn't catch fire," remarked his mother.
+
+When Mr. Bobbsey came home to supper that evening, and heard what had
+happened, he said there would be no room for Freddie's toy engine on the
+ship.
+
+[Illustration: THEY WENT ON BOARD THE SHIP.]
+
+"The trip we are going to take isn't like going to Meadow Brook, or to
+Uncle William's seashore home," said the father of the Bobbsey twins.
+"We can't take all the trunks and bags we would like to, for we shall
+have to stay in two small cabins, or staterooms, on the ship. And
+perhaps we shall have even less room when we get on the boat with Cousin
+Jasper--if we go on a boat. So we can't take fire engines and things
+like that."
+
+"But s'posin' the ship gets on fire?" asked Freddie.
+
+"We hope it won't," said Mr. Bobbsey. "But, if it does, there are pumps
+and engines already on board. They won't need yours, Freddie boy, though
+it is very nice of you to think of taking it."
+
+"Can't I take any toys?"
+
+"I think you won't really need them," his father said. "Once we get out
+on the ocean there will be so much to see that you will have enough to
+do without playing with the toys you use here at home. Leave everything
+here, I say. If you want toys we can get them in Florida, and perhaps
+such different ones that you will like them even better than your old
+ones."
+
+"Could I take my little rubber doll?" asked Flossie.
+
+"Yes, I think you might do that," her father said, with a smile at the
+little girl. "You can squeeze your rubber doll up smaller, if she takes
+up too much room."
+
+So it was arranged that way. At first Freddie felt sad about leaving his
+toy fire engine at home, but his father told him perhaps he might catch
+a fish at sea, and then Freddie began saving all the string he could
+find out of which to make a fish line.
+
+Finally the last trunk and valise had been packed. The railroad and
+steamship tickets had been bought, Sam and Dinah got ready to go and
+stay with friends, Snap and Snoop were sent away--not without a rather
+tearful parting on the part of Flossie and Freddie--and then the Bobbsey
+family was ready to start for Florida.
+
+They were to go to New York by train, and as nothing much happened
+during that part of the journey I will skip over it. I might say,
+though, that Freddie took from his pocket a ball of string, which he was
+going to use for his fishing, and the string fell into the aisle of the
+car.
+
+Then the conductor came along and his feet got tangled in the cord,
+dragging the ball boundingly after him halfway down the coach.
+
+"Hello! What's this?" the conductor cried, in surprise.
+
+"Oh, that's my fish line!" answered Freddie.
+
+"Well, you've caught something before you reached the sea," said the
+ticket-taker as he untangled the string from his feet, and all the other
+passengers laughed.
+
+After a pleasant ride the Bobbsey twins reached New York, and, after
+spending a night in a hotel, and going to a moving picture show, they
+went on board the ship the next morning. The ship was to take them down
+the coast to Florida, where Cousin Jasper was ill in a hospital, though
+Mr. Bobbsey had had a letter, just before leaving home, in which Mr.
+Dent said he was feeling much better.
+
+"All aboard! All aboard!" called an officer on the ship, when the
+Bobbseys had left their baggage in the stateroom where they were to stay
+during the trip. "All ashore that's going ashore!"
+
+"That means every one must get off who isn't going to Florida," said
+Bert, who had been on a ship once before with his father.
+
+Bells jingled, whistles blew, people hurried up and down the gangplank,
+or bridge from the dock to the boat, and at last the ship began to move.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were waving good-bye to friends on the pier, and
+Nan and Bert were looking at the big buildings of New York, when Mrs.
+Bobbsey turned, putting away the handkerchief she had been waving, and
+asked:
+
+"Where are Flossie and Freddie?"
+
+"Aren't they here?" asked Mr. Bobbsey quickly.
+
+"No," answered his wife. "Oh, where are they?"
+
+The two little Bobbsey twins were not in sight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+IN A PIPE
+
+
+There was so much going on with the sailing of the ship--so many
+passengers hurrying to and fro, calling and waving good-bye, so much
+noise made by the jingling bells and the tooting whistles--that Mrs.
+Bobbsey could hardly hear her own voice as she called:
+
+"Flossie! Freddie! Where are you?"
+
+But the little twins did not answer, nor could they be seen on deck near
+Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey where they stood with Bert and Nan.
+
+"They were here a minute ago," said Bert. "I saw Flossie holding up her
+rubber doll to show her the Woolworth Building." This, as you know, is
+the highest building in New York, if not in the world.
+
+"But where is Flossie now?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, and there was a worried
+look on her face.
+
+"Maybe she went downstairs," said Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"And where is Freddie?" asked his mother.
+
+"I saw him getting his ball of string ready to go fishing," laughed
+Bert. "I told him to put it away until we got out on the ocean. Then I
+saw a fat man lose his hat and run after it and I didn't watch Freddie
+any more."
+
+"Oh, don't laugh, Bert! Where can those children be?" cried Mrs.
+Bobbsey. "I told them not to go away, but to stay on deck near us, and
+now they've disappeared!"
+
+"Did they go ashore?" asked Nan. "Oh, Mother! if they did we'll have to
+stop the ship and go back after them!"
+
+"They didn't go ashore," said Bert. "They couldn't get there, because
+the gangplank was pulled in while Freddie was standing here by me,
+getting out his ball of string."
+
+"Then they're all right," Mr. Bobbsey said. "They are on board, and
+we'll soon find them. I'll ask some of the officers or the crew. The
+twins can't be lost."
+
+"Oh, but if they have fallen overboard!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"Don't worry," said her husband. "We'd have heard of it before this if
+anything like that had happened. They're all right."
+
+And so it proved. A little later Flossie and Freddie came walking along
+the deck hand in hand. Flossie was carrying her rubber doll, and Freddie
+had his ball of string, all ready to begin fishing as soon as the ship
+should get out of New York Harbor.
+
+"Where have you been?" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "You children have given us
+such a fright! Where were you?"
+
+"We went to look at a poodle dog," explained Flossie.
+
+"A lady had him in a basket," added Freddie.
+
+"What do you mean--a poodle dog in a basket?" asked Bert.
+
+Then Freddie explained, while Mr. Bobbsey went to tell the steward, or
+one of the officers of the ship, that the lost children had come safely
+back.
+
+The smaller twins had seen one of the passengers with a pet dog in a
+blue silk-lined basket, and they had followed her around the deck to the
+other side of the ship, away from their parents, to get a better look at
+the poodle. It was a pretty and friendly little animal, and the children
+had been allowed to pat it. So they forgot what their mother had said to
+them about not going away.
+
+"Well, don't do it again," warned Mr. Bobbsey, and Flossie and Freddie
+said they would not.
+
+By this time the big ship was well on her way down New York Bay toward
+the Statue of Liberty, which the children looked at with wondering eyes.
+They took their last view of the tall buildings which cluster in the
+lower end of the island of Manhattan, and then they felt that they were
+really well started on their voyage.
+
+"Oh, I hope we have lots of fun in Florida!" said Nan. "I've always
+wanted to go there, _always_!"
+
+"So have I," Bert said. "But maybe we won't stay in Florida long."
+
+"Why not?" his sister asked.
+
+"Because didn't father say Cousin Jasper wanted us to take a trip with
+him?"
+
+"So he did," replied Nan. "I wonder where he is going."
+
+"That's part of the strange news he's going to tell," said Bert. "Anyhow
+we'll have a good time."
+
+"And maybe we'll get shipwrecked!" exclaimed Freddie, who, with his
+little sister Flossie, was listening to what the older Bobbsey twins
+were saying.
+
+"Shipwrecked!" cried Bert. "You wouldn't want that, would you?"
+
+"Maybe. If we could live on an island like Robinson Crusoe," Freddie
+answered, "that would be lots of fun."
+
+"Yes, but if we had to live on an island without anything to eat and no
+water to drink, that wouldn't be so much fun," said Nan.
+
+"If it was an island there'd be a lot of water all around it--that's
+what an island is," Flossie said. "I learned it in geogogafy at school.
+An island has water all around it, my geogogafy says."
+
+"Yes, but at sea the water is salty and you can't drink it," Bert said.
+"I don't want to be shipwrecked."
+
+"Well, maybe I don't want to, either," said Freddie, after thinking
+about it a little. "Anyhow we'll have some fun!"
+
+"Yes," agreed Bert, "I guess I will."
+
+"Now I'm going to fish," remarked Freddie.
+
+"You won't catch anything," Bert said.
+
+"Why not?" Freddie wanted to know, as he again took the ball of string
+from his pocket.
+
+"'Cause we're not out at sea yet," Bert replied. "This is only the bay,
+and fish don't come up here on account of too many ships that scare 'em
+away. You'll have to wait until we get out where the water is colored
+blue."
+
+"Do fish like blue water?" asked Flossie.
+
+"I guess so," answered Bert. "Anyhow, I don't s'pose you can catch any
+fish here, Freddie."
+
+However, the little Bobbsey twin boy had his own idea about that. He had
+been planning to catch some fish ever since he had heard about the trip
+to Florida. Freddie had been to the seashore several times, on visits to
+Ocean Cliff, where Uncle William Minturn lived. But this was the first
+time the small chap had been on a big ship. He knew that fish were
+caught in the sea, for he had seen the men come in with boatloads of
+them at Ocean Cliff. And he had caught fish himself at Blueberry Island.
+But that, he remembered, was not in the sea.
+
+"Come on, Flossie," said Freddie, when Bert and Nan had walked away down
+the deck. "Come on, I'm going to do it."
+
+"Do what, Freddie?"
+
+"I'm going to catch some fish. I've got my string all untangled now."
+
+"You haven't any fishhook," observed the little girl; "and you can't
+catch any fish lessen you have a hook."
+
+"I can make one out of a pin, and I've got a pin," answered Freddie. "I
+dassen't ever have a real hook, anyhow, all alone by myself, till I get
+bigger. But I can catch a fish on a pin-hook."
+
+He did have a pin fastened to his coat, and this pin he now bent into
+the shape of a hook and stuck it through a knot in the end of the long,
+dangling string.
+
+"Where are you going to fish?" asked Flossie. She and her brother were
+on the deck not far from the two staterooms of the Bobbsey family. Mrs.
+Bobbsey was sitting in a steamer chair near the door of her room, where
+she could watch the children.
+
+"I'm going to fish right here," Freddie said, pointing to the rail at
+the side of the ship. "I'm going to throw my line over here, with the
+hook on it, just like I fish off the bridge at home."
+
+"And I'll watch you," said Flossie.
+
+Over the railing Freddie tossed his bent-pin hook and line. He thought
+it would reach down to the water, but he did not know how large the boat
+was on which he was sailing to Florida.
+
+His little ball of string unwound as the end of it dropped over the
+rail, but the hook did not reach the water. Even if it had, Freddie
+could have caught nothing. In the first place a bent pin is not the
+right kind of hook, and, in the second place, Freddie had no bait on the
+hook. Bait is something that covers a hook and makes the fish want to
+bite on it. Then they are caught. But Freddie did not think of this just
+now, and his hook had nothing on it. Neither did it reach down to the
+water, and Freddie didn't know that.
+
+But, as his string was dangling over the side of the ship there came a
+sudden tug on it, and the little boy pulled up as hard as he could.
+
+"Oh, I've caught a fish! I've caught a fish!" he cried. "Flossie, look,
+I've caught a fish!"
+
+Of course Flossie could not see what was on the end of her brother's
+line, but it was something! She could easily tell that by the way
+Freddie was hauling in on the string.
+
+"Oh, what have you got?" cried the little girl.
+
+"I've got a big fish!" said Freddie. "I said I'd catch a fish, and I
+did!"
+
+From somewhere down below came shouts and cries.
+
+"What's that?" asked Flossie.
+
+"Them's the people hollering 'cause I caught such a big fish," answered
+Freddie. "Look, there it is!"
+
+Something large and black appeared above the edge of the rail.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" cried Flossie.
+
+Mrs. Bobbsey, from where she was sitting in her chair, heard the cries
+and came running over to the children.
+
+"What are you doing, Freddie?" she asked.
+
+"Catching a fish!" he answered. "I got one and----"
+
+The black thing on the end of his line was pulled over the rail and
+flapped to the deck. Flossie and Freddie stared at it with wide-open
+eyes. Then Flossie said:
+
+"Oh, what a funny fish!"
+
+And so it was, for it wasn't a fish at all, but a woman's big black hat,
+with feathers on it. Freddie's bent-pin hook had caught in the hat which
+was being worn by a woman standing near the rail on the deck below where
+the Bobbsey family had their rooms. And Freddie had pulled the hat right
+off the woman's head.
+
+"No wonder the lady yelled!" laughed Bert when he came to see what was
+happening to his smaller brother and sister. "You're a great fisherman,
+Freddie."
+
+"Well, next time I'll catch a real fish," declared the little boy.
+
+Bert carried the woman's hat down to her, and said Freddie was sorry for
+having caught it in mistake for a fish. The woman laughed heartily and
+said no harm had been done.
+
+"But I couldn't imagine what was pulling my hat off my head," she told
+her friends. "First I thought it was one of the seagulls."
+
+Freddie wound up his string, and said he would not fish any more until
+he could see where his hook went to, and his father told him he had
+better wait until they got to St. Augustine, where he could fish from
+the shore and see what he was catching.
+
+From the time they came on board until it was the hour to eat, the
+Bobbsey twins looked about the ship, seeing something new and wonderful
+on every side. They hardly wanted to go to bed when night came, but
+their mother said they must, as they would be about two days on the
+water, and they would have plenty of time to see everything.
+
+Bert, Freddie and their father had one stateroom and Mrs. Bobbsey and
+the two girls slept in the other, "next door," as you might say.
+
+The night passed quietly, the ship steaming along over the ocean, and
+down the coast to Florida. The next day the four children were up early
+to see everything there was to see.
+
+They found the ship now well out to sea, and out of sight of land. They
+were really on the deep ocean at last, and they liked it very much. Bert
+and Nan found some older children with whom to play, and Flossie and
+Freddie wandered off by themselves, promising not to go too far from
+Mrs. Bobbsey, who was on deck in her easy chair, reading.
+
+After a while Flossie came running back to her mother in great
+excitement.
+
+"Oh, Mother! Oh, Mother!" gasped the little girl. "He's gone!"
+
+"Who's gone?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, dropping her book as she quickly stood
+up.
+
+"Freddie's gone! We were playing hide-and-go-seek, and he went down a
+big pipe, and now I can't see him! He's gone!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE SHARK
+
+
+Mrs. Bobbsey hardly knew what to do for a moment. She just stood and
+looked at Flossie as if she had not understood what the little girl had
+said. Then Freddie's mother spoke.
+
+"You say he went down a big pipe?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, Mother," answered Flossie. "We were playing hide-and-go-seek, and
+it was my turn to blind. I hollered 'ready or not I'm coming!' and when
+I opened my eyes to go to find Freddie, I saw him going down a big,
+round pipe."
+
+"What sort of pipe?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, thinking her little boy might
+have crawled in some place on deck to hide, and that to Flossie it
+looked like a pipe.
+
+"It was a pipe sticking up like a smokestack," Flossie went on, "and it
+was painted red inside."
+
+"Oh, you mean a ventilator pipe!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "If Freddie
+crawled down in one of those he'll have a dreadful fall! Flossie, call
+your father!"
+
+Flossie did not exactly know what a ventilator pipe was, but I'll tell
+you that it is a big iron thing, like a funnel, that lets fresh air from
+above down into the boiler room where the firemen have to stay to make
+steam to push the ship along. But, though Flossie did not quite know
+what a ventilator pipe was, she knew her mother was much frightened, or
+she would not have wanted Mr. Bobbsey to come.
+
+Flossie saw her father about halfway down the deck, talking to some
+other men, and, running up to him, she cried:
+
+"Freddie's down in a want-you-later pipe!"
+
+"A want-you-later pipe?" repeated Mr. Bobbsey. "What in the world do you
+mean, Flossie?"
+
+"Well, that's what mother said," went on the little girl. "Me and
+Freddie were playing hide-and-go-seek, and he hid down in a pipe painted
+red, and mother said it was a want-you-later. And she wants you now!"
+
+"A want-you-later pipe!" exclaimed one of the men. "Oh, she must mean a
+ventilator. It does sound like that to a little girl."
+
+"Yes, that's it," said Flossie. "And please come quick to mother, will
+you, Daddy?"
+
+Mr. Bobbsey set off on a run toward his wife, and some of the other men
+followed, one of them taking hold of Flossie's hand.
+
+"Oh, Dick!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey as her husband reached her, "something
+dreadful has happened! Freddie is down a ventilator pipe, and I don't
+know what to do!"
+
+Neither did Mr. Bobbsey for a moment or two, and as the men came
+crowding around him, one of them bringing up Flossie, a cry was heard,
+coming from one of the red-painted pipes not far away. It was not a loud
+cry, sounding in fact, as if the person calling were down in a cellar.
+
+"Come and get me out! Come and get me out!" the voice begged, and when
+Flossie heard it she said:
+
+"That's him! That's Freddie now. Oh, he's down in the pipe yet!"
+
+"Which pipe?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+Flossie pointed to a ventilator not far away. Mr. Bobbsey and the men
+ran toward it, and, as they reached it, they could hear, coming out of
+the big opening that was shaped somewhat like a funnel, a voice of a
+little boy, saying:
+
+"Come and get me out! I'm stuck!"
+
+Mr. Bobbsey put his head down inside the pipe and looked around. There
+he saw Freddie, doubled up into a little ball, trying to get himself
+loose. Flossie's brother was, indeed, stuck in the pipe, which was
+smaller below than it was at the opening--too small, in fact, to let the
+little boy slip through. So he was in no danger of falling.
+
+"Oh, Freddie! what made you get in there?" asked his father, as he
+reached in, and, after pulling and tugging a bit, managed to get him
+out. "What made you do it?"
+
+"I was hiding away from Flossie," answered the little fellow. "I crawled
+in the pipe, and then I waited for her to come and find me. She didn't
+know where I was."
+
+"Yes, I did so know where you went," declared Flossie. "I saw you crawl
+into the pipe, and I didn't peek, either. I just opened my eyes and I
+saw you go into the pipe, and I was scared and I ran and told mother."
+
+"Well, if you didn't peek it's all right," Freddie said. "It was a good
+place to hide. I waited and waited for you to come and find me and then
+I thought you were going to let me come on in home free, and I tried to
+get out. But I couldn't--I was stuck."
+
+"I should say you were!" laughed Mr. Bobbsey. He could laugh now, and so
+could Mrs. Bobbsey, though, at first, they were very much frightened,
+thinking Freddie might have been hurt.
+
+"Don't crawl in there again, little fireman," said one of the men with
+whom Mr. Bobbsey had been talking, and who knew the pet name of
+Flossie's brother. "This pipe wasn't big enough to let you fall through,
+but some of the ventilator pipes might be, and then you'd fall all the
+way through to the boiler room. Don't hide in any more pipes on the
+steamer."
+
+"I won't," Freddie promised, for he had been frightened when he found
+that he was stuck in the pipe and couldn't get out. "Come on, Flossie;
+it's your turn to hide now," he said.
+
+"I don't want to play hide-and-go-seek any more," the little girl said.
+"I'd rather play with my doll."
+
+"If I had my fire engine I'd play fireman," Freddie said, for he did not
+care much about a doll.
+
+"How would you like to go down to the engine room with me, and see where
+you might have fallen if the ventilator pipe hadn't been too small to
+let you through?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"I'd like it," Freddie said. "I like engines."
+
+So his father took him away down into the hold, or lower part of the
+boat, and showed him where the firemen put coal on the fire. There
+Freddie saw ventilator pipes, like the one he had hid in, reaching from
+the boiler room up to the deck, so the firemen could breathe cool, fresh
+air. And there were also pipes like it in the engine room.
+
+Freddie watched the shining wheels go spinning round and he heard the
+hiss of steam as it turned the big propeller at the back of the ship,
+and pushed the vessel through the waters of the deep blue sea.
+
+"Now we'll go up on deck," said Mr. Bobbsey, when Freddie had seen all
+he cared to in the engine room. "It's cooler there."
+
+Freddie and his father found several women talking to Mrs. Bobbsey, who
+was telling them what had happened to her little boy, and Bert and Nan
+were also listening.
+
+"I wonder what Freddie will do next?" said Bert to his older sister.
+"First he catches a lady's hat for a fish, and then he nearly gets lost
+down a big pipe."
+
+"I hope he doesn't fall overboard," returned Nan.
+
+"So do I," agreed Bert. "And when we get on a smaller ship, if we go on
+a voyage with Cousin Jasper, we'll have to look after Flossie and
+Freddie, or they will surely fall into the water."
+
+"Are we really, truly going on a voyage with Cousin Jasper, do you
+think?" Nan asked.
+
+"Well, I heard father and mother talking about it, and they seemed to
+think maybe we'd take a trip on the ocean," went on Bert.
+
+"I hope we do!" exclaimed Nan. "I just love the water!"
+
+"So do I!" her brother said. "When I get big I'm going to have a ship of
+my own."
+
+"Will you take me for a sail?" asked Nan.
+
+"Course I will!" Bert quickly promised.
+
+The excitement caused by Freddie's hiding in the ventilator pipe soon
+passed, and then the Bobbsey family and the other passengers on the ship
+enjoyed the fine sail. The weather was clear and the sea was not rough,
+so nearly every one was out on deck.
+
+"I wonder if we'll see any shipwrecks," remarked Bert a little later, as
+the four Bobbsey twins were sitting in a shady place not far from Mrs.
+Bobbsey, who was reading her book. She had told the children to keep
+within her sight.
+
+"A shipwreck would be nice to see if nobody got drowned," observed Nan.
+"And maybe we could rescue some of the people!"
+
+"When there's a shipwreck," said Freddie, who seemed to have been
+thinking about it, "they have to get in the little boats, like this
+one," and he pointed to a lifeboat not far away.
+
+"That's an awful little boat to go on the big ocean in," said Flossie.
+
+"It's safe, though," Bert said. "It's got things in it to make it float,
+even if it's half full of water. It can't sink any more than our raft
+could sink."
+
+"Our raft nearly did sink," said Flossie.
+
+"No, it only got stuck on a mud bank," answered Bert. "I was the one
+that sank down in my bare feet," and he laughed as he remembered that
+time.
+
+"Well, anyhow, we had fun," said Freddie.
+
+"Oh, look!" suddenly cried Nan. "There's a small boat now--out there on
+the ocean. Maybe there's been a shipwreck, Bert!"
+
+Bert and the other Bobbsey twins looked at the object to which Nan
+pointed. Not far from the steamer was a small boat with three or four
+men in it, and they seemed to be in some sort of trouble. They were
+beating the water with oars and poles, and something near the boat was
+lashing about, making the waves turn into foam.
+
+"That isn't a shipwreck!" cried Bert. "That's a fisherman's boat!"
+
+"And something is after it!" said Nan. "Oh, Bert! maybe a whale is
+trying to sink the fisherman's boat!"
+
+By this time Mrs. Bobbsey and a number of other passengers were crowding
+to the rail, looking at the small boat. The men in it did, indeed, seem
+to be fighting off something in the water that was trying to damage
+their boat.
+
+"It's a big shark!" cried one of the steamship sailors. "The fishermen
+have caught a big shark and they're trying to kill it before it sinks
+their boat. Say, it's a great, big shark! Look at it lash the water into
+foam! Those men may be hurt!"
+
+"A shark! A shark!" cried the passengers, and from all over the ship
+they came running to where they could see what was happening to the
+small boat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE FIGHT IN THE BOAT
+
+
+When the Bobbsey twins first saw the small boat, and the fishermen in it
+trying to beat off the shark that was trying to get at them, the steamer
+was quite a little distance off. The big vessel, though, was headed
+toward the fishing boat and soon came close enough for the passengers to
+see plainly what was going on. That is, they could not see the shark
+very plainly, for it was mostly under water, but they could see a long,
+black shape, with big fins and a large tail, and the tail was lashing up
+and down, making foam on the waves.
+
+"Hi!" cried Freddie in great excitement. "That's better'n a shipwreck,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Almost as _bad_, I should say," remarked Mr. Bobbsey, who, with his
+wife and other passengers, stood near the rail with the children
+watching the ocean fight.
+
+"The captain ought to stop the ship and go to the rescue of those
+fishermen," said the man who had told Freddie not to get in the
+ventilator pipe again. "I guess the shark is bigger than those men
+thought when they tried to kill it."
+
+"Is that what they are trying to do?" asked Bert.
+
+"It looks so," replied his father. "Sometimes the fishermen catch a
+shark in their nets, and they kill it then, as sharks tear the nets, or
+eat up the fish in them. But I guess this is a larger shark than usual."
+
+"And is it going to sink the boat?" Nan wanted to know.
+
+"That I can't say," Mr. Bobbsey replied. "Perhaps the fishermen caught
+the shark on a big hook and line, and want to get it into the boat to
+bring it to shore. Or maybe the shark is tangled in their net and is
+trying to get loose. Perhaps it thinks the boat is a big whale, or other
+fish, and it wants to fight."
+
+"Whatever it is, those fishermen are having a hard time," said another
+passenger; and this seemed to be so, for, just as soon as the steamer
+came close enough to the small boat, some of the men in it waved their
+hands and shouted. All they said could not be heard, because of the
+noise made by the steamer, but a man near Mrs. Bobbsey said he heard the
+fisherman cry:
+
+"Come and help us!"
+
+"The captain ought to go to their help," said Flossie's mother. "It must
+be terrible to have to fight a big shark in a small boat."
+
+"I guess we are going to rescue them," observed Bert. "Hark! There goes
+the whistle! And that bell means stop the engines!"
+
+The blowing of a whistle and the ringing of a bell sounded even as he
+spoke, and the steamer began to move slowly.
+
+Then a mate, or one of the captain's helpers, came running along the
+deck with some sailors. They began to lower one of the lifeboats, and
+the Bobbsey twins and the other passengers watched them eagerly. Out on
+the sea, which, luckily, was not rough, the men in the small boat were
+still fighting the shark.
+
+"Are you going to help them?" asked Mr. Bobbsey of the mate who got into
+the boat with the sailors.
+
+"Yes, I guess they are in trouble with a big shark, or maybe there are
+two of them. We'll help them kill the big fish."
+
+When the mate and the sailors were in the boat it was let down over the
+side of the ship to the water by long ropes. Then the sailors rowed
+toward the fishermen.
+
+Anxiously the Bobbsey twins and the others watched to see what would
+happen. Over the waves went the rescuing boat, and when it got near
+enough the men in it, with long, sharp poles, with axes and with guns,
+began to help fight the shark. The waters foamed and bubbled, and the
+men in the boats shouted:
+
+"There goes one!" came a call after a while, and, for a moment,
+something long and black seemed to stick up into the air.
+
+"It's a shark!" cried Bert. "I can tell by his pointed nose. Lots of
+sharks have long, pointed noses, and that's one!"
+
+"Yes, I guess it is," his father said.
+
+"Then there must be two sharks," said Mrs. Bobbsey, "for the men are
+still fighting something in the water."
+
+"Yes, they certainly are," her husband replied. "The fishermen must have
+caught one shark, and its mate came to help in the fight. Look, the
+fishing boat nearly went over that time!"
+
+That really came near happening. One of the big fish, after it found
+that its mate had been killed, seemed to get desperate. It rushed at the
+fishermen's boat and struck it with its head, sending it far over on one
+side.
+
+Then the men from the steamer's boat fired some bullets from a gun into
+the second shark and killed it so that it sank. The waters grew quiet
+and the boats were no longer in danger.
+
+The mate and the sailors from the steamer stayed near the fishing boat a
+little while longer, the men talking among themselves, and then the
+sailors rowed back, and were hoisted upon deck in their craft.
+
+"Tell us what happened!" cried Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"It was sharks," answered the mate. "The fishermen came out here to lift
+their lobster pots, which had drifted a long way from shore. While they
+were doing this one of them baited a big hook with a piece of pork and
+threw it overboard, for he had seen some sharks about. A shark bit on
+the hook and then rammed the boat.
+
+"Then another shark came along and both of them fought the fishermen,
+who might have been drowned if we had not helped them kill the sharks.
+But they are all right now--the fishermen, I mean--for the sharks are
+dead and on the bottom of the ocean by this time."
+
+"Were they big sharks?" asked Bert.
+
+"Quite large," the mate answered. "One was almost as long as the fishing
+boat, and they were both very ugly. It isn't often that such big sharks
+come up this far north, but I suppose they were hungry and that made
+them bold."
+
+"I'm glad I wasn't in that boat," said Nan.
+
+"Indeed we all may well be glad," Mrs. Bobbsey said.
+
+"Will those fishermen have to row all the way to shore?" asked Freddie,
+looking across the waters. No land was in sight.
+
+"No, they don't have to row," said the mate of the steamer. "They have a
+little gasolene engine in their boat, and the land is not so far away as
+it seems, only five or six miles. They can get in all right if no more
+sharks come after them, and I don't believe any will."
+
+The fishermen waved their hands to the passengers on the steamer, and
+the Bobbsey twins and the others waved back.
+
+"Good-bye!" shouted the children, as loudly as they could. Whether the
+others heard them or not was not certain, but they continued to wave
+their hands.
+
+It took some time to hoist the lifeboat up in its place on the steamer,
+and in this Freddie and the others were quite interested.
+
+"I'd like to own a boat like that myself," said the little boy.
+
+"What would you do with it?" questioned Flossie.
+
+"Oh, I'd have a whole lot of fun," was the ready answer.
+
+"Would you give me a ride?"
+
+"Of course I would!"
+
+At last the lifeboat was put in its proper place, and then the steamer
+started off again.
+
+The Bobbsey twins had plenty to talk about now, and so did the other
+passengers. It was not often they witnessed a rescue of that kind at
+sea, and Bert, who, like Freddie, had been hoping he might sight a
+shipwreck--that is, he wished it if no one would be drowned--was quite
+satisfied with the excitement of the sharks.
+
+"Only I wish they could have brought one over closer, so we could have
+seen how big it was," he said.
+
+"I don't," remarked Nan. "I don't like sharks."
+
+"Not even when they're dead and can't hurt you?" asked Bert.
+
+"Not even any time," Nan said. "I don't like sharks."
+
+"Neither do I," said Flossie.
+
+"Well, I'd like to see one if daddy would take hold of my hand," put in
+Freddie. "Then I wouldn't be afraid."
+
+"Maybe there'll be sharks when we get to Cousin Jasper's house," said
+Flossie.
+
+"His house isn't in the ocean, and sharks is only in the ocean,"
+declared Freddie.
+
+"Well, maybe his house is _near_ the ocean," went on the little "fat
+fairy."
+
+"Cousin Jasper is in the hospital," Nan remarked; "and I guess they
+don't have any sharks there."
+
+"Maybe they have alligators," added Bert with a smile.
+
+"Really?" asked Nan.
+
+"Well, you know Florida is where they have lots of alligators," went on
+her older brother. "And we're going to Florida."
+
+"I don't like alligators any more than I like sharks," Nan said, with a
+little shivery sort of shake. "I just like dogs and cats and chickens."
+
+"And goats," said Flossie. "You like goats, don't you, Nan?"
+
+"Yes, I like the kind of a goat we had when we went to Blueberry
+Island," agreed Nan. "But look! What are the sailors doing?"
+
+She pointed to some of the men from the ship, who were going about the
+decks, picking up chairs and lashing fast, with ropes, things that might
+roll or slide about.
+
+"Maybe we're almost there, and we're getting ready to land," said
+Freddie.
+
+"No, we've got another night to stay on the ship," Bert said. "I'm going
+to ask one of the men." And he did, inquiring what the reason was for
+picking up the chairs and tying fast so many things.
+
+"The captain thinks we're going to run into a storm," answered the
+sailor, "and we're getting ready for it."
+
+"Will it be very bad?" asked Nan, who did not like storms.
+
+"Well, it's likely to be a hard one, little Miss," the sailor said. "We
+will soon be off Cape Hatteras, and the storms there are fierce
+sometimes. So we're making everything snug to get ready for the blow.
+But don't be afraid. This is a strong ship."
+
+However, as the Bobbsey twins saw the sailors making fast everything,
+and lashing loose awnings and ropes, and as they saw the sky beginning
+to get dark, though it was not yet night, they were all a little
+frightened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+IN ST. AUGUSTINE
+
+
+The storm came up more quickly than even the captain or his sailors
+thought it would. The deep, blue sea, which had been such a pretty color
+when the sun shone on it, now turned to a dark green shade. The blue sky
+was covered by black and angry-looking clouds, and the wind seemed to
+moan as it hummed about the ship.
+
+But the steamer did not stop. On it rushed over the water, with foam in
+front, at the prow, or bow, and foam at the stern where the big
+propeller churned away.
+
+"Come, children!" called Mrs. Bobbsey to the twins, as they stood at the
+rail, looking first up at the gathering clouds and then down at the
+water, which was now quite rough. "Come! I think we had better go to our
+cabins."
+
+"Oh, let us stay up just a little longer," begged Bert. "I've never seen
+a storm at sea, and I want to."
+
+"Well, you and Nan may stay up on deck a little longer," said Mrs.
+Bobbsey. "But you must not go far away from daddy. I don't want any of
+you to fall overboard, especially when such big sharks may be in the
+ocean."
+
+"Oh, I'm not going to fall overboard!" exclaimed Bert. "Never!"
+
+"Nor I," added his sister. "I'll keep tight hold of the rail, and when
+it gets too rough we'll come down."
+
+Mr. Bobbsey and some of the men passengers were still on deck, watching
+the approach of the storm, and Bert and Nan moved over nearer their
+father, while Mrs. Bobbsey went below with Flossie and Freddie. The two
+smaller twins, when they found their older brother and sister were going
+to stay on deck, also wanted to do this, but their mother said to them:
+
+"No, it is safer for you to be down below with me. It may come on to
+blow hard at any moment, and then it won't be so easy to go down the
+stairs when the ship is standing on its head, or its ear, or whatever
+way ships stand in a storm."
+
+"But I want to see the storm!" complained Freddie.
+
+"You'll see all you want of it, and feel it, too, down in our stateroom,
+as well as up on deck, and you'll be much safer," his mother told him.
+
+The storm came up more and more quickly, and, though it was not yet four
+o'clock, it was as dark as it usually is at seven, for so many clouds
+covered the sky. The waves, too, began to get larger and larger and,
+pretty soon, the steamer, which had been going along smoothly, or with
+not more than a gentle roll from side to side, began pitching and
+tossing.
+
+"Oh, my! isn't it getting dark?" cried Flossie.
+
+"Say, it isn't time to go to bed yet, is it?" questioned Freddie
+anxiously.
+
+"Of course not!" answered his twin. "It's only about the middle of the
+afternoon, isn't it, Mother?"
+
+"Just about," answered Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+In the meanwhile the others, who were still on deck, were having a
+decidedly lively time of it.
+
+"Come on, Nan and Bert!" called Mr. Bobbsey, to the older twins. "Better
+get below while you have the chance. It's getting too rough for children
+up here."
+
+"Are you coming too, Daddy?" asked Nan.
+
+"Yes, I'll go down with you. In fact, I think every one is going below
+except the sailors."
+
+This was so, for the mate was going about telling the passengers still
+on deck that it would be best for them to get to the shelter of the
+cabins and staterooms.
+
+Nan and Bert started to walk across the deck, and when they were almost
+at the stairs, or the "companionway" as it is called, that led to their
+rooms, the ship gave a lurch and roll, and Bert lost his balance.
+
+"Oh! Oh!" he cried, as he found himself sliding across the deck, which
+was tilted up almost like an old-fashioned cellar door, and Bert was
+rolling down it. "Oh, catch me, Dad!"
+
+Luckily he rolled in, and not out, or he would have rolled to the edge
+of the ship. Not that he could have gone overboard, for there was a
+railing and netting to stop that, but he would have been badly
+frightened if he had rolled near the edge, I think.
+
+"Look out!" cried Mr. Bobbsey, as he saw Bert sliding and slipping.
+"Look out, or you'll fall downstairs!"
+
+And that is just what happened. Bert rolled to the top of the
+companionway stairs, and right down them. Luckily he was a stout, chubby
+boy, and, as it happened, just then a sailor was coming up the stairs,
+and Bert rolled into him. The sailor was nearly knocked off his feet by
+the collision with Bert, but he managed to get hold of a rail and hold
+on.
+
+"My! My! What's this?" cried the sailor, when he got his breath, which
+Bert had partly knocked from him. "Is this a new way to come
+downstairs?"
+
+"I--I didn't mean to," Bert answered, as he managed to stand up and hold
+on to the man. "The ship turned upside down, I guess, and I rolled down
+here."
+
+"Well, as long as you're not hurt it's all right," said the sailor with
+a laugh. "It is certainly a rough storm. Better get below and stay there
+until it blows out."
+
+"Yes, sir, I'm getting," grinned Bert.
+
+"I think that is good advice," said Mr. Bobbsey to the sailor, with a
+smile, as he hurried after Bert, but not coming in the same fashion as
+his son.
+
+Nan had grabbed tightly hold of a rope and clung to it when the ship
+gave a lurch. She was not hurt, but her arms ached from holding on so
+tightly.
+
+After that one big roll and toss the steamer became steady for a little
+while, and Mr. Bobbsey and the two children made their way to the
+stateroom where Mrs. Bobbsey was sitting with Flossie and Freddie.
+
+"What happened?" asked Bert's mother, as she saw that he was rather
+"mussed up," from what had occurred.
+
+"Oh, I tried to come down the stairs head first," Bert answered with a
+laugh. "I don't like that way. I'm not going to do it again," and he
+told what had taken place.
+
+And then the storm burst with a shower of rain and a heavy wind that
+tossed and pitched the boat, and made many of the passengers wish they
+were safe on shore.
+
+The Bobbsey twins had often been on the water, when on visits to Uncle
+William at the seashore, as I have told you in that book, and they were
+not made ill by the pitching and tossing of the steamer.
+
+Still it was not much fun to stay below decks, which they and the others
+had to do all that night and most of the next day. It was too rough for
+any one to be out on deck, and even the sailors, used as they were to
+it, had trouble. One of them was nearly washed overboard, but his mates
+saved him. And one of the lifeboats--the same one in which the men had
+gone to save the fishermen from the sharks--was broken and torn away
+when a big wave hit it.
+
+"Is it always rough like this when you go past Cape Hatteras?" asked
+Bert of his father.
+
+"Very frequently, yes. You see Cape Hatteras is a point of land of North
+Carolina, sticking out into the ocean. In the ocean are currents of
+water, and when one rushes one way and one the other, and they come
+together, it makes a rough sea, especially when there is a strong wind,
+as there is now. We are in this rough part of the ocean, and in the
+midst of a storm, too. But we will soon be out of it."
+
+However, the steamer could not go so fast in the rough water as she
+could have traveled had it been smooth, and the wind, blowing against
+her, also held her back. So it was not until late on the second day that
+the storm passed away, or rather, until the ship got beyond it.
+
+Then the rain stopped, the sun came out from behind the clouds just
+before it was time to set, and the hard time was over. The sea was
+rough, and would be for another day, the sailors said.
+
+"And can we go on deck in the morning?" asked Bert, who did not like
+being shut up in the stateroom.
+
+"I guess so," his father answered.
+
+The next morning all was calm and peaceful, though the waves were larger
+than when the Bobbsey twins had left New York.
+
+Every one was glad that the storm had passed, and that nothing had
+happened to the steamer, except the loss of the one small boat.
+
+"Were those fishermen who fought the sharks out in all that blow in
+their small motor boat, Dad?" asked Bert.
+
+"Oh, no," his father told him. "They only go out from shore, take up
+their nets or lobster pots, and go quickly back again. Their boats are
+not made for staying out in all night. Though perhaps sometimes, in a
+fog, when they can't see to get back, they may be out a long time. But I
+don't believe they were out in this storm."
+
+It was peaceful traveling now, on the deep blue sea, which was a pretty
+color again, and the Bobbsey twins, leaning over the rail and looking at
+it, thought they had never come on such a fine voyage.
+
+"It's getting warmer," said Bert when they had eaten dinner and were
+once more on deck.
+
+"Yes, we are getting farther south, nearer to the equator, and it is
+always warm there," said Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"Are we near Florida?" asked Nan.
+
+"Yes, we will be there this evening," her father told her.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when the steamer reached Jacksonville. As
+the arrival of the steamship had been delayed by the storm, the
+Bobbsey's were left no time to look about Jacksonville, but hurried at
+once to the railroad station, and there took the train that carried them
+to St. Augustine. It was about an hour before sunset when they got out
+of the train at this quaint, pretty old town.
+
+"Oh, what funny little streets!" cried Bert, as they started for their
+hotel where they were to stay until they could go to the hospital and
+see Cousin Jasper. "What little streets!"
+
+"Aren't they darling?" exclaimed Nan.
+
+"Yes, this is a very old city," said Mr. Bobbsey, "and some of the
+streets are no wider than they were made when they were laid out here
+over three hundred years ago."
+
+"Oh, is this city as old as that--three hundred years?" asked Nan, while
+Flossie and Freddie peered about at the strange sights.
+
+"Yes, and older," said Mr. Bobbsey. "St. Augustine is the oldest city in
+the United States. It was settled in 1565 by the Spaniards, and I
+suppose they built it like some of the Spanish cities they knew. That is
+why the streets are so narrow."
+
+And indeed the streets were very narrow. The one called St. George is
+only seventeen feet wide, and it is the principal street in St.
+Augustine. Just think of a street not much wider than a very big room.
+And Treasury street is even narrower, being so small that two people can
+stand and shake hands across it. Really, one might call it only an
+alley, and not a street.
+
+The Bobbseys saw many negroes about the streets, some driving little
+donkey carts, and others carrying fruit and other things in baskets on
+their heads.
+
+"Don't they ever fall off?" asked Freddie, as he watched one big, fat
+colored woman on whose head, covered with a bright, red handkerchief, or
+"bandanna," there was a large basket of fruit. "Don't they ever fall
+off?"
+
+"What do you mean fall off--their heads?" asked Bert with a smile.
+
+"No, I mean the things they carry," said Freddie.
+
+"Well, I guess they start in carrying things that way from the time they
+are children," said Mrs. Bobbsey, "and they learn to balance things on
+their heads as well as you children learn to balance yourselves on
+roller skates. I dare say the colored people here would find it as hard
+to roller skate as you would to carry a heavy load on your head."
+
+"Well, here we are at our hotel," said Mr. Bobbsey, as the automobile in
+which they had ridden up from the station came to a stop in front of a
+fine building. "Now we will get out and see what they have for supper."
+
+"And then will we go to Cousin Jasper and find out what his strange
+story is?"
+
+"I guess so," her father answered.
+
+"Say, this is a fine hotel!" exclaimed Bert as he and the others saw the
+beautiful palm and flower gardens, with fountains between them, in the
+courtyard of the place where they were to stop.
+
+"Oh, yes, St. Augustine has wonderful hotels," said his father. "This is
+a place where many rich people come to spend the winter that would be
+too cold for them in New York. Now come inside."
+
+[Illustration: THE SHIP GAVE A LURCH AND BURT LOST HIS BALANCE.]
+
+Into the beautiful hotel they went, and when Mr. Bobbsey was asking
+about their rooms, and seeing that the baggage was brought in, Mrs.
+Bobbsey glanced around to make sure the four twins were with her, for
+sometimes Flossie or Freddie strayed off.
+
+And that is what had happened this time. Freddie was not in sight.
+
+"Oh, where is that boy?" cried his mother. "I hope he hasn't crawled
+down another ventilator pipe!"
+
+"No'm," answered one of the hotel men. "He hasn't done that. I saw your
+little boy run back out of the front door a moment ago. But he'll be all
+right. Nothing can happen to him in St. Augustine."
+
+"Oh, but I must find him!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "Dick, Freddie is
+gone again!" she said to her husband. "We must find him at once!" and
+she hurried from the hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+COUSIN JASPER'S STORY
+
+
+Mr. Bobbsey, who had been talking to the clerk of the hotel at the desk,
+looked toward Mrs. Bobbsey, who was hurrying out the front door.
+
+"Wait a minute!" he called after her. "I'll come with you!"
+
+"No, you stay with the other children," she answered. "I'll find
+Freddie."
+
+"But you don't know your way about St. Augustine," said Mr. Bobbsey.
+"You've never been here before."
+
+"Neither have you," returned his wife with a laugh, for she was not very
+much alarmed about Freddie--he had slipped away too often before.
+
+"I can find my way about as well as you can, Dick," went on Mrs.
+Bobbsey. "You stay here and I'll get our little fat fireman."
+
+"Maybe he has gone to see a fire engine," suggested Nan.
+
+"I don't believe so," answered her father. "I didn't hear any alarm, but
+perhaps they don't sound one here as we do back in Lakeport."
+
+"I guess he's just gone out to look at the things in the streets here,"
+said Bert. "They're a lot different from at home."
+
+"Indeed they are!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey. "Well, I'll stay here," he
+said to his wife, "and you go and look for Freddie. But if you don't
+soon find him come back and I'll go out."
+
+"I'll find him," she said, and one of the porters from the hotel offered
+to go with her to show Mrs. Bobbsey her way about the strange streets of
+St. Augustine--the little, narrow streets that had not been changed much
+in three hundred years.
+
+"Oh, what a lovely place this is," said Nan to Bert, while their father
+was talking with the hotel clerk. "It's like a palace."
+
+"It looks like some of the places you see in a moving picture," said
+Bert.
+
+And indeed the beautiful hotel, with the palms and flowers set all
+about, did look like some moving picture play. Only it was real, and the
+Bobbsey twins were to stay there until they had seen Cousin Jasper, and
+found out what his strange story was about.
+
+Soon after Mr. Bobbsey had finished signing his name and those of the
+members of his family in the hotel register book, Mrs. Bobbsey came
+back, leading Freddie by the hand.
+
+The little boy seemed to be all right, and he was smiling, while in one
+hand he held a ripe banana.
+
+"Where've you been, Freddie?" asked Flossie. "I was afraid you had gone
+back home."
+
+"Nope," Freddie answered, as he started to peel the banana. "I was
+seeing how they did it."
+
+"How who did what?" asked his father.
+
+"Carried the big baskets on their heads," Freddie answered, and by this
+time he had part of the skin off the yellow fruit, and was breaking off
+a piece for Flossie. Freddie always shared his good things with his
+little sister, and with Bert and Nan if there was enough.
+
+"What does he mean?" asked Bert of his mother. "Was he trying to carry
+something on his head?"
+
+"No," answered Mrs. Bobbsey with a laugh, "but he was following a big
+colored woman who had a basket of fruit on her head. I caught him
+halfway down the street in front of another hotel. He was walking after
+this woman, and he didn't hear me coming. I asked him what he was doing,
+and he said he was waiting to see it fall off."
+
+"What fall off?" asked Nan, coming up just then.
+
+"I thought maybe the basket would fall off her head," Freddie answered
+for himself. "It was an awful big basket, and it wibbled and wobbled
+like anything. I thought maybe it would fall, but it didn't," he added
+with a sigh, as though he had been cheated out of a lot of fun.
+
+"If it did had fallen," he went on, "I was going to pick up her bananas
+and oranges for her. That's why I kept walking after her."
+
+"Did she drop that banana?" asked Mr. Bobbsey, while several smiling
+persons gathered about the Bobbsey twins in the hotel lobby.
+
+"No, I bought this with a penny," Freddie answered. "The colored lady
+didn't drop any. But if her basket did had fallen from off her head I
+could have picked up the things, and then maybe she'd have given me a
+banana or an orange."
+
+"And when that didn't happen you had to go buy one yourself; did you?"
+asked Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh. "Well, that's too bad. But, after this,
+Freddie, don't go away by yourself. It's all right, at home, to run off
+and play in the fields or woods, for you know your way about. But here
+you are in a strange city, so you must stay with us."
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Freddie, like a good little boy.
+
+"I will, too," promised Flossie.
+
+The Bobbsey family was together once again, and when Flossie and Freddie
+had eaten the banana, and porters had taken charge of their baggage,
+they all went up to the rooms where they were to stay.
+
+"We don't know just how long we'll be here," said Mr. Bobbsey, as they
+were getting ready to go down to supper, as the children called it, or
+"dinner," as the more fashionable name has it.
+
+"Are we going out on the ocean again?" asked Nan.
+
+"Did you like it?" her father wanted to know.
+
+"Oh, lots!" she answered.
+
+"It was great!" declared Bert.
+
+"I want to see 'em catch some more sharks," Freddie said.
+
+"I like to see the blue water," added Flossie, who had got out a clean
+dress for her rubber doll.
+
+"Yes, the blue water is very pretty," remarked Mr. Bobbsey. "Well, we
+shall, very likely, sail on it again. I don't know just what Cousin
+Jasper wants to tell me, or what he wants me to do. But I think he is
+planning an ocean trip himself. I'll go to see him this evening, after
+we have eaten, and then I can tell you all about it."
+
+"May I come with you?" asked Bert.
+
+"Well, I think not this first trip," answered Mr. Bobbsey slowly. "I am
+going to the hospital where Cousin Jasper is ill, and he may not be able
+to see both of us. I'll take you later."
+
+"We can stay and watch the colored people carry things on their heads,"
+put in Freddie. "That's lots of fun, and maybe some of 'em will drop
+off, and we can help pick 'em up, and they might give us an orange."
+
+"I guess I'd rather buy my oranges, and then I'll be sure to have what I
+want," said Bert with a laugh.
+
+"There are plenty of things you can look at while I'm at the hospital,"
+said Mr. Bobbsey, and after the meal he inquired the way to the place
+where Cousin Jasper was getting well, while Mrs. Bobbsey took the
+children down to the docks, where they could see many motor boats, and
+fishing and oyster craft, tied up for the night.
+
+It was a beautiful evening, and the soft, balmy air of St. Augustine was
+warm, so that only the lightest clothing needed to be worn.
+
+"It's just like being at the seashore in the summer," said Nan.
+
+"Well, this is summer, and we are at the seashore, though it is not like
+Ocean Cliff," said Mrs. Bobbsey with a smile. She was glad the children
+liked it, and she hoped they would have more good times if they were
+again to go sailing on the deep, blue sea.
+
+When they got back to the hotel Mr. Bobbsey had not yet returned from
+the hospital, but he came before Flossie and Freddie were ready for bed,
+for they had been allowed to stay up a little later than usual.
+
+"Well, how is Cousin Jasper?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"Much better, I am glad to say," answered her husband. "He will be able
+to leave the hospital in a few days, and then he wants us to start on a
+trip with him."
+
+"Start on a trip so soon!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "Where does he want
+to go, and will he be well enough to travel?"
+
+"He says he will. And as to where he wants to go, that is a strange
+story."
+
+"Oh, tell us about it!" begged Bert.
+
+"We're going to hear Cousin Jasper's secret at last!" cried Nan.
+
+"Is it a real story, with 'once upon a time' in it?" Freddie questioned.
+"And has it got a fire engine in it?" he added.
+
+"Well, no, not exactly a fire engine, though it has a boat engine in the
+story. And I can make it start with 'once upon a time,' if you want me
+to."
+
+"Please do," begged Flossie. "And has it got any fairies in it?"
+
+"No, not exactly any fairies," her father said; "though we may find some
+when we get to the island."
+
+"Oh, are we going on an island?" exclaimed Bert.
+
+"There!" cried his father, "I've started at the wrong end. I had better
+begin at the beginning. And that will be to tell you how I found Cousin
+Jasper.
+
+"He has been quite ill, and is better now. Part of the time he was out
+of his head with fever, even after he wrote to me, and for a time the
+doctor feared he would not get well. But now he is all right, except for
+being weak, and he told me a queer story.
+
+"Once upon a time," went on Mr. Bobbsey, telling the tale as his littler
+children liked to hear it, "Cousin Jasper and a young friend of his, a
+boy about fifteen years old, set out to take a long trip in a motor
+boat. That is it had an engine in it that ran by gasolene as does an
+automobile. Cousin Jasper is very fond of sailing the deep, blue sea,
+and he took this boy along with him to help. They were to sail about for
+a week, visiting the different islands off the coast of Florida.
+
+"Well, everything went all right the first few days. In their big motor
+boat Cousin Jasper and this boy, who was named Jack Nelson, sailed
+about, living on their boat, cooking their meals, and now and then
+landing at the little islands, or keys, as they are called.
+
+"They were having a good time when one day a big storm came up. They
+could not manage their boat and they were blown a long way out to sea
+and then cast up on the shore of a small island.
+
+"Cousin Jasper was hurt and so was the boy, but they managed to get out
+of the water and up on land. They found a sort of cave in which they
+could get out of the storm, and they stayed on the island for some
+time."
+
+"For years?" asked Bert, who, with the other Bobbsey twins, was much
+interested in Cousin Jasper's strange story. "That was just like
+Robinson Crusoe!" Bert went on. "Why didn't they stay there always?"
+
+"They did not have enough to eat," said Mr. Bobbsey, "and it was too
+lonesome for them there. They were the only people on the island, as far
+as they knew. So they made a smudge of smoke, and on a pole they put up
+some pieces of canvas that had washed ashore from their motor boat. They
+hoped these signals would be seen by some ship or small boat that might
+come to take them off."
+
+"Did they get rescued?" asked Bert.
+
+Mr. Bobbsey was about to answer when the telephone, which was in the
+room, gave a loud ring.
+
+"Some one for us!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE MOTOR BOAT
+
+
+Mr. Bobbsey arose to answer the telephone, which big hotels put in the
+rooms of their guests nowadays instead of sending a bellboy to knock and
+say that the traveler is wanted.
+
+"I wonder who wants us?" murmured Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+The children looked disappointed that the telling of the story had to be
+stopped.
+
+"Hello!" said their father into the telephone.
+
+Then he listened, and seemed quite surprised at what he heard.
+
+"Yes, I'll be down in a little while," he went on. "Tell him to wait."
+
+"What is it?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "Was that Cousin Jasper?"
+
+"Oh, no indeed!" her husband answered. "Though he is much better he is
+not quite well enough to leave the hospital yet and come to see us. This
+was an old sea captain talking from the main office of the hotel
+downstairs."
+
+"Is he going to take us for a trip on the ocean?" asked Bert eagerly.
+
+"Well, that's what he wants to do, or, rather, he wants me to see about
+a big motor boat in which to take a trip. Cousin Jasper sent him to me.
+But let me finish what I was saying about the island, and then I'll tell
+you about the sea captain."
+
+Mr. Bobbsey hung up the telephone receiver and took his seat between
+Flossie and Freddie where he had been resting in an easy chair, telling
+the story.
+
+"Cousin Jasper," went on Mr. Bobbsey, "was quite ill on the island, and
+so was Jack Nelson. Just how long they stayed there, waiting for a boat
+to come and take them off, they do not know--at least, Cousin Jasper
+does not know."
+
+"Doesn't that boy--Jack Nelson--know?" asked Bert.
+
+"No, for he wasn't taken off the island," said Mr. Bobbsey. "And that is
+the strange part of Cousin Jasper's story. He, himself, after a hard
+time on the island, must have fallen asleep, in a fever probably. When
+he awakened he was on board a small steamer, being brought back to St.
+Augustine. He hardly knew what happened to him, until he found himself
+in the hospital.
+
+"There he slowly got better until he was well enough to write and ask me
+to come to see him. He wanted me to do something that no one else would
+do."
+
+"And what is that?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"He wants me to get a big motor boat, and go with him to this island and
+get that boy, Jack Nelson."
+
+"Is that boy still on the island?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "Why how long ago
+was this?"
+
+"About three weeks," her husband answered. "Cousin Jasper does not know
+whether or not the boy is still there, but he is afraid he is. You see
+when the boat came to rescue Mr. Dent, as my cousin is called at the
+hospital, they did not take off with him his boy friend. The sailors of
+the rescue ship said they saw Cousin Jasper's canvas flag fluttering
+from a pole stuck up in the beach, and that brought them to the island.
+They found Cousin Jasper, unconscious, in a little cave-like shelter
+near shore, and took him away with them."
+
+"Didn't they see the boy?" asked Nan.
+
+"No, he was not in sight, the sailors afterward told Mr. Dent. They did
+not look for any one else, not knowing that two had been shipwrecked on
+the island. They thought there was only one, and so Cousin Jasper alone
+was saved.
+
+"When he grew better, and the fever left him, he tried to get some one
+to start out in a boat to go to the island and save that boy. But no one
+would go."
+
+"Why not?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"Because they thought Cousin Jasper was still out of his mind from
+fever. They said the sailors from the rescue ship had seen no one else,
+and if there had been a boy on the island such a person would have been
+near Mr. Dent. But no one was seen on the island, and so they thought it
+was all a dream of Cousin Jasper's."
+
+"And maybe that poor boy is there yet!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"That's what my cousin is afraid of," her husband said. "And that is why
+he sent for me, his nearest relative. He knew I would believe him, and
+not imagine he was dreaming. So he wants me to hire for him, as he is
+rich, a motor boat and go to this island to rescue the boy if he is
+still there. Cousin Jasper thinks he is. He thinks the boy must have
+wandered away and so was not in sight when the rescue ship came, or
+perhaps he was asleep or ill further from the shore.
+
+"At any rate that's Cousin Jasper's strange story. And now he wants us
+to help him see if it's true--see if the boy is still on the island
+waiting to be rescued."
+
+"How can you find the island?" asked Nan.
+
+"Cousin Jasper says he will go with us and show us the way. The sea
+captain who called me up just now from down in the office of the hotel
+is a man who hires out motor boats. Cousin Jasper knows him, and sent
+him to see me, as I am to have charge of everything, Mr. Dent not yet
+being strong enough to do so."
+
+"And are you going to do it?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"Oh, yes," her husband said. "I came here to help Cousin Jasper, and if
+he wants me to set off on a sea voyage to rescue a poor lonely boy from
+an island, why I'll have to do it."
+
+"May we go?" eagerly asked Bert.
+
+"Yes, I think so. Cousin Jasper says he wants me to get for him a big
+motor boat--one large enough for all of us. We will have quite a long
+trip on the deep, blue sea, and if we find that the boy has been taken
+off the island by some other ship, then we can have a good time sailing
+about. But first we must go to the rescue."
+
+"It's just like a story in a book!" cried Nan, clapping her hands.
+
+"Is they--are there oranges and bananas there?" asked Freddie.
+
+"Where?" his father asked.
+
+"On the island where the boy is?"
+
+"Well, I don't know," answered Mr. Bobbsey. "Perhaps bananas may grow
+there, though I doubt it. It is hardly warm enough for them."
+
+"Well, let's go anyhow," said Freddie. "We can have some fun!"
+
+"Yes," said Flossie, who always wanted to do whatever her small brother
+did, "we can have some fun!"
+
+"But we are not going for fun--first of all," said Mr. Bobbsey. "We are
+going to try to rescue this poor boy, who may be sick and alone on the
+island. After we get him off, or find that he has been taken care of by
+some one else, then we will think about good times.
+
+"And now, my dear," said Mr. Bobbsey to his wife, "the question is,
+would you like to go?"
+
+"Will it be dangerous?" she asked.
+
+"No, I think not. No more so than coming down on the big ship. It is now
+summer, and there are not many storms here then. And we shall be in a
+big motor boat with a good captain and crew. Cousin Jasper told me to
+tell you that. We shall sail for a good part of the time--or, rather,
+motor--around among islands, so each day we shall not be very far from
+some land. Would you like to go?"
+
+"Please say yes, Mother!" begged Bert.
+
+"We'd like to go!" added Nan.
+
+"Well," answered Mrs. Bobbsey slowly, "it sounds as if it would be a
+nice trip. That is it will be nice if we can rescue this poor boy from
+the lonely island. Yes," she said to her husband, "I think we ought to
+go. But it is strange that Cousin Jasper could not get any one from here
+to start out before this."
+
+"They did not believe the tale he told of the boy having been left on
+the island," said Mr. Bobbsey. "They thought Cousin Jasper was still out
+of his head, and had, perhaps, dreamed this. He was very anxious to get
+some one started in a boat for the island, but no one would go. So he
+had to send for me."
+
+"And you'll go!" exclaimed Bert.
+
+"Yes, we'll all go. Now that I have told you Cousin Jasper's strange
+story I'll go down and talk to the sea captain. I want to find out what
+sort of motor boat he has, and when we can get it."
+
+"When are we going to start for the island?" asked Bert.
+
+"And what's the name of it?" Nan questioned.
+
+"Is it where Robinson Crusoe lived?" queried Freddie.
+
+"I'll have to take turns answering your questions," said Mr. Bobbsey
+with a laugh. "In the first place, Bert, we'll start as soon as we
+can--that is as soon as Cousin Jasper is able to leave the hospital.
+That will be within a few days, I think, as the doctor said a sea voyage
+would do him good. And, too, the sooner we start the more quickly we
+shall know about this poor boy.
+
+"As for the name of the island, I don't know that it has any. Cousin
+Jasper didn't tell me, if it has. We can name it after we get there if
+we find it has not already been called something. And I don't believe it
+is the island where Robinson Crusoe used to live, Freddie. So now that I
+have answered all your questions, I think I'll go down and talk to the
+captain."
+
+Flossie and Freddie were in bed when their father came back upstairs,
+and Nan and Bert were getting ready for Slumberland, for it was their
+first day ashore after the voyage, and they were tired.
+
+"Did you get the motor boat?" asked Bert.
+
+"Not yet," his father answered with a laugh. "I am to go to look at it
+in the morning."
+
+"May I come?"
+
+"Yes, but go to bed now. It is getting late."
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey stayed up a little longer, talking about many
+things, and sending a few postcards to friends at home, telling of the
+safe arrival in St. Augustine.
+
+Freddie was up early the next morning, standing with his nose flattened
+against the front window of the hotel rooms where the Bobbseys were
+stopping.
+
+"I see one!" he cried. "I see one!"
+
+"What?" asked Flossie. "A motor boat?"
+
+"No, but another colored lady, and she's got an awful big basket on her
+head. Come and look, Flossie! Maybe it'll fall off!"
+
+But nothing like that happened, and after breakfast Mr. Bobbsey
+suggested that the whole family set out to see some of the sights of St.
+Augustine--the oldest city of the United States--and also to go to the
+wharf and view the motor boat.
+
+"Can't we send some postcards before we start, Mother?" questioned Nan
+eagerly.
+
+"Certainly," returned Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"I think I'll send a few to my friends," said Bert, and he and Nan spent
+some time picking out the postcards.
+
+Even Flossie insisted upon it that she be allowed to send several to her
+best friends at home.
+
+I wish I had room to tell you all the things the children saw--the queer
+old streets and houses, the forts and rivers, for there are two rivers
+near the old city. But the Bobbsey twins were as anxious as I know you
+must be to see the motor boat, and hear more about the trip to the
+island to save the lonely boy, so I will go on to that part of our
+story.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE DEEP BLUE SEA
+
+
+"Glad to see you! Glad to see you! Come right on board!" cried a hearty
+voice, as the Bobbsey twins and their father and mother walked down the
+long dock which ran out into the harbor of St. Augustine.
+
+"That's Captain Crane, with whom I was talking last night," said Mr.
+Bobbsey to his wife in a low voice.
+
+"And is that the boat we are to take the trip in?" she asked, for the
+seaman was standing on the deck of a fine motor craft, dark red in
+color, and with shiny brass rails. A cabin, with white curtains at the
+portholes, or windows, seemed to offer a good resting place.
+
+"Yes, that's the _Swallow_, as Captain Crane calls his boat," Mr.
+Bobbsey said.
+
+"She's a beaut!" exclaimed Bert.
+
+"Come on board! Come on board! Glad to see you!" called the old captain
+again, as he waved his hand to the Bobbseys.
+
+"Oh, I like him, don't you?" whispered Nan to Bert.
+
+"Yes," he replied. "He's fine; and that's a dandy boat!"
+
+Indeed the _Swallow_ was a beautiful craft. She was about eighty feet
+long, and wide enough to give plenty of room on board, and also to be
+safe in a storm. There was a big cabin "forward," as the seamen say, or
+in the front part of the boat, and another "aft," or at the stern, or
+back part. This was for the men who looked after the gasolene motor and
+ran the boat, while the captain and the passengers would live in the
+front cabin, out of which opened several little staterooms, or places
+where bunks were built for sleeping.
+
+The _Swallow_ was close to the dock, so one could step right on board
+without any trouble, and the children were soon standing on the deck,
+looking about them.
+
+"Oh, I like this!" cried Freddie. "It's a nicer boat than the _Sea
+Queen_!" This was the name of the big steamer on which they had come
+from New York. "Have you got a fire engine here, Captain?" asked the
+little Bobbsey twin.
+
+"Oh, yes, we've a pump to use in case of fire, but I hope we won't have
+any," the seaman said. "I don't s'pose you'd call it a fire engine,
+though, but we couldn't have that on a motor boat."
+
+"No, I guess not," Freddie agreed, after thinking it over a bit. "I've a
+little fire engine at home," he went on, "and it squirts real water."
+
+"And he squirted some on me," put in Flossie. "On me and my doll."
+
+"But I didn't mean to--an' it was only play," Freddie explained.
+
+"Yes, it was only in fun, and I didn't mind very much," went on the
+little girl. "My rubber doll--she likes water," she added, holding out
+the doll in question for Captain Crane to see.
+
+"That's good!" he said with a smile. "When we get out on the ocean you
+can tie a string around her waist, and let her have a swim in the
+waves."
+
+"Won't a shark get her?" Flossie demanded.
+
+"No, I guess sharks don't like to chew on rubber dolls," laughed Captain
+Crane. "Anyhow we'll try to keep out of their way. But make yourselves
+at home, folks. I hope you'll be with me for quite a while, and you may
+as well get used to the boat. Mr. Dent has sailed in her many times, and
+he likes the _Swallow_ first rate."
+
+"Can she go fast?" asked Bert.
+
+"Yes, she can fairly skim over the waves, and that's why I call her the
+_Swallow_," replied the seaman. "As soon as Mr. Dent heard I was on
+shore, waiting for some one to hire my boat, he told me not to sail
+again until you folks came, as you and he were going on a voyage
+together. I hope you are going?" and he looked at Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"Yes, we have made up our minds to go," said the children's father. "We
+are going to look for a boy who may be all alone on one of the islands
+off the Florida coast. We hope we can rescue him."
+
+"I hope so, too," said Captain Crane. "I was shipwrecked on one of those
+islands myself, once, as your Cousin Jasper was. And it was dreadful
+there, and I got terribly lonesome before I was taken off."
+
+"Did you have a goat?" asked Flossie.
+
+"No, my little girl, I didn't have a goat," answered Mr. Crane. "Why do
+you ask that?"
+
+"Because Robinson Crusoe was on an island like that and he had a goat,"
+Flossie went on.
+
+"When you were shipwrecked did you have to eat your shoes?" Freddie
+queried.
+
+"Oh, ho! No, I guess not!" laughed Captain Crane. "I see what you mean.
+You must have had read to you stories of sailors that got so hungry,
+after being shipwrecked, that they had to boil their leather shoes to
+make soup. Well, I wasn't quite so bad off as that. I found some oysters
+on my island, and I had a little food with me. And that, with a spring
+of water I found, kept me alive until a ship came and took me off."
+
+"Well, I hope the poor boy on the island where Cousin Jasper was is
+still alive, or else that he has been rescued," said Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"I hope so, too," said the captain. "Now come and I'll show you about my
+boat."
+
+He was very proud of his craft, which was a beautiful one, and also
+strong enough to stand quite a hard storm. There was plenty of room on
+board for the whole Bobbsey family, as well as for Mr. Dent, besides a
+crew of three men and the captain. There were cute little bedrooms for
+the children, a larger room for Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, one for the
+captain and there was even a bathroom.
+
+There was also a kitchen, called a cook's galley, and another room that
+could be used in turn for a parlor, a sitting-room or a dining-room.
+This was the main cabin, and as you know there is not room enough on a
+motor boat to have a lot of rooms, one has to be used for different
+things.
+
+"What do you call this room?" questioned Flossie, as she looked around
+at the tiny compartment.
+
+"Well, you can call this most anything," laughed the captain. "When you
+use it for company, it's a parlor; and when you use it for just sitting
+around in, it's a sitting-room; and when you use it to eat in, why, then
+what would you call it?"
+
+"Why, then you'd call it a dining-room," answered the little girl
+promptly.
+
+"And if I got my hair cut in it, then it would be a barber shop,
+wouldn't it?" cried Freddie.
+
+"Why, Freddie Bobbsey!" gasped his twin. "I'm sure I wouldn't want my
+dining-room to be a barber shop," she added disdainfully.
+
+"Well, some places have got to be barber shops," defended the little boy
+staunchly.
+
+"I don't think they have barber shops on motor boats, do they, Daddy?"
+
+"They might have if the boat was big enough," answered Mr. Bobbsey.
+"However, I don't believe we'll have a barber shop on this craft."
+
+"When are we going to start?" asked Bert, when they had gone all over
+the _Swallow_, even to the place where the crew slept and where the
+motors were.
+
+"We will start as soon as Cousin Jasper is ready," said Mr. Bobbsey. "It
+may be a week yet, I hope no longer."
+
+"So do I, for the sake of that poor boy on the island," said Mrs.
+Bobbsey. "Tell me, has nothing been heard of him since he was
+shipwrecked there with Mr. Dent?" she asked Captain Crane. "Has no other
+vessel stopped there but the one that took off Cousin Jasper?"
+
+"I guess not," answered Captain Crane. "According to Mr. Dent's tell,
+this island isn't much known, being one of the smallest. It was only
+because the men on the ship that took him off saw his flag that they
+stood in and got him."
+
+"And then they didn't find the boy," said Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"Perhaps he wasn't there," Captain Crane said. "He might have found an
+old boat, or made one of part of the wrecked motor boat, and have gone
+away by himself."
+
+"And he may be there yet, half starved and all alone," said Mrs.
+Bobbsey.
+
+"Yes, he may be," admitted the old seaman. "But we'll soon find out. Mr.
+Jasper Dent is very anxious to start and look for this boy, who had
+worked for him about two years on his boat. So we won't lose any time in
+starting, I guess."
+
+"But how do you like my boat? That's what your cousin will be sure to
+ask you. When he heard that you were coming to see him, and heard that I
+was free to take a trip, he wanted you folks to see me and look over the
+_Swallow_. Now you've done it, how do you like it?"
+
+"Very much indeed," said Mr. Bobbsey. "We like the boat exceedingly!"
+
+"And the captain, too," added Mrs. Bobbsey, with a smile.
+
+"Thank you kindly, lady!" said the seaman, with a smile and a bow. "I
+hope we'll get along well together."
+
+"And I like the water pump!" exclaimed Freddie. "Please may I squirt the
+hose some day?"
+
+"I guess so, when it's nice and warm, and when we wash down the decks,"
+said Captain Crane. "We use the pump for that quite a lot," he added.
+"We haven't had to use it for fire yet, and I hope we never have to."
+
+"That's what we all say," put in Mr. Bobbsey. But no one could tell what
+might happen.
+
+The Bobbsey twins went about the _Swallow_ as they pleased, having a
+good time picking out the rooms they wanted to sleep in. Bert said he
+was going to learn how to run the big gasolene motors, and Freddie said
+he was going to learn how to steer, as well as squirt water through the
+deck hose.
+
+"I want to cook in the cute little kitchen," said Nan.
+
+"And I'll help set table," offered Flossie.
+
+"We'll have a good time when we get to sea in this boat," declared Bert.
+
+"And I hope we find that boy on the island," added Nan.
+
+"Oh, yes, I hope that, too," agreed Bert.
+
+None of the crew of the _Swallow_ was on board yet, Captain Crane not
+having any need for the men when the boat was tied up at the dock.
+
+"But I can get 'em as soon as you say the word," he told Mrs. Bobbsey
+when she asked him.
+
+"And what about things to eat?"
+
+"Oh, we'll stow the victuals on board before we sail," said the seaman.
+"We'll take plenty to eat, even though lots of it has to be canned. Just
+say the word when you're ready to start, and I'll have everything
+ready."
+
+"And now we'll go see Cousin Jasper," suggested Mr. Bobbsey, when at
+last he had managed to get the children off the boat. "He will be
+wondering what has become of us."
+
+They went to the hospital, and found Mr. Dent much better. The coming of
+the Bobbseys had acted as a tonic, the doctor said.
+
+"Do you like the _Swallow_ and Captain Crane?" asked the sick man, who
+was now getting well.
+
+"Very much," answered Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"And will you go with him and me to look for Jack Nelson?"
+
+"As soon as you are ready," was the answer.
+
+"Then we'll start in a few days," decided Cousin Jasper. "The sea-trip
+will make me entirely well, sooner than anything else."
+
+The hospital doctor thought this also, and toward the end of the week
+Mr. Dent was allowed to go to his own home. He lived alone, except for a
+housekeeper and Jack Nelson, but Jack, of course, was not with him now,
+being, they hoped, either on the island or safely rescued.
+
+"Though if he had been taken off," said Mr. Dent, "he would have sent me
+word that he was all right. So I feel he must still be on the island."
+
+"Perhaps the ship that took him off--if one did," said Mr. Bobbsey,
+"started to sail around the world, and it will be a long while before
+you hear from your friend."
+
+"Oh, he could send some word," said Cousin Jasper. "No, I feel quite
+sure he is still on the island."
+
+Just as soon as Mr. Bobbsey's cousin was strong enough to take the trip
+in the _Swallow_, the work of getting the motor boat ready for the sea
+went quickly on. Captain Crane got the crew on board, and they cleaned
+and polished until, as Mrs. Bobbsey said, you could almost see your face
+in the deck.
+
+Plenty of food and water was stored on board, for at sea the water is
+salt and cannot be used for drinking. The Bobbseys, after having seen
+all they wanted to in St. Augustine, moved most of their baggage to the
+boat, and Cousin Jasper went on board also.
+
+"Well, I guess we're all ready to start," said Captain Crane one
+morning. "Everything has been done that can be done, and we have enough
+to eat for a month or more."
+
+"Even if we are shipwrecked?" Freddie questioned.
+
+"Yes, little fat fireman," laughed the captain. "Even if we are
+shipwrecked. Now, all aboard!"
+
+They were all present, the crew and the Bobbseys, Captain Crane and
+Cousin Jasper.
+
+"All aboard!" cried the captain again.
+
+A bell jingled, a whistle tooted and the _Swallow_ began to move away
+from the dock. She dropped down the river and, a little later, was out
+on the ocean.
+
+"Once more the deep, blue sea, children!" said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Shall you
+like the voyage?"
+
+"Oh, very much!" cried Nan, and the others nodded their heads to agree
+with her.
+
+And then, as they were puffing along, one of the crew called to Captain
+Crane:
+
+"There's a man in that motor boat who wants to speak to you! Better wait
+and see what he wants!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+FLOSSIE'S DOLL
+
+
+Captain Crane jingled a bell that told the engineer of the motor boat to
+slow down. Then he steered the _Swallow_ over toward the other motor
+boat in which was a man waving his hand, as though he wanted the
+Bobbseys to stop, or at least to come closer, so that he might speak to
+them.
+
+The Bobbsey twins were wildly excited.
+
+"Hello, Captain Harrison!" called Captain Crane, as soon as the two
+boats were close enough to talk from one to the other. "Did you want to
+see me?"
+
+"Well, yes, I did," answered Captain Harrison, who was on the other
+motor boat, which was named _Sea Foam_. "I think I have some news for
+you."
+
+"I hope it's good news," Captain Crane made reply.
+
+"Yes, I believe it is. Are you going out to rescue a boy from an island
+quite a way to the south of us?"
+
+"Yes, these friends of mine are going," answered Captain Crane, pointing
+to the Bobbseys and to Cousin Jasper, who were sitting on the deck under
+the shade of an awning. "But how did you know?"
+
+"I just passed Captain Peters in his boat, and he told me about your
+starting off on a voyage," went on Captain Harrison. "As soon as I heard
+what you were going to do, I made up my mind to tell you what I saw. I
+passed that island, where you are going to look for a lost man----"
+
+"It's a lost boy, and not a lost man," interrupted Captain Crane.
+
+"Well, lost boy, then," went on Captain Harrison. "Anyhow, I passed that
+island the other day, and I'm sure I saw some one running up and down on
+the shore, waving a rag or something."
+
+"You did!" cried Cousin Jasper, who, with the Bobbseys, was listening to
+this talk. "Then why in the world didn't you go on shore and get Jack?
+Why didn't you do that, Captain?"
+
+"Because I couldn't," answered Captain Harrison. "A big storm was coming
+up, and I couldn't get near the place on account of the rocks. But I
+looked through my telescope, and I'm sure I saw a man--or, as you say,
+maybe it was a boy--running up and down on the shore of the island,
+waving something.
+
+"When I found I couldn't get near the place, on account of the rocks and
+the big waves, I made up my mind to go back as soon as I could. But the
+storm kept up, and part of my motor engine broke, so I had to come back
+here to get it fixed.
+
+"I just got in, after a lot of trouble, and the first bit of news I
+heard was that you were going to start off for this island to look for
+some one there. So I thought I'd tell you there is some one on the
+shore--at least there was a week ago, when I saw the place."
+
+The Bobbsey twins listened "with all their ears" to this talk, and they
+wondered what would happen next.
+
+"Well, if Captain Harrison saw Jack there he must be alive," said Bert
+to Nan.
+
+"Unless something happened to him afterward in the storm," remarked Nan.
+
+"I wish we could hurry up and get him," said Freddie.
+
+"Be quiet, children," whispered Mrs. Bobbsey. "Captain Crane wants to
+hear all that the other captain says."
+
+"S-sh," hissed Flossie importantly.
+
+"How long ago was this?" asked Captain Crane.
+
+"About a week," answered Captain Harrison. "I had trouble getting back,
+so it was a week ago. I tried to see some other boat to send to the
+island to take off this lost boy, but I didn't meet any until I got
+here. Somebody on shore told me about you. Then I thought, as long as
+you are going there, I'd tell you what I saw."
+
+"I'm glad you did," observed Cousin Jasper. "And I'm glad to know that
+Jack is well enough to be up and around--or that he was when you saw
+him. We must go there as fast as we can now, and rescue him."
+
+"Maybe some other boat stopped and took him off the island," said
+Captain Harrison.
+
+"Well, maybe one did," agreed Cousin Jasper. "If so, that's all the
+better. But if Jack is still there we'll get him. Thank you, Captain
+Harrison."
+
+Then the two motor boats started up again, one to go on to her dock at
+St. Augustine and the other--the one with the Bobbsey twins on
+board--heading for the deep blue sea which lay beyond.
+
+"Do you think you can find Jack?" asked Freddie, as he stood beside
+Captain Crane, who was steering the _Swallow_.
+
+"Well, yes, little fat fireman. I hope so," was the answer. "If Captain
+Harrison saw him running around the island, waving something for a flag,
+that shows he was alive, anyhow, and not sick, as he was when the folks
+took Mr. Dent off. So that's a good sign."
+
+"But it was more than a week ago," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Of course we all
+hope he can be found, but we must hurry as fast as we can."
+
+"That's right," said Cousin Jasper. "Make the boat go as fast as you
+can, Captain Crane."
+
+"I will," answered the seaman. "You'll see how quickly my _Swallow_ can
+skim over the waves."
+
+Now that they were started on their voyage over the sea the Bobbsey
+twins had a good chance to get better acquainted with Cousin Jasper.
+There had been so much to do in getting ready for the trip and in
+leaving the hotel that they had hardly spoken to him, or he to them.
+
+But now that they were all on board the motor boat, and there was
+nowhere else to go, and nothing to do, except to sit around on deck, or
+eat when the meal times came, there was a chance to see Cousin Jasper
+better and to talk with him more.
+
+"I like him," said Freddie, as the four twins sat together under an
+awning out of the sun, and listened to the conversation of the older
+folk, who were talking about the news given them by Captain Harrison. "I
+like Cousin Jasper!"
+
+"So do I. And he likes my rubber doll," said Flossie.
+
+"What makes you think he likes your doll?" asked Nan, with a laugh at
+her little sister.
+
+"'Cause when I dropped her on the floor in the cabin he picked her up
+for me and asked if she was hurt."
+
+"You can't hurt a rubber doll!" exclaimed Freddie.
+
+"I know you can't," said Flossie, "'ceptin' maybe when you pretend, and
+I wasn't doing that then. But Cousin Jasper brushed the dust off my
+doll, and he liked her."
+
+"That was nice of him," said Bert. "I like Captain Crane, too. He's
+going to let me steer the boat, maybe, when we get out where there
+aren't any other ships for me to knock into."
+
+"And he's going to let me run the engine--maybe," added Freddie.
+
+"Well, you'd better be careful how you run it," laughed Bert. "It's a
+good deal bigger than your fire engine."
+
+So the Bobbsey twins talked about Cousin Jasper and Captain Crane, and
+they were sure they would like both men. As for Cousin Jasper, he really
+loved the little folk, and had a warm place in his heart for them,
+though he had not seen any of them since they were small babies.
+
+On and on puffed the _Swallow_, over the deep blue sea, drawing nearer
+to the island where they hoped to find Jack Nelson.
+
+"But it will take us some little time to get there, even if nothing
+happens," said Cousin Jasper, as they all sat down to dinner in the
+cabin a little later. The meal was a good one, and Nan and her mother
+were quite surprised that so much could be cooked in the little kitchen,
+or "galley," as Captain Crane called it, for on a ship that is the name
+of the kitchen.
+
+One of the members of the crew was the cook, and he also helped about
+the boat, polishing the shiny brass rails, and doing other things, for
+there is as much work about a boat as there is about a house, as Nan's
+mother said to her.
+
+"Yes, Mother, I can see that there is a lot of work to do around a boat
+like this, especially if they wish to keep it in really nice style,"
+said Nan. "The sailors have to work just about as hard as the servants
+do around a house."
+
+"Yes, my dear, and they have to work in all sorts of weather, too."
+
+"Well, we have to work in the house even in bad weather."
+
+"That's true. But the sailors on a boat often have to work outside on
+the deck when the weather is very rough."
+
+"And that must be awfully dangerous," put in Bert.
+
+"It does become dangerous at times, especially when there is a great
+storm on."
+
+"Do you think we'll run into a storm on this trip?" Nan questioned.
+
+"I'm sure I hope not!" answered the mother quickly. "To run into a big
+storm with such a small boat as this would be dangerous."
+
+"Maybe we'd be wrecked and become regular Robinson Crusoes," said Bert.
+
+"Oh, please, Bert! don't speak of such dreadful things!" said his
+mother.
+
+"But that would be fun, Mother."
+
+"Fun!"
+
+"All right. We won't be wrecked then." And Bert and his mother both
+laughed.
+
+After dinner the Bobbsey twins sat out on the deck, and watched the blue
+waves. For some little time they could look back and see the shores of
+Florida, and then, as the _Swallow_ flew farther and farther away, the
+shores were only like a misty cloud, and then, a little longer, and they
+could not be seen at all.
+
+"Now we are just as much at sea as when we were on the big ship coming
+from New York, aren't we?" Bert asked his father.
+
+"Yes, just about," answered Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+It was a little while after this that Mrs. Bobbsey, who had gone down to
+the staterooms, to get a book she had left there, heard Flossie crying.
+
+"What's the matter, little fairy?" asked her mother, as she came up on
+deck.
+
+"Oh, Mother, my nice rubber doll is gone, and Freddie took her and now
+he's gone," said Flossie.
+
+"Freddie gone!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "What do you mean, Flossie? Where
+could Freddie go?"
+
+"I don't know where he went. I guess he didn't go to look at any colored
+ladies with baskets on their heads, 'cause there aren't any here. But he
+went downstairs, where the engine is, and he took my doll with him. I
+saw him, and I hollered at him, but he wouldn't bring her back to me.
+Oh, I want my doll--my nice rubber doll!" and Flossie cried real tears.
+
+"I must find Freddie," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I wonder where that boy could
+have gone this time?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+FREDDIE'S FISH
+
+
+Although she was a little worried about Freddie, Mrs. Bobbsey felt quite
+sure nothing very serious could happen to him. He would not go near
+enough the railing of the deck to fall over, for he and Flossie, as well
+as Bert and Nan, had promised not to do this while they were on the
+_Swallow_. And if the little boy had gone "downstairs," as Flossie said,
+he could be in no danger there.
+
+"Even if he went to the motor room," thought Mrs. Bobbsey, "he could
+come to no harm, for there is a man there all the while looking after
+the engine. But I must find him."
+
+Flossie was still sobbing a little, and looking about the deck as if, by
+some chance, her doll might still be there.
+
+"Tell me how it happened, Flossie," said Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+Her husband was down in the cabin, talking to Captain Crane and Cousin
+Jasper. The cook was getting things ready for supper, one of the men was
+steering, and another was looking after the engine. Nan and Bert were up
+in the bow of the boat, watching the waves and an occasional seagull
+flying about, and Flossie was with her mother. The only one of her
+family Mrs. Bobbsey did not know about was Freddie.
+
+"It happened this way," said Flossie. "I was playing up here with my
+rubber doll, making believe she was a princess, and I was putting a gold
+and diamond dress on her, when Freddie came up with a lot of string. I
+asked him what he was going to do, and he said he was going to fish, and
+he asked me if I had a piece of cookie."
+
+"What did he want of a piece of cookie?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"He wanted it to fasten on his line for bait for the fishes, he said,"
+went on Flossie. "But I didn't have any cookie. I did have some before
+that, and so did Freddie. The cook gave them to us, but I did eat all my
+piece up and so did Freddie. So I didn't have any for his fishline."
+
+"Then what happened?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as she started down the
+companionway to look for Freddie.
+
+"Well, Freddie asked me to go and get some more cookie from the cook,
+and I did, 'cause I was hungry and I wanted to eat more. But I couldn't
+find the cook, and when I came back upstairs again, and outdoors--here
+on deck, I mean--I saw Freddie grab up my doll, and run down the other
+stairs."
+
+"Oh, well, maybe he only took it in fun," said Mrs. Bobbsey, and she was
+not at all worried now, feeling sure Freddie was safe, though he might
+be in some sort of mischief.
+
+"Anyhow he took my doll," Flossie went on. "And he wouldn't bring her
+back to me when I told him to. Then I--I cried."
+
+"Yes, I heard you," said her mother. "But you mustn't be such a baby,
+Flossie. Of course it wasn't right for Freddie to take your doll, but
+you shouldn't have cried about a little thing like that. I'll tell him
+he mustn't plague you."
+
+"But, Mother! he was going to throw my doll into the ocean, I'm sure he
+was."
+
+"Oh, no, Flossie! Freddie wouldn't do a thing like that!"
+
+"But I saw him tying a string to her, and I'm sure he was going to throw
+her into the ocean."
+
+"Well, then he could pull her out again."
+
+"Yes, but I don't want my doll in the ocean. The ocean is salty, and if
+salty water gets in her eyes it might spoil them."
+
+Mrs. Bobbsey wanted to laugh, but she did not dare, for that would have
+made Flossie feel worse than ever.
+
+"What makes you think Freddie was going to toss your doll into the
+ocean?" asked Flossie's mother.
+
+"'Cause, before that he wanted me to do it to give her a bath. He had a
+long string and he said, 'let's tie it to the rubber doll and let her
+swim in the ocean.'"
+
+"No, he mustn't do that, of course," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "And I'll tell
+him so when I find him. But perhaps he didn't do it, Flossie."
+
+"Oh, yes he did!" said the little girl. "When he ran downstairs with my
+doll, and wouldn't come back when I hollered at him, he was tying a
+string on her then. Oh, dear!"
+
+"Never mind! I'll get your doll back," Mrs. Bobbsey said. "But first we
+must find Freddie."
+
+"He went down those stairs," said Flossie, pointing to a flight that led
+to the motor room, where the engine was chug-chugging away, sending the
+_Swallow_ over the waves. "He went down there."
+
+The engine room of the motor boat was a clean place, not like the engine
+room on a steamboat, filled with coal dust and a lot of machinery, and
+Mrs. Bobbsey knew it would be all right for her and Flossie to go down
+there and see what Freddie was doing.
+
+"Now don't cry any more," Flossie's mother told her, giving the little
+girl a handkerchief on which to dry her tears. "We'll get your doll
+back, and I'll have to scold Freddie a little, I think."
+
+"Maybe you can't find him," said Flossie.
+
+"Oh, yes I can," her mother declared.
+
+"You can't find him if he is hiding away."
+
+"I don't think he will dare hide if he hears me calling him."
+
+"Maybe he will if he's got my doll," pouted Flossie.
+
+"Now, Flossie, you mustn't talk that way. I don't believe Freddie meant
+to be naughty. He was only heedless."
+
+"Well, I want my doll!"
+
+It was no easy matter for little Flossie to get down into the engine
+room of the motor boat. The little iron stairway was very steep, and the
+steps seemed to be very far apart.
+
+"Let me help you, Flossie," said her mother. "I don't want you to fall
+and get yourself dirty."
+
+"Oh, Mother, it isn't a bit dirty down here!" the little girl returned.
+"Why, it's just as clean as it can be!"
+
+"Still, there may be some oil around."
+
+"I'll be very careful. But please let me go down all by myself,"
+answered the little girl.
+
+She was getting at that age now when she liked to do a great many things
+for herself. Often when there was a muddy place to cross in the street,
+instead of taking hold of somebody's hand Flossie would make a leap
+across the muddy place by herself.
+
+Knowing how much her little girl was disturbed over the loss of her
+doll, Mrs. Bobbsey, at this time, allowed her to have her own way. And
+slowly and carefully the stout little girl lowered herself from one step
+of the iron ladder to the next until she stood on the floor of the
+engine room.
+
+"Now, I got down all right, didn't I?" she remarked triumphantly.
+
+"Yes, my dear, you came down very nicely," the mother answered.
+
+Down in the engine room a man was oiling the machinery. He looked up as
+Mrs. Bobbsey and Flossie came down the stairs.
+
+"Have you seen my little boy?" asked Freddie's mother. "My little girl
+says he came down here."
+
+"So he did," answered the engineer. "I asked him if he was coming to
+help me run the boat, and he said he would a little later. He had
+something else to do now, it seems."
+
+"What?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"Well, he said he wanted to go fishing. And as I knew you wouldn't want
+him leaning over the rail I showed him where he could fish out of one of
+the portholes of the storeroom. A porthole is one of the round windows,"
+the engineer said, so Flossie would know what he was talking about. "I
+opened one of the ports for him, and said he could drop his line out of
+that. Then he couldn't come to any harm."
+
+"Did he have a line?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"Yes, a good, strong one. I guess he must have got it off Captain Crane.
+He's a fisherman himself, the captain is, and he has lots of hooks and
+lines on board."
+
+"Oh, I hope Freddie didn't have a hook!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"No'm," answered the engineer. "I didn't see any, and I don't think he
+did have any. He just had a long string, and I thought all he was going
+to do was to dangle it out of the porthole in the storeroom. He couldn't
+come to any harm there, I knew, and I could keep my eye on him once in a
+while."
+
+"Did he have my rubber doll?" asked Flossie.
+
+"I didn't see any doll," answered the engineer. "But he's in there now,"
+he went on. "You can ask him yourself."
+
+Looking out of the engine room, Freddie could be seen farther back in
+the motor boat, in a place where boxes and barrels of food, and things
+for the boat, were kept. One of the side ports was open, and Freddie's
+head was stuck out of this, so he could not see his mother and Flossie
+and the engineer looking at him.
+
+"Well, I'm glad he's all right," said Mrs. Bobbsey with a sigh of
+relief. "Thank you for looking after him."
+
+"Oh, I like children," said the man with a smile. "I have some little
+ones of my own at home."
+
+Mrs. Bobbsey and Flossie went into the storeroom. Freddie did not hear
+them, for his head was still out of the round window. There was no
+danger of his falling out, for he could not have got his shoulders
+through, so Mrs. Bobbsey was not frightened, even though the little boy
+was leaning right over deep water, through which the _Swallow_ was
+gliding.
+
+"Oh, where is my doll?" asked Flossie, looking about and not seeing it.
+"I want my rubber doll!"
+
+"I'll ask Freddie," said Mrs. Bobbsey, and then, in a louder voice, she
+called:
+
+"Freddie! Freddie! Where is Flossie's doll? You mustn't take it away
+from her. I shall have to punish you for this!"
+
+For a moment it seemed as if the little boy had not heard what his
+mother had said. Then, when she called him again, he pulled his head in
+from the porthole and whispered:
+
+"Please don't make a noise, Mother! I'm fishing, and a noise always
+scares the fish away!"
+
+"But, Freddie, fishing or not, you mustn't take Flossie's playthings,"
+his mother went on.
+
+Freddie did not answer for a moment. He had wound around his hand part
+of a heavy cord, which Mrs. Bobbsey knew was a line used to catch big
+fish. Freddie was really trying to catch something, it seemed.
+
+"Is there a hook on that line?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, fearing, after all,
+that her little boy might have found one.
+
+"Oh, no, Mother, there's no hook," Freddie answered. "I just tied
+on----" And then a queer look came over his face. His hand, with the
+line wound around it, was jerked toward the open porthole and the little
+boy cried:
+
+"Oh, I got a fish! I got a fish! I got a big fish!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+"LAND HO!"
+
+
+Mrs. Bobbsey at first did not know whether Freddie was playing some of
+his make-believe games, or whether he really had caught a fish.
+Certainly something seemed to be pulling on the line he held out of the
+porthole, but then, his mother thought, it might have caught on
+something, as fishlines often do get caught.
+
+"I've caught a fish! I've caught a fish!" Freddie cried again. "Oh,
+please somebody come and help me pull it in!"
+
+Flossie was so excited--almost as much as was her brother--that she
+forgot all about her lost doll.
+
+"Have you really caught a fish?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"I really have! I guess maybe it's a shark or a whale, it's so big, and
+it pulls so hard!" cried Freddie.
+
+And, really, the line that was wound around his hand was pulled so
+tight, and stretched so hard, where it went out of the hole and down
+into the ocean, that Freddie could not lower his fist.
+
+"Oh, Freddie!" cried his mother. "If you have caught a fish it may cut
+your fingers by jerking on that line."
+
+"Well, I--I caught something!" Freddie said. "Please somebody get it off
+my line. And hurry, please!"
+
+By this time Nan and Bert had run down into the storeroom. They saw what
+was going on.
+
+"Are you sure you haven't caught another hat?" asked Bert, as he
+remembered what had once happened to his little brother.
+
+"It doesn't pull like a hat," Freddie answered. "It's a real fish."
+
+"I believe he has caught something," said Mr. Chase, the engineer, as he
+ran in from the motor room. "Yes, it's either a fish or a turtle," he
+added as he caught hold of the line and took some of the pull off
+Freddie's hand. "Unwind that cord from your fingers," he told the little
+boy. "I'll take care of your fish--if you really have one."
+
+"Could it be a turtle?" asked Nan.
+
+"Yes, there are lots of 'em in these waters," the engineer said. "But I
+never knew one of 'em to bite on just a piece of string before, without
+even a hook or a bit of bait on it."
+
+"Oh, I got something on my line for bait," Freddie answered.
+
+But no one paid any attention to him just then, for the engineer, gently
+thrusting the little boy aside, looked from the porthole himself, and
+what he saw made him cry:
+
+"The little lad has caught something all right. Would you mind running
+up on deck and telling Captain Crane your brother has caught something,"
+said Mr. Chase to Bert. "And tell him, if he wants to get it aboard he'd
+better tell one of the men to stand by with a long-handled net. I think
+it's a turtle or a big fish, and it'll be good to eat whatever it
+is--unless it's a shark, and some folks eat them nowadays."
+
+"Oh, I don't want to catch a shark!" exclaimed Freddie.
+
+"It's already caught, whatever it is," said Mr. Chase, "It seems to be
+well hooked, too, whatever you used on the end of your line."
+
+"I tied on a----" began Freddie, but, once again, no one paid attention
+to what he said, for the fish, or whatever it was on the end of the
+line, began to squirm in the water, "squiggle" Freddie called it
+afterward--and the engineer had to hold tightly to the line.
+
+"Please hurry and tell the captain to reach the net overboard and pull
+this fish in," begged Mr. Chase of Bert. "I'd pull it in through the
+porthole, but I'm afraid it will get off if I try."
+
+All this while the _Swallow_ was moving slowly along through the blue
+waters of the deep sea, for when the engineer had run in to see what
+Freddie had caught he had shut down the motor so that it moved at a
+quarter speed.
+
+Up on deck ran Bert, to find his father and Captain Crane there talking
+with Cousin Jasper.
+
+"What is it, Bert?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"Oh, will you please get out a net, Captain!" cried Nan's brother.
+"Freddie has caught a big fish through the porthole and the
+engineer--Mr. Chase--is holding it now, and he can't pull it in, and
+will you do it with a net?"
+
+"My! that's a funny thing to have happen!" said Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"I'll get the net!" cried Captain Crane. "If your brother has really
+caught a fish or a turtle we can have it for dinner. I wouldn't be
+surprised if it was a turtle," said the captain to Bert's father. "There
+are plenty around where we are sailing now, and they'll sometimes bite
+on a bare hook, though they like something to eat better. What bait did
+Freddie use?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know," Bert answered.
+
+By this time Captain Crane had found a large net, which had a long
+handle fast to it, and also a rope, so that if the fish were so large
+that the handle should break in lifting it from the water, the rope
+would hold.
+
+With the net ready to dip down into the water, Captain Crane ran along
+the deck until he stood above the porthole, out of which ran the line.
+The fish, or whatever it was, was still fast to the other end of the
+strong cord.
+
+"Haul it up as close as you can to the side of the boat!" called the
+captain to the engineer, who thrust his head partly out of the round
+hole. "Then I'll scoop it up in the net. Watch out he doesn't get off
+the hook."
+
+"That's the trouble," said the engineer. "I don't believe Freddie used a
+hook. But we'll soon see."
+
+Up on the deck of the _Swallow_, as well as down in the storeroom, where
+Freddie, his mother and the others were watching, there was an anxious
+moment. They all wanted to see what it was the little boy had caught.
+
+"Here we go, now!" cried Captain Crane, as he lowered the long-handled
+net into the water near the cord. The captain held to the wooden handle,
+and Mr. Bobbsey had hold of the rope.
+
+Through the porthole Mr. Chase pulled on the cord until he had brought
+the flapping, struggling captive close to the side of the motor boat.
+Then, with a sudden scoop, Captain Crane slipped the net under it.
+
+"Now pull!" he cried, and both he and Mr. Bobbsey did this.
+
+Up out of the blue sea rose something in the net. And as the sun shone
+on the glistening sides Freddie, peering from the porthole beside the
+engineer, cried:
+
+"Oh, it's a fish! It's a big fish!"
+
+And indeed it was, a flapping fish, of large size, the silver scales of
+which shone brightly in the sun.
+
+"Pull!" cried the captain to Mr. Bobbsey, and a few seconds later the
+fish lay flapping on deck.
+
+Up from below came Freddie, greatly excited, followed by his mother,
+Nan, Flossie and Mr. Chase, Flossie chanting loudly: "Freddie caught a
+fish! Freddie caught a fish!"
+
+"Didn't I tell you I caught a fish?" cried the little boy, his blue eyes
+shining with excitement.
+
+"You certainly did," his father answered. "But how did you do it, little
+fat fireman?"
+
+"Well, Captain Crane gave me the fishline," Freddie answered.
+
+"Yes, I did," the captain said. "He begged me for one and I let him take
+it. I didn't think he could do any harm, as I didn't let him take any
+sharp hooks--or any hooks, in fact."
+
+"If he didn't have his line baited, or a hook on it, I don't see how he
+caught anything," said the engineer.
+
+"I did have something on my line," Freddie exclaimed. "I had--I had----"
+
+But just then Flossie, who had been forgotten in the excitement, burst
+out with:
+
+"Where's my doll, Freddie Bobbsey? Where's my nice rubber doll that you
+took? I want her! Where is she?"
+
+"I--I guess the fish swallowed her," Freddie answered.
+
+"The fish!" cried all the others.
+
+"Yes. You see I tied the rubber doll on the end of the line 'stid of a
+hook," the little boy added. "I knew I had to have something for to bait
+the fish, so they'd bite, so I tied Flossie's doll on. The fish couldn't
+hurt it much," he went on. "'Cause once Snap had your rubber doll in his
+mouth, Flossie, and she wasn't hurt a bit."
+
+"And is my doll in the fish now?" the little girl demanded, not quite
+sure whether or not she ought to cry.
+
+"I guess it swallowed the doll," returned Freddie. "Anyhow the doll was
+on the end of the string, and now the string is in the fish's mouth. But
+maybe you can get your doll back, Flossie, when the fish is cooked."
+
+Captain Crane bent over the fish, which was flopping about on deck.
+
+"It has swallowed the end of the line, and, I suppose, whatever was fast
+on the cord," he said. "If it was Flossie's doll, that is now inside the
+fish."
+
+"And can you get it out?" asked Bert.
+
+"Oh, yes, when we cut the fish open to clean it ready to cook, we can
+get the doll."
+
+"Is that fish good to eat?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"Very good indeed. It's one of our best kind," the captain said.
+"Freddie is a better fisherman than he knew."
+
+And the little Bobbsey twin had really caught a fish. Just why it was
+the fish had bit on the line baited with Flossie's rubber doll, no one
+knew. But Captain Crane said that sometimes the fish get so hungry they
+will almost bite on a bare hook, and are caught that way.
+
+This fish of Freddie's was so large that it had swallowed the doll,
+which was tied fast on the end of the line, and once the doll was in its
+stomach the fish could not get loose from the heavy cord.
+
+"But you mustn't take Flossie's doll for fish-bait again," said Mrs.
+Bobbsey.
+
+"No'm, I won't!" Freddie promised. "But now maybe I can have a real hook
+and bait."
+
+"Well, we'll see about that," said Mr. Bobbsey with a smile.
+
+The line was cut, close to the mouth of the big fish, which weighed
+about fifteen pounds, and then Freddie's prize was taken by the cook
+down to the galley, or kitchen. A little later the cook brought back
+Flossie's rubber doll, cleanly washed, and with the piece of string
+still tied around its waist.
+
+"Is she hurt?" asked Flossie, for her doll was very real to the little
+girl, since she often pretended she was alive.
+
+"No, she's all right--not even a pinhole in her," said Mr. Bobbsey.
+"There are a few marks of the teeth of the fish, where it grabbed your
+rubber doll, but she was swallowed whole, like Jonah and the whale, so
+no harm was done."
+
+"I'm glad," said the little girl, as she cuddled her plaything, so
+strangely given back to her. "And don't you dare take her for fish-bait
+again, Freddie Bobbsey."
+
+"No, Flossie, I won't," he said. "I'll use real bait after this."
+
+"But you mustn't do any more fishing without telling me or your mother,"
+cautioned Mr. Bobbsey. "You might have been pulled overboard by this
+one."
+
+"Oh, no, I couldn't," Freddie declared. "Only my head could go through
+the porthole."
+
+"Well, don't do it again," his father warned him, and the little boy
+promised that he would not.
+
+The fish was cooked for supper, and very good it was, too. Flossie and
+Freddie ate some and Flossie pretended to feed her doll a little, though
+of course the doll didn't really chew.
+
+"The fish tried to eat you, and now you can eat some of the fish,"
+Flossie said, with a laugh.
+
+The Bobbsey twins wanted to stay up late that night, and watch the
+moonlight on the water, but their mother, after letting them sit on deck
+a little while, said it would be best for them to "turn in," as the
+sailors call going to bed. They had been up early, and the first day of
+their new voyage at sea had been a long one.
+
+So down to their berths they went and were soon ready for bed.
+
+"My, we had a lot of things happen to-day!" remarked Flossie.
+
+"Well, I'm sorry I took the doll, but I'm awful glad I caught that great
+big fish," answered Freddy.
+
+"But you're never going to take her for fish bait again, Freddie
+Bobbsey!" repeated his twin.
+
+"I didn't say I was. I guess the next time I want to go fishing I'll get
+a regular piece of meat from the cook."
+
+"Children, children! It's time to go to sleep now," broke in their
+mother. "Remember, you'll want to be up bright and early to-morrow."
+
+"If I don't wake up, you call me, please," cried Freddie; and then he
+turned over and in a few minutes was sound asleep, and soon the others
+followed.
+
+The next day passed. The children had fun on board the motor boat, and
+the older folks read and talked, among other things, of how glad they
+would be to rescue Jack from the lonely island. The following day it
+rained hard, and the four twins had to stay in the cabin most of the
+time. But they found plenty to amuse them.
+
+The third morning, as they came up on deck, the sun was shining, and one
+of the men was looking at something through a telescope.
+
+"Does he see another fish, or maybe a whale or a shark?" asked Freddie.
+
+The sailor answered for himself, though he was really speaking to
+Captain Crane, who was at the steering wheel.
+
+"Land ho!" cried the sailor.
+
+"Where away?" asked the captain.
+
+"Dead ahead!" went on the sailor.
+
+That is the way they talk on board a ship and it means:
+
+"I see some land."
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"Straight ahead."
+
+The Bobbsey twins looked, but all they could see was a faint speck, far
+out in the deep, blue sea.
+
+"Is that land?" asked Nan.
+
+"Yes, it's an island," answered Captain Crane.
+
+"Oh, maybe it's the island where Jack is!" Bert cried.
+
+"Perhaps," said Captain Crane. "We'll soon know, for it is not many
+miles away, though it looks far off on account of the fog and mist.
+We'll soon be there."
+
+He was just going to ring the bell, giving a signal to the engineer to
+make the boat go faster when, all at once, Mr. Chase, who had helped
+Freddie catch the fish, came hurrying up out of the motor room.
+
+"Captain!" he cried. "We'll have to slow down! One of the motors is
+broken! We'll have to stop!"
+
+This was bad news to the Bobbsey twins.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+UNDER THE PALMS
+
+
+Cousin Jasper, who had been talking to Mr. Bobbsey, walked along the
+deck with the children's father until he stood near Captain Crane, who
+was now looking through the telescope, across the deep, blue sea, at the
+speck which, it was said, was an island.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Dent. "Why are we stopping, Captain
+Crane?"
+
+"Because one of our motors is broken, Mr. Dent. But don't let that worry
+you. We have two, or, rather, a double motor, and if we can't go with
+one we can with the other. It's like a little boy or girl, when they
+break one of their roller skates," he went on, looking at Flossie and
+Freddie.
+
+"If they can't skate on two skates they can push themselves around on
+one skate," said the captain. "And that's what we'll have to do. But,
+Mr. Chase, you think you can mend the broken engine easily enough, don't
+you?" he asked the man who had helped Freddie hold on to the big fish.
+
+"Oh, yes," answered the engineer. "We can easily fix the broken motor.
+But it will take a day or so, and we ought to be in some quiet place
+where the waves won't rock us so hard if a storm comes up. So why not go
+to this island that we see over there?" and he pointed to the speck in
+the ocean. "Maybe there is a little bay there where the _Swallow_ can
+rest while my men and I fix the engine."
+
+"That's a good idea," said Captain Crane. "Can you run to the island?"
+
+"Oh, yes, if we go slowly."
+
+"What's that?" cried Cousin Jasper. "Is there an island around here?"
+
+"The sailor who was looking through his telescope just saw one,"
+returned Captain Crane. "I was going to tell you about it when Mr. Chase
+spoke to me about the broken engine. There is the island; you can see it
+quite plainly with the glass," and he handed the spy-glass to Cousin
+Jasper.
+
+"Maybe it's the island where that boy is," said Flossie to her father.
+
+"Maybe," agreed Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"I hardly think it is," said Mr. Dent, as he put the telescope to his
+eye. "The island where we were wrecked is farther away than this, and
+this one is smaller and has more trees on it than the one where poor
+Jack and I landed. I do not think this is the place we want, but we can
+go there to fix the engine, and then travel on farther."
+
+"Can we really land on the island?" asked Freddie.
+
+"Yes, you may go ashore there," the captain said. "We shall probably
+have to stay there two or three days."
+
+"Oh, what fun we can have, playing on the island!" cried Flossie.
+
+"We'll pretend we're Robinson Crusoe," said her little brother. "Come
+on, Flossie, let's go and tell Nan and Bert!"
+
+And while the two younger Bobbsey twins ran to tell their older brother
+and sister, Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, Cousin Jasper and Captain Crane took
+turns looking through the glass at the island, which was about five
+miles away.
+
+"It is not the island where I was," said Cousin Jasper again. "But it
+looks like a good place to stay while the engines of the _Swallow_ are
+being mended. So we'll go there, Captain!"
+
+"All right," Captain Crane answered. "We'll have to go a little slow,
+but we'll be there in plenty of time."
+
+Once more the motor boat started off, not going as fast as at first, but
+the Bobbsey twins did not mind this a bit, as they were thinking what
+fun they would have on the island so far out at sea, and they stood at
+the rail watching it as it appeared to grow larger the nearer the boat
+came to it.
+
+"We're coming up pretty fast, aren't we?" remarked Freddie.
+
+"Not as fast as we might come," answered Bert. "However, we've got lots
+of time, just as Captain Crane said."
+
+"Is it a really and truly Robinson Crusoe place?" questioned Flossie.
+
+"I guess we'll find out about that a little later," answered her sister.
+
+"I can see the trees now!" exclaimed Freddie presently.
+
+"So can I," answered his twin.
+
+At last the anchor was dropped in a little bay, which would be sheltered
+from storms, and then the small boat was lowered so that those who
+wished might go ashore.
+
+"Oh, what lovely palm trees!" exclaimed Nan, as she saw the beautiful
+branches near the edge of the island, waving in the gentle breeze.
+
+"They are wonderful," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "The whole island is covered
+with them."
+
+"Do palm leaf fans grow on these trees, Mother?" asked Freddie as they
+were being rowed ashore by one of the sailors.
+
+"Well, yes, I suppose they could make palm leaf fans from some of the
+branches of these palm trees," Mrs. Bobbsey said. "And shall we call
+this Palm Island? That is, unless it has some other name?" she asked
+Captain Crane.
+
+"No, I hardly think it has," he answered. "I was never here before,
+though I have been on many of the little islands in this part of the
+sea. So we can call this Palm Island, if you like."
+
+"It will be a lovely place to stay," stated Nan. "I just love to sit
+under a tree, and look at the waves and the white sand."
+
+"I'm going in swimming!" declared Bert. "It's awful hot, and a good swim
+will cool me off."
+
+"Don't go in until we take a look and see if there are any sharks or big
+fish around," his father warned him. "Remember we are down South, where
+the water of the ocean is warm, and sharks like warm water. This is not
+like it was at Uncle William's at Ocean Cliff. So, remember, children,
+don't go in the water unless your mother, or some of the grown people,
+are with you."
+
+The children promised they would not, and a little later the rowboat
+grated on the sandy shore and they all got out on the beach of Palm
+Island.
+
+"Then this isn't the place where you were wrecked with Jack?" asked Mr.
+Bobbsey of Cousin Jasper.
+
+"No; it isn't the same place at all. It is a beautiful island, though;
+much nicer than the one where I was."
+
+"I wonder if any one lives on it," said Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"I think not," answered Captain Crane. "Most of these islands are too
+small for people to live on for any length of time, though fishermen
+might camp out on them for a week or so. However, this will be a good
+place for us to stay while the engines are being fixed."
+
+"Can we sleep here at night?" asked Bert, who wanted very much to do as
+he had read of Robinson Crusoe doing.
+
+"Well, no, I hardly think you could sleep here at night," said Captain
+Crane. "We may not be here more than two days, and it wouldn't be wise
+to get out the camping things for such a little while. Then, too, a
+storm might come up, and we would have to move the boat. You can spend
+the days on Palm Island and sleep on the _Swallow_."
+
+"Well, that will be fun!" said Nan.
+
+"Lots of fun," agreed Bert. "And please, Daddy, can't we go in
+swimming?"
+
+It was a hot day, and as Captain Crane said there would be no danger
+from sharks if the children kept near shore, their bathing garments were
+brought from the boat, and soon Bert and Nan, and Flossie and Freddie,
+were splashing about in the warm sun-lit waters on the beach of Palm
+Island.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were sitting in the shade watching them, while the
+men on the boat were working at the broken engine, when suddenly
+Flossie, who had come out of the water to sit on the sand, set up a cry.
+
+"Oh, it's got hold of me!" she shouted. "Come quick, Daddy! Mother! It's
+got hold of my dress and it's pulling!"
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey jumped up and ran down the beach toward the little
+girl.
+
+[Illustration: FLOSSIE WAS TRYING TO PULL AWAY.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A QUEER NEST
+
+
+Nan and Bert, who, with Freddie, were splashing out in the water a
+little way from where Flossie sat on the beach, heard the cries of the
+little girl and hurried to her. But Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were the first
+to reach Flossie.
+
+"What is it?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Flossie's mother.
+
+"Oh, he's pulling me! He's pulling me!" answered the little girl.
+
+And, surely enough, something behind her, which Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey
+could not see, did appear to have hold of the little short skirt of the
+bathing suit Flossie wore.
+
+"Can it be a little dog playing with her?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"We'd hear him bark if it was," his wife answered. "And I don't believe
+there are any dogs on this island."
+
+Flossie was trying to pull away from whatever had hold of her, and the
+little girl was having a hard time of it. Her bare feet dug in the white
+sand, and she leaned forward, just as she would have done if a dog had
+had hold of her short skirt from behind.
+
+Mr. Bobbsey, running fast, caught Flossie in his arms, and when he saw
+what was behind her he gave a loud shout.
+
+"It's a turtle!" he cried. "A great, big turtle, and it took a bite out
+of your dress, Flossie girl!"
+
+"Will it bite me?" asked the little "fairy."
+
+"Not now!" the twins' father answered with a laugh. "There, I'll get you
+loose from him!"
+
+Mr. Bobbsey gave a hard pull on Flossie's bathing suit skirt. There was
+a sound of tearing cloth and then Mr. Bobbsey could lift his little girl
+high in his arms. As he did so Mrs. Bobbsey, who hurried up just then,
+saw on the beach behind Flossie a great, big turtle, and in its mouth,
+which looked something like that of a parrot, was a piece of the bathing
+skirt. Mr. Bobbsey had torn it loose.
+
+"Oh, if he had bitten you instead of your dress!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey.
+"Flossie, are you hurt?"
+
+"No, she isn't hurt a bit," her father said. "But of course it is a good
+thing that the turtle did not bite her. How did it happen, Flossie?"
+
+"Well, I was resting here, after I tried to swim," answered the little
+girl, for she was learning to swim; "and, all of a sudden, I wanted to
+get up, for Freddie called me to come and see how he could float. But I
+couldn't get up. This mud turkle had hold of me."
+
+"It isn't a mud turtle," said Mr. Bobbsey. "But it certainly had hold of
+you."
+
+Just then Cousin Jasper came along and saw the turtle crawling back
+toward the water.
+
+"Ha! I'll stop that and we'll have some turtle soup for dinner
+to-morrow!" he cried. "Not so fast, Mr. Turtle!"
+
+With that Cousin Jasper turned the turtle over on its back, and there
+the big creature lay, moving its flippers, which it had instead of legs.
+They were broad and flat.
+
+"Won't it bite you?" asked Freddie, who, with Nan and Bert, had waded
+ashore.
+
+"Not if I don't put my hand too near its mouth," Cousin Jasper answered.
+"If I did that it would take hold of me, as it took hold of Flossie's
+dress. But I'm not going to let it. Did the turtle scare you, little fat
+fairy?"
+
+"I--I guess it did," she answered. "Anyhow I hollered."
+
+"You certainly did," her father said with a laugh. "At least, you
+hallooed."
+
+"What are you going to do with it?" asked Bert, as he watched the big
+turtle, which still had hold of the piece torn from Flossie's bathing
+skirt.
+
+"We'll eat him--that is part of him, made into soup," answered Cousin
+Jasper.
+
+"Can't he get away?" Nan inquired.
+
+"Not when he's on his back," said Mr. Dent. "That's how the people down
+here catch turtles. They go out on the beach, and when any of the
+crawling creatures are seen, they are turned over as soon as possible.
+There they stay until they can be picked up and put into a boat to be
+taken to the mainland and sold."
+
+"Can they bite hard?" asked Bert.
+
+"Pretty hard, yes. See what a hold it has of Flossie's dress. I had to
+tear it to get it loose," returned Mr. Bobbsey. And the turtle still
+held in his mouth, which was like the beak of a parrot, a piece of the
+cloth.
+
+"He looks funny," put in Nan. "But I feel sorry for him."
+
+Bert and Freddie laughed at Nan for this.
+
+"The turtle must have been crawling along the beach, to go back into the
+ocean for a swim," said Cousin Jasper, "and it ran right into Flossie as
+she sat on the sand. Then, not knowing just what sort of danger was
+near, the turtle bit on the first thing it saw, which was Flossie's
+dress."
+
+"And it held on awful tight," said the little girl. "It was just like,
+sometimes, when our dog Snap takes hold of a stick and pulls it away
+from you. At first I thought it was Snap."
+
+"Snap couldn't swim away down here from Lakeport!" said Freddie, with
+some scorn.
+
+"I know he couldn't!" said his little sister. "But only at first I
+thought it was Snap. Are there any more turkles here, Cousin Jasper?"
+
+"Well, yes, a great many, I suppose. They come up out of the sea now and
+then to lie on the sand in the sun. But I don't believe any more of them
+will take hold of you. Just look around before you sit down, and you'll
+be all right."
+
+"My, he's a big one!" cried Bert, as he looked at the wiggling creature
+turned on its back.
+
+"Oh, that isn't half the size of some," said Cousin Jasper. "They often
+get to weigh many hundreds of pounds. But this one is large enough to
+make plenty of soup for us. I'll tell Captain Crane to send the men over
+to get it."
+
+A little later the turtle was taken on board the _Swallow_ in the boat,
+and the cook got it ready for soup.
+
+"And I think he'll make very good soup, indeed," said the cook.
+
+"He certainly ought to make good soup," answered Captain Crane. "It will
+be nice and fresh, if nothing else."
+
+While Mr. Chase and his men were mending the broken engine, and the cook
+was making turtle soup, the Bobbsey twins, with their father and mother
+and Cousin Jasper, stayed on Palm Island. They walked along the shore,
+under the shady trees, and watched the blue waves break up on the white
+sand. Overhead, birds wheeled and flew about, sometimes dashing down
+into the water with a splash to catch a fish or get something else to
+eat.
+
+"It's getting near dinner time," said Mr. Bobbsey, after a while. "I
+guess you children had better get ready to go back to the boat for a
+meal. You must be hungry."
+
+"I am," answered Nan. "It always makes me hungry to go in swimming."
+
+"I'm hungry anyhow, even if I don't go in swimming," Bert said.
+
+"Perhaps we could have a little lunch here, on Palm Island, without
+going back to the _Swallow_," Mrs. Bobbsey suggested.
+
+"Oh, that would be fun!" cried Nan.
+
+"Daddy and I'll go to the ship in the boat and get the things to eat,"
+proposed Bert. "Then we'll bring 'em here and have a picnic."
+
+"Yes, we might do that," Mr. Bobbsey agreed. "It will save work for the
+cook, who must be busy with that turtle. We'll go and get the things for
+an island picnic."
+
+"This is almost like the time we were on Blueberry Island," said Nan,
+when her father and brother had rowed back to the _Swallow_.
+
+"Only there isn't any cave," Freddie said.
+
+"Maybe there is," returned Nan. "We haven't looked around yet. Maybe we
+might find a cave here; mightn't we, Mother?"
+
+"Oh, yes, you might. But don't go looking for one. I don't want you to
+get lost here. We must all stay together."
+
+In a little while Bert and Mr. Bobbsey came back with baskets filled
+with good things to eat. They were spread out on a cloth on the clean
+sand, not far from where the waves broke on the beach, and then, under
+the waving palms, the picnic was held, Captain Crane and Cousin Jasper
+having a share in it. On the _Swallow_ the men still worked to mend the
+broken engine.
+
+"How long shall we be here?" Mr. Bobbsey asked.
+
+"About two days more," answered Captain Crane. "It will take longer than
+we at first thought to fix the break."
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry about that!" exclaimed Cousin Jasper. "I wanted to get to
+the other island as soon as we could, and save Jack. It must be very
+lonesome for him there, and perhaps he is hurt, or has become ill. I
+wish we could get to him."
+
+"We'll go there as soon as we can," promised Captain Crane. "I am as
+anxious to get that poor boy as you are, Mr. Dent. At the same time I
+hope he has, before this, been taken off the island by some other boat
+that may have seen him waving to them."
+
+"I hope so, too," said Mr. Dent. "Still I would feel better if we were
+at the other island and had Jack safe with us."
+
+They all felt sorry for the poor boy, and wondered what he was doing
+just then.
+
+"I hope he has something as good to eat as we have." Nan spoke with a
+sigh of satisfaction.
+
+"Indeed, this is a very nice meal, for a picnic," said her mother. "We
+ought to be very thankful to Cousin Jasper for taking us on such a nice
+voyage."
+
+"I am glad you like it," returned Mr. Dent. "All the while I was in the
+hospital, as soon as I was able to think, my thoughts were with this
+poor boy.
+
+"I tried to get the hospital people to send a boat to rescue Jack; but
+they said he could not be on the island, or the sailors who brought me
+off would have seen him. Then they thought I was out of my head with
+illness, and paid little attention to me.
+
+"Then I thought of you, Dick, and I wrote to you. I knew you liked
+traveling about, and especially when it was to help some one."
+
+"Indeed I do," said the father of the Bobbsey twins. "And if all goes
+well we'll soon rescue Jack!"
+
+After the picnic lunch the Bobbseys and their friends sat in the shade
+of the palms and talked over what had so far happened on the voyage.
+Flossie and Freddie wandered down the beach, and the little girl was
+showing her brother where she sat when the turtle grabbed her dress.
+
+"Let's dig a hole in the sand," Freddie said, a little later.
+
+"We haven't any shovels," Flossie answered.
+
+"We can take shells," said Freddie.
+
+Soon the two little twins were having fun in the sand of the beach. They
+had not been digging very long when Freddie gave a shout.
+
+"Oh, I hope nothing more has happened!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, starting
+up.
+
+"What is it, Freddie?" called Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"Look at the funny nest we found!" answered the little boy. "It's a
+funny nest in the sand, and it's got a lot of chicken's eggs in it! Come
+and look!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE "SWALLOW" IS GONE
+
+
+"What is the child saying?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey of her husband, for she
+did not hear all that Freddie said.
+
+"He's calling about having found a hen's nest," Mr. Bobbsey answered,
+"but he must be mistaken. There can't be any chickens on this island."
+
+"Maybe there are," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Perhaps, after all, some one
+lives here, on the other side where we haven't been. And they may keep
+chickens."
+
+"Oh, no," answered her husband.
+
+"I hardly think so," said Cousin Jasper. "But we'll go to look at what
+Freddie has found."
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, with Cousin Jasper, followed by Bert and Nan,
+hurried down the beach to Flossie and Freddie, standing beside a hole
+they had dug in the sand. The children were looking down into it.
+
+"I busted one egg with my clam-shell shovel," Freddie was saying, "but
+there's a lot left."
+
+"They were all covered with sand," added Flossie. "And we dug 'em up!
+Didn't we, Freddie? We dug up the chickie's nest!"
+
+"But we didn't see any chickens," said the little boy.
+
+"And for a very good reason," stated Cousin Jasper with a laugh, as he
+looked down into the little sand pit. "Those are the eggs of a turtle.
+Perhaps the very turtle that had hold of your dress, Flossie."
+
+"Do turtles lay eggs?" asked Freddie in surprise.
+
+"Indeed they do," said Cousin Jasper.
+
+"O-o-oh!" gasped Flossie.
+
+"And the turtle's eggs are good to eat, too. They are not quite as nice
+as the eggs of a hen, but lots of people, especially those who live on
+some of these islands, like them very much," went on Mr. Dent.
+
+"Does a turkle lay its eggs in a nest like a hen?" Flossie questioned.
+"What made them all be covered up?"
+
+"Well," answered Cousin Jasper, as they all looked at the eggs in the
+sand, "a turtle lays eggs like a hen, but she cannot hover over them,
+and hatch them, as a hen can, because a turtle has no warm feathers. You
+know it takes warmth and heat to make an egg hatch. And, as a turtle
+isn't warm enough to do that, she lays her eggs in the warm sand, and
+covers them up. The heat of the sun, and the warm sand soon hatch the
+little turtles out of the eggs."
+
+"Would turtles come out of these eggs?" asked Nan.
+
+"Really, truly?" added Flossie.
+
+"Just as surely as little chickens come out of hen's eggs," answered
+Cousin Jasper. "But they must be kept warm."
+
+"Then we'd better cover 'em up again!" exclaimed Freddie. "We found the
+turtle's eggs when we were digging in the sand--Flossie and me. And I
+didn't know they were there and I busted one of the eggs. First I
+thought they were white stones, but when I busted one, and the white and
+yellow came out, I found they were eggs."
+
+"And the shells aren't hard," said Mrs. Bobbsey, as she leaned over the
+hole and touched the queer eggs in the sand-nest. "The shells are like
+the shell of a soft egg a hen sometimes lays."
+
+"Except that the shells, or rather, skins, of these eggs are thicker
+than those of a chicken," explained Cousin Jasper. "These egg-skins are
+like a piece of leather. If they were hard, like the eggs of a hen,
+perhaps the little turtles could not break their way out, as a turtle,
+though it can give a hard bite, has no pointed beak to pick a hole in
+the shell."
+
+"Well, you have made quite a discovery," said Mr. Bobbsey to the little
+twins. "Better cover the eggs up now, so the little turtles in them will
+not get cold and die."
+
+"Are there turtles in them now?" asked Freddie.
+
+"No, these eggs must be newly laid," Cousin Jasper said. "But if they
+are kept warm long enough the little turtles will come to life in them
+and break their way out. Would you like some to eat?" he asked Mr.
+Bobbsey.
+
+The father of the twins shook his head.
+
+"I don't believe I care for any," he answered. "I'm not very fond of
+eggs, anyhow, and I'll wait until we can find some that feathered
+chickens lay."
+
+"Well, I'll take a few for myself, and I know Captain Crane likes them,"
+said Cousin Jasper. "The rest we will leave to be hatched by the warm
+sun."
+
+Mr. Dent took some of the eggs out in his hat, and then Flossie and
+Freddie covered the rest with sand again.
+
+"We'll dig in another place, so we won't burst any more turtle's eggs,"
+said the little boy, as he walked down the beach with Flossie, each one
+carrying a clam shell.
+
+It was so nice on Palm Island that Mrs. Bobbsey said they would have
+supper there, before going back on board the _Swallow_ to spend the
+night. So more things to eat were brought off in the small boat, and, as
+the sun was sinking down in the west, turning the blue waves of the sea
+to a golden color, the travelers sat on the beach and ate.
+
+"Maybe we could build a little campfire here and stay for a while after
+dark," suggested Bert, who felt that he was getting to be quite a large
+boy now.
+
+"Oh, no indeed! We won't stay here after dark!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey.
+"Snakes and turtles and all sorts of things might crawl up out of the
+ocean and walk all around us on the beach. As soon as it gets dark we'll
+go back to the ship."
+
+"Yes, I think that would be best," said Mr. Bobbsey. "When we get to the
+other island, where we hope to find Jack, it will be time enough to camp
+out."
+
+"Shall we stay there long?" Bert wanted to know.
+
+"It all depends on how we find that poor boy," answered Cousin Jasper.
+"If he is all right, and doesn't mind staying a little longer, we can
+make a camp on the island. There are some tents on board and we can live
+in them while on shore."
+
+"Oh, that'll be almost as much fun as Blueberry Island!" cried Nan.
+
+"It'll be nicer!" Bert said. "Blueberry Island was right near shore, but
+this island is away out in the middle of the ocean, isn't it, Cousin
+Jasper?"
+
+"Well, not exactly in the middle of the ocean," was the answer. "But I
+think, perhaps, there is more water around it than was around your
+Blueberry Island."
+
+After supper, which, like their lunch, was eaten on the beach under the
+palm trees, the Bobbsey twins and the others went back to the _Swallow_.
+The men working for the engineer, Mr. Chase, had not yet gotten the
+engine fixed, and it would take perhaps two more days, they said, as the
+break was worse than they had at first thought.
+
+"Well, we'll have to stay here, that's all," said Cousin Jasper. "I did
+hope we would hurry to the rescue of Jack, but it seems we can't. Anyhow
+it would not do to go on with a broken engine. We might run into a storm
+at sea and then we would be wrecked. So we will wait until everything is
+all right before we go sailing over the sea again."
+
+"It seems like being back home," said Mrs. Bobbsey, as she sat down
+later in a deck chair.
+
+"Didn't you like it on the island?" asked Bert.
+
+"Yes. But after it got dark some big turtle might have come up out of
+the sea and pulled on you, as one did on Flossie," and Bert's mother
+smiled.
+
+"Well, no mud turkles can get on our ship, can they?" asked the little
+"fat fairy."
+
+"No turtles can get on board here, unless they climb up the anchor
+cable," said Captain Crane with a laugh. "Now we'll get all snug for the
+night, so if it comes on to blow, or storm, we shall be all right."
+
+It was a little too early to go to bed, so the Bobbsey twins and the
+grown folks sat on deck in the moonlight. The men of the crew, and the
+cook, sat on the other end of the deck, and also talked. It was very
+warm, for the travelers were now in southern waters, nearer the equator
+than they had ever been before. Even with very thin clothes on the air
+felt hot, though, of course, just as at Lakeport or Meadow Brook, it was
+cooler in the evening than during the day.
+
+"It's almost too hot to go down into the staterooms," said Mrs. Bobbsey.
+"I wonder if we couldn't sleep out on deck?"
+
+"Yes, we could have the mattresses brought up," said Cousin Jasper. "I
+have often slept on the deck of my own boat."
+
+"Some of the crew are going to, they tell me," Captain Crane said.
+
+"Then we will," Mr. Bobbsey decided. "It will be more like camping out.
+And it certainly is very hot, even with the sun down."
+
+"We may have a thunderstorm in the night," the captain said, "but we can
+sleep out until then."
+
+So the mattresses and bed covers were brought up from the stateroom.
+
+"This is a new kind of camping out, isn't it?" remarked Flossie, as she
+viewed the bringing up of the bed things with great interest.
+
+"It's a good deal like moving, I think," answered Freddie. "Only, of
+course, we haven't got any moving van to load the things on to."
+
+"What would you do with a moving van out here on a boat?" demanded Bert.
+
+"I could put it on another boat--one of those flat ones, like they have
+down at New York, where the horses and wagons walk right on," insisted
+Freddie, thinking of a ferryboat.
+
+"Well, we haven't any such boats around here, so we'd better not have
+any moving vans either," remarked Mr. Bobbsey, with a laugh.
+
+"I don't want to move anywhere, anyway," said Flossie. "I'm too tired to
+do it. I'm going to stay right where I am."
+
+"Oh, so'm I going to stay!" cried Freddie quickly. "Come on--let us make
+our beds right over here," and he caught up one of the smaller
+mattresses. He struggled to cross the deck with it, but got his feet
+tangled up in one end, and pitched headlong.
+
+"Look out there, Freddie Bobbsey, or you'll go overboard!" cried his
+brother, as he rushed to the little boy's assistance.
+
+"If I went overboard, could I float on the mattress?" questioned
+Freddie, as he scrambled to his feet.
+
+"I don't think so," answered his father. "And, anyway, I wouldn't try
+it."
+
+Presently the mattresses and bedcovers were distributed to everyone's
+satisfaction, and then all lay down to rest.
+
+For a time, Flossie and Freddie, as well as Nan and Bert, tossed about,
+but at last they fell asleep. It was very quiet on the sea, the only
+noise being the lapping of the waves against the sides of the _Swallow_.
+
+Mrs. Bobbsey was just falling into a doze when there was a sudden splash
+in the water, and a loud cry.
+
+"Man overboard! Man overboard!" some one yelled.
+
+"Oh, if it should be one of the children!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. For, no
+matter whether it is a boy, girl or woman that falls off a ship at sea,
+a sailor will always call: "'Man' overboard!" I suppose that is easier
+and quicker to say.
+
+"Who is it? What's the matter?" cried Mr. Bobbsey, awakened suddenly
+from his sleep.
+
+There was more splashing in the water alongside the boat, and then
+Captain Crane turned on a lamp that made the deck and the water about
+very light.
+
+"Jim Black fell overboard," answered Mr. Chase, the engineer. "He got up
+to draw a bucket of water to soak his head in so he could cool off, and
+he reached over too far."
+
+"Is he all right?" asked Captain Crane.
+
+"Yes, I'm all right," was the answer of the sailor himself. "I feel
+cooler now."
+
+At this the older people laughed.
+
+He had fallen in with the clothes on, in which he had been sleeping, but
+as soon as he struck the water he swam up, made his way to the side of
+the ship, grabbed a rope that was hanging over the side, and pulled
+himself to the deck.
+
+"My! what a fright I had!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "I thought one of the
+children had rolled into the ocean!"
+
+"That couldn't happen," said Captain Crane. "There is a strong railing
+all about the deck."
+
+"Well, it's cooler now," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I think I'll take the twins
+and go to our regular beds."
+
+She did this and was glad of it, for a little later a thunderstorm
+broke, and it began to rain, driving every one below. The rest of the
+night the storm kept up, and though the thunder was loud and the
+lightning very bright, the rain did one good service--it made the next
+day cooler.
+
+"Well, shall we go ashore again?" asked Mr. Bobbsey, when breakfast had
+been eaten aboard the _Swallow_.
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried the twins. "We want to go swimming again!"
+
+"And I'm going to watch out for 'mud turkles,'" said Flossie, as she
+called them.
+
+Once more they went to the beach of Palm Island, and they had dinner on
+the shady shore. In the afternoon, leaving the engineer and his helpers
+on board to work away at the motor, the whole party of travelers,
+Captain Crane, Cousin Jasper and all, started on a walk to the other
+side of the island. This took them out of sight of the boat.
+
+They found many pretty things at which to look--flowers, a spring of
+sweet water where they got a drink, little caves and dells, and a place
+where hundreds of birds made their nests on a rocky cliff. The birds
+wheeled and soared about, making loud noises as they saw the Bobbsey
+twins and the others near their nests.
+
+It was along in the afternoon when they went back to the beach where
+they had eaten, and where they were to have supper. Bert, who had run on
+ahead around a curve in the woodland path, came to a stop on the beach.
+
+"Why--why!" he cried. "She's gone! The _Swallow_ is gone!" and he
+pointed to the little bay.
+
+The motor boat was no longer at anchor there!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+AWAY AGAIN
+
+
+"What's that you say?" asked Captain Crane. "The _Swallow_ gone?"
+
+"She isn't there," Bert answered. "But maybe that isn't the bay where
+she was anchored. Maybe we're in the wrong place."
+
+"No, this is the place all right," said Cousin Jasper. "But our boat
+_is_ gone!"
+
+There was no doubt of it. The little bay that had held the fine, big
+motor boat was indeed empty. The small boat was drawn up on the sand,
+but that was all.
+
+"Where can it have gone?" asked Mr. Bobbsey. "Did you know the men we
+left on it were going away, Captain Crane?"
+
+"No, indeed, I did not! I can't believe that Mr. Chase and the others
+have gone, and yet the boat isn't here."
+
+Captain Crane was worried. So were Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey and Cousin
+Jasper. Even Flossie and Freddie, young as they were, could tell that.
+
+"Maybe a big mud turkle came and pulled the ship away," said Flossie.
+
+"Or a whale," added Freddie. Any big fish or swimming animal, the little
+twins thought, might do such a thing as that.
+
+"No, nothing like that happened," said Captain Crane. "And yet the
+_Swallow_ is gone. The men could not have thought a storm was coming up,
+and gone out to sea to be safe. There is no sign of a storm, and they
+never would have gone away, unless something happened, without blowing a
+whistle to tell us."
+
+"Maybe," said Bert, "they got word from Jack, on the other island, to
+come and get him right away, and they couldn't wait for us."
+
+Captain Crane shook his head.
+
+"That couldn't happen," he said, "unless another boat brought word from
+poor Jack. And if there had been another boat we'd have seen her."
+
+"Unless both boats went away together," suggested Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"No, I think nothing like that happened," said the captain.
+
+"But what can we do?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "Shall we have to stay on this
+island until the _Swallow_ comes back?"
+
+"She may not be gone very long," Mr. Bobbsey said.
+
+"We can camp out here until she does come back," observed Nan. "We have
+lots left to eat."
+
+"There won't be much after supper," Bert said. "But we can catch some
+turtles, or find some more eggs, and get fish, and live that way."
+
+"I'll catch a fish," promised Freddie.
+
+"I don't understand this," said Captain Crane, with another shake of his
+head. "I must go out and have a look around."
+
+"How are you going?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"In the small boat. I'll row out into the bay for a little way," said
+the seaman. "It may be that the _Swallow_ is around some point of the
+island, just out of sight. I'll have a look before we get ready to camp
+here all night."
+
+"I'll come with you," offered Cousin Jasper.
+
+"All right, and we'll leave Mr. Bobbsey here with his family," the
+captain said. "Don't be afraid," he added to the children and Mrs.
+Bobbsey. "Even if the worst has happened, and the _Swallow_, by some
+mistake, has gone away without us, we can stay here for a while. And
+many ships pass this island, so we shall be taken off pretty soon."
+
+"We can be like Robinson Crusoe, really," Bert said.
+
+"That isn't as much fun as it seems when you're reading the book," put
+in his mother. "But we will make the best of it."
+
+"I think it'd be fun," murmured Freddie.
+
+Captain Crane and Cousin Jasper got in the small boat and rowed out into
+the bay. Anxiously the others watched them, hoping they would soon come
+back with word that the _Swallow_ had been blown just around "the
+corner," as Nan said, meaning around a sort of rocky point of the
+island, beyond which they could not look.
+
+"I do hope we shall not have to camp out here all night," said Mrs.
+Bobbsey, with a little shiver, as she looked around.
+
+"Are you afraid of the mud turkles?" asked Flossie.
+
+"No, dear. But I don't want to sleep on the beach without a bed or any
+covers for you children."
+
+"Perhaps we shall not have to," said Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+They waited a while longer, watching the small boat in which were
+Captain Crane and Cousin Jasper, until it was rowed out of sight. Bert
+did not seem to mind much the prospect of having to stay all night on
+Palm Island.
+
+Nan, however, like her mother and her father, was a bit worried. But
+Flossie and Freddie were having a good time digging in the sand with
+clam shells for shovels. The little twins did not worry about much of
+anything at any time, unless it was getting something to eat or having a
+good time.
+
+"I know what I'm going to build!" cried Freddie.
+
+"What?" demanded his twin quickly.
+
+"I'm going to build a great big sand castle."
+
+"You can't do it, Freddie Bobbsey. The sand won't stick together into a
+castle."
+
+"I'm going to use wet sand," asserted Freddie. "That will stick
+together."
+
+"You look out, Freddie Bobbsey, or you'll fall in!" cried his sister,
+when Freddie had gone further down near the water where the sand was
+wet.
+
+"Freddie! Freddie! keep away from that water!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "I
+don't want you to get all wet and dirty."
+
+"But I want to build a sand castle."
+
+"Well, you come up here where the sand is dry and build it," continued
+Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"All right. In a minute," answered Freddie.
+
+Mr. Bobbsey was straining his eyes, looking out toward the point of
+rock, around which the rowboat had gone, and his wife was standing
+beside him, gazing in the same direction, when Bert, who looked the
+other way, cried:
+
+"There she comes now! There's the _Swallow_!"
+
+And, surely enough, there she came back, as if nothing had happened.
+
+Mr. Bobbsey waved his hat and some one on the motor boat blew a whistle.
+And then, as if knowing that something was wrong, the boat was steered
+closer to shore than it had come before, and Mr. Chase cried:
+
+"What's the matter? Did anything happen?"
+
+"We thought something had happened to you!" shouted Mr. Bobbsey.
+"Captain Crane and Mr. Dent have gone off in the small boat to look for
+you."
+
+"That's too bad," said Mr. Chase. "While you were away, on the other
+side of the island, we finished work on the engine. We wanted to try it,
+so we pulled up anchor and started off. We thought we would go around to
+the side of the island where you were, but something went wrong, after
+we were out a little while, and we had to anchor in another bay, out of
+sight. But as soon as we could we came back, and when I saw you waving
+your hat I feared something might have happened."
+
+"No, nothing happened. And we are all right," said Mr. Bobbsey, "except
+that we were afraid we'd have to stay on the island all night. And
+Captain Crane has gone to look for you."
+
+"I'm sorry about that," returned the engineer. "It would have been all
+right, except that the motor didn't work as I wanted it to. But
+everything is fine now, and we can start for the other island as soon as
+we like. I'll blow the whistle and Captain Crane will know that we are
+back at our old place."
+
+Several loud toots of the air whistle were given, and, a little later,
+from around the point came the small boat with the captain and Cousin
+Jasper in it. They had rowed for some distance, but had not seen the
+_Swallow_, and they were beginning to get more worried, wondering what
+had become of her.
+
+"However, everything is all right now," said Captain Crane, when they
+were all once more on board the motor boat, it having been decided to
+have supper there instead of on Palm Island.
+
+"Aren't we coming back here any more?" asked Freddie.
+
+"Not right away," his father told him. "We stopped here only because we
+had to. Now we are going on again and try to find Jack Nelson."
+
+"We have been longer getting there than I hoped we'd be," said Cousin
+Jasper, "but it could not be helped. I guess Jack will be glad to see us
+when we do arrive."
+
+The things they had taken to Palm Island, when they had their meals
+under the trees, had been brought back on the _Swallow_. The motor boat
+was now ready to set forth again, and soon it was chug-chugging out of
+the quiet bay.
+
+"And we won't stop again until we get to where Jack is," said Mr. Dent.
+
+"Not unless we have to," said Captain Crane.
+
+The _Swallow_ appeared to go a little faster, now that the engine was
+fixed. The boat slipped through the blue sea, and, as the sun sank down,
+a golden ball of fire it seemed, the cook got the supper ready.
+
+The Bobbseys had thought they might get to eat on the beach, but they
+were just as glad to be moving along again.
+
+"And I hope nothing more happens," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Freddie, don't try
+to catch any more fish, or anything like that. There is no telling what
+might come of it."
+
+"I won't," promised the little fellow. "But if I had my fire engine here
+Flossie and I could have some fun."
+
+On and on sailed the _Swallow_. Every one was safely in bed, except one
+man who was steering and another who looked after the motor, when Mrs.
+Bobbsey, who was not a heavy sleeper, awakened her husband. It was about
+midnight.
+
+"Dick!" she exclaimed in a loud whisper, "I smell smoke! Do you?"
+
+Mr. Bobbsey sniffed the air. Then he jumped out of his berth.
+
+"Yes, I smell smoke!" he cried. "And I see a blaze! Wake up, everybody!"
+he cried, "The boat is on fire!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+ORANGE ISLAND
+
+
+Perhaps Freddie Bobbsey had been dreaming about a fire. At any rate he
+must have been thinking about it, for, no sooner did Mr. Bobbsey call,
+after his wife spoke to him, than Freddie, hardly awake, cried:
+
+"Where's my fire engine? Where's my fire engine? I can put out the
+fire!"
+
+Mr. Bobbsey hurried to the berths where the children were sleeping.
+
+That is, they had been sleeping, but the call of their father, and the
+shouting of Freddie, awakened them. Flossie, Nan and Bert sat up,
+rubbing their eyes, though hardly understanding what it was all about.
+
+"What's the matter?" cried Bert.
+
+"The boat is on fire!" his mother answered. "Slip on a few clothes, take
+your life preserver, end get out on deck."
+
+When the Bobbseys first came aboard the _Swallow_ they were shown how to
+put on a life preserver, which is a jacket of canvas filled with cork.
+Cork is light, much lighter than wood, and it will not only float well
+in water, but, if a piece is large enough, as in life preservers, it
+will keep a person who wears it, or who clings to it, up out of the sea
+so they will not drown.
+
+"Get your life preservers!" cried Mr. Bobbsey; then, when he saw that
+his wife had one, and that the children were reaching under their berths
+for theirs, he took his.
+
+The smoke was getting thicker in the staterooms, and the yells and
+shouts of Captain Crane, Cousin Jasper and the crew could be heard.
+
+Up on deck rushed the Bobbseys. There they found the electric lights
+glowing, and they saw more smoke. Cousin Jasper and Captain Crane had a
+hose and were pointing it toward what seemed to be a hole in the back
+part of the boat.
+
+"Oh, see!" shouted Flossie.
+
+"Is the fire engine working?" Freddie demanded, as he saw them. "Can I
+help put the fire out?"
+
+"No, little fireman!" said Captain Crane with a laugh, and when Mrs.
+Bobbsey heard this she felt better, for she thought that there was not
+much danger, or the captain would not have been so jolly. "We have the
+fire almost out now," the captain went on. "Don't be worried, and don't
+any of you jump overboard," he said as he saw Mrs. Bobbsey, with the
+twins, standing rather close to the rail.
+
+"No, we won't do that," she said. "But I was getting ready to jump into
+a boat."
+
+"I guess you won't have to do that," said Cousin Jasper.
+
+"Is the _Swallow_ on fire?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"It was," his cousin answered. "But we have put it out now. There is a
+good pump on board, and we pumped water on the blaze as soon as we saw
+it."
+
+From the hold, which was a place where canned food and other things
+could be stored, smoke was still pouring, and now and then little
+tongues of fire shot up. It was this fire which Mr. Bobbsey had seen
+through the open door of his stateroom.
+
+"Oh, maybe it's going to be an awful big fire!" said Freddie. "Maybe
+it'll burn the whole boat up!"
+
+"Freddie, Freddie! Don't say such dreadful things!" broke in his mother.
+"We don't want this boat to burn up."
+
+"I see where it is," said Flossie. "It's down in that great big
+cellar-like place where they keep all those things to eat--those boxes
+of corn and beans and salmon and sardines and tomatoes, and all the
+things like that."
+
+"Yes. And the 'densed milk!" put in Freddie. "And 'spargus. And the jam!
+And all those nice sweet things, too!" he added mournfully.
+
+"What shall we do if all our food is burnt up?" went on Flossie.
+
+"We can't live on the boat if we haven't anything to eat," asserted
+Freddie. "We'll have to go on shore and get something."
+
+"You might catch another big fish," suggested his twin.
+
+"Would you let me have your doll?"
+
+"No, I wouldn't!" was the prompt response. "You can get lots of other
+things for bait, and you know it, Freddie Bobbsey!"
+
+"How did the fire happen?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey of the captain, when she
+got the chance.
+
+"One of the electric light wires broke and set fire to some oily rags,"
+answered Captain Crane. "Then some empty wooden boxes began to blaze.
+There was nothing in them--all the food having been taken out--but the
+wood made quite a fire and a lot of smoke.
+
+"Mr. Chase, who was on deck steering, smelled the smoke and saw the
+little blaze down in a storeroom. He called me and I called Mr. Dent. We
+hoped we could get the fire out before you folks knew about it. But I
+guess we didn't," said the captain.
+
+"I smelled smoke, and it woke me up," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Then I called
+my husband and we all came on deck."
+
+"That was the right thing to do," Captain Crane said. "And it was also
+good to put on the life preservers," for even Flossie and Freddie had
+done this. "Always get ready for the worst," the captain went on, "and
+then if you don't have to take to the small boats so much the better.
+But the fire will soon be out."
+
+"Can I see the fire engine?" asked Freddie. "I haven't seen a fire
+engine for a long while." At his home he was always interested in this,
+but, luckily, Lakeport had few fires.
+
+"It isn't exactly a fire engine," said Cousin Jasper to the little
+fellow. "It's just a big pump that forms part of one of the motors. I
+guess you can see how it works, for the fire is so nearly out now that
+we won't need much more water on it."
+
+So the Bobbseys took off their life preservers, which are not very
+comfortable things to wear, and stayed on deck, watching the flames die
+out and the smoke drift away. The _Swallow_ had been slowed down while
+the captain and the others were fighting the fire.
+
+"Everything is all right now," said Cousin Jasper, and he took Freddie
+to the motor room to show him the pump, while Captain Crane still played
+the hose on the last dying embers.
+
+The fire only burned up the oil-soaked rags and some empty boxes, not
+doing any damage to the motor boat, except a little scorching. The smoke
+made part of the _Swallow_ black, but this could be painted over.
+
+"And very lucky for us it was no worse," said Mr. Bobbsey, when they
+were ready to go back to their staterooms.
+
+Freddie stayed and watched the pump as long as they would let him. It
+could be fastened to one of the motors and it pumped water from the
+ocean itself on the blaze.
+
+"It's better than having a regular fire engine on land," said Freddie,
+telling Flossie about it afterward, "'cause in the ocean you can take
+all the water you like and nobody minds it. When I grow up I'm going to
+be a fireman on the ocean, and have lots of water."
+
+"You'll have to have a boat so you can go on the ocean," said the little
+girl.
+
+"Well, I like a boat, too," went on Freddie. "You can run the boat,
+Flossie, and I'll run the pump fire engine."
+
+"All right," agreed little Flossie. "That's what we'll do."
+
+After making sure that the last spark was out, Captain Crane shut off
+the water. The Bobbseys went back to bed, but neither the father nor the
+mother of the twins slept well the rest of the night. They were too busy
+thinking what might have happened if the fire had not been seen in time
+and plenty of water sprayed on it to put it out.
+
+"Though there would not have been much danger," Captain Crane said at
+the breakfast table, where they all gathered the next morning. "We could
+all have gotten off in the two boats, and we could have rowed to some
+island. The sea was smooth."
+
+"Where would we get anything to eat?" asked Nan.
+
+"Oh, we'd put that in the boats before we left the ship," said the
+captain. "And we'd take water, too. But still I'm glad we didn't have to
+do that."
+
+And the Bobbseys were glad, too.
+
+Part of the day was spent in getting out of the storeroom the burned
+pieces of boxes. These were thrown overboard. Then one of the crew
+painted over the scorched places, and, by night, except for the smell of
+smoke and paint, one would hardly have known where the fire had been.
+
+The weather was bright and sunny after leaving Palm Island, and the
+twins sat about the deck and looked across the deep, blue sea for a
+sight of the other island, where, it was hoped, the boy Jack would be
+found.
+
+"I wonder what he's doing now," remarked Bert, as he and Nan were
+talking about the lost one, while Flossie and Freddie were listening to
+a story their mother was telling.
+
+"Maybe he's walking up and down the beach looking for us to come,"
+suggested Nan.
+
+"How could he look for us when he doesn't know we're coming?" asked
+Bert.
+
+"Well, maybe he _hopes_ some boat will come for him," went on Nan. "And
+he must know that Cousin Jasper wouldn't go away and leave him all
+alone."
+
+"Yes, I guess that's so," agreed Bert. "It must be pretty lonesome, all
+by himself on an island."
+
+"But maybe somebody else is with him, or maybe he's been taken away,"
+went on Nan. "Anyhow we'll soon know."
+
+"How shall we?" asked Bert.
+
+"'Cause Captain Crane said we'd be at the island to-morrow if we didn't
+have a storm, or if nothing happened."
+
+On and on went the _Swallow_. When dinner time came there was served
+some of the turtle soup from the big crawler that had pulled on
+Flossie's dress. There was also fish, but Freddie did not catch any
+more.
+
+Cousin Jasper and Mr. Bobbsey fished off the side of the motor boat and
+caught some large ones, which the cook cleaned and got ready for the
+table.
+
+"Going to sea is very nice," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "You don't have to send
+to the store for anything to eat, and when you are hungry all you have
+to do is to drop your hook overboard and catch a fish."
+
+It was about noon of the next day when Bert, who was standing in the
+bow, or front part of the vessel, said to his father:
+
+"I see something like a black speck out there," and he pointed. "Maybe
+it's another boat."
+
+Mr. Bobbsey looked and said:
+
+"I think more likely that is an island. Perhaps it is the very one we
+are sailing for--the one where Cousin Jasper left Jack."
+
+He called to Captain Crane, who brought a powerful telescope, and
+through that the men looked at the speck Bert had first seen.
+
+"It's land all right," said Captain Crane. In about an hour they were so
+near the island that its shape could easily be made out, even without a
+glass. Then Cousin Jasper said:
+
+"That's it all right. Now to go ashore and find that poor boy!"
+
+On raced the _Swallow_, and soon she dropped anchor in a little bay like
+the one at Palm Island. In a small boat the Bobbseys and others were
+rowed to the shore.
+
+"Oh, look at the orange trees!" cried Nan, as she saw some in a grove
+near the beach.
+
+"Are they real oranges, Captain?" asked the younger girl twin.
+
+"Yes. And it looks as though some one had an orange grove here at one
+time, not so very long ago, though it hasn't been kept up."
+
+"Is this Orange Island?" asked Bert.
+
+"Well, we can call it that," said Cousin Jasper. "In fact it never had a
+name, as far as I know. We'll call it Orange Island now."
+
+"That's a good name for it, I think," remarked Nan.
+
+"And now to see if we can find Jack!" went on Nan's twin.
+
+"Let's all holler!" suddenly said Freddie. "Let's all holler as loud as
+we can!"
+
+"What for?" asked Cousin Jasper, smiling at the little boy. "Why do you
+want to halloo, Freddie?"
+
+"So maybe Jack can hear us, and he'll know we're here. Whenever me or
+Flossie gets lost we always holler; don't we?" he asked his little
+sister.
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+"And when Bert or Nan, or our father or mother is looking for us, even
+if we don't know we're lost, they always holler; don't you, Bert?"
+
+"Yes, and sometimes I have to 'holler' a lot before you answer," said
+Nan's brother.
+
+"Well, perhaps it would be a good thing to call now," agreed Mr.
+Bobbsey. "Shall we, Cousin Jasper?"
+
+"Yes," he answered. So the men, with the children to help them, began to
+shout.
+
+"Jack! Jack! Where are you, Jack?"
+
+The woods and the orange trees echoed the sound, but that was all.
+
+Was the missing boy still on the island?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+LOOKING FOR JACK
+
+
+Again and again the Bobbseys and the others called the name of Jack, but
+the children's voices sounding loud, clear and shrill above the others.
+But, as at first, only the echoes answered.
+
+"That's the way we always holler when we're lost," said Freddie.
+
+"But I guess Jack doesn't hear us," added Flossie.
+
+"No, I guess not," said Cousin Jasper, in rather a sad voice.
+
+"Are you sure this is the right island?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, looking
+about the place where they had landed from the _Swallow_.
+
+"Oh, yes, this is the island where I was shipwrecked," said Mr. Dent,
+"though Jack and I did not land just here. It was on the other side, and
+when we go there I can show you the wreck of my motor boat--that is, if
+the storms have not washed it all away."
+
+"Well, then maybe Jack is on the other side of the island," said Bert.
+"And he couldn't hear us."
+
+"Yes, that might be so," agreed Cousin Jasper. "We'll go around there.
+But as it will take us some little time, and as we want to get some
+things ashore from the ship, we had better wait until later in the day,
+or, perhaps, until to-morrow, to look. Though I want to find Jack as
+soon as I can."
+
+"Maybe he'll find us before we find him," suggested Mr. Bobbsey. "I
+should think he would be on the lookout, every day, for a ship to which
+he could signal to be taken off."
+
+"Perhaps he is," said Cousin Jasper. "Well, I hope he comes walking
+along and finds us. He'll be very glad to be taken away from this place,
+I guess."
+
+"And yet it is lovely here," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I never thought we
+would find oranges growing in such a place."
+
+"I forgot to speak about them," said Cousin Jasper. "In fact I was so
+ill and so miserable after the wreck, that I did not take much notice of
+what was on the island. But there are many orange trees. It must have,
+at some time, been quite a grove."
+
+"I was thinking maybe we'd find cocoanuts," said Freddie.
+
+"But oranges are just as nice," put in his little sister.
+
+"Nicer," Freddie declared. "I like oranges. May we eat some, Mother?"
+
+"Why, yes, I guess so," answered Mrs. Bobbsey slowly. "Will it be all
+right, Cousin Jasper?"
+
+"Oh, yes, the oranges are for whomsoever wants them. Help yourselves,
+children, while we get the things on shore that we need from the motor
+boat."
+
+"Oh, goody!" shouted Flossie.
+
+"Are we going to sleep here at night?" asked Bert.
+
+"Well, I did think we might camp out here for a week or so, after we got
+here and found that Jack was all right," answered Cousin Jasper. "But if
+he is ill, and needs a doctor, we shall have to go right back to
+Florida. However, until we are sure of that, we will get ready to camp
+out."
+
+"Oh, what fun!" cried Nan.
+
+"It'll be as nice as on Blueberry Island!" Flossie exclaimed, clapping
+her fat little hands.
+
+"But there weren't any oranges on Blueberry Island," added Freddie.
+"Still the blueberries made nice pies."
+
+"Mother made the pies," said Flossie.
+
+"Well, the blueberries helped her," Freddie said, with a laugh.
+
+The Bobbsey twins gathered oranges from the trees and ate them. The men
+folks then began to bring things from the _Swallow_, which was anchored
+in a little bay, not far from shore.
+
+Two tents were to be set up, and though the crew would stay on the boat
+with Captain Crane, to take care of the vessel if a sudden storm came
+up, the Bobbseys and Cousin Jasper would camp out on Orange Island.
+
+In a little while one tent was put up, an oil-stove brought from the
+boat so that cooking could be done without the uncertain waiting for a
+campfire, and boxes and baskets of food were set out.
+
+"I want to put up the other tent," said Freddie. "I know just how it
+ought to be done."
+
+"All right, Freddie, you can help," was the answer from Bert. "Only, you
+had better not try to pound any of the pegs in the ground with the
+hatchet, or you may pound your fingers."
+
+"Ho! I guess I'm just as good a carpenter as you are, Bert Bobbsey!"
+said the little boy stoutly.
+
+He took hold of one of the poles and raised it up, but then it slipped
+from his grasp and one end hit Nan on the shoulder.
+
+"Oh, Freddie! do be careful!" she cried.
+
+"I didn't mean to hit you, Nan," he said contritely. "It didn't hurt,
+did it?"
+
+"Not very much. But I don't want to get hit again."
+
+"Freddie, you had better let the older folks set up that tent," said
+Mrs. Bobbsey. "Here, you and Flossie can help put these boxes and
+baskets away. There is plenty of other work for you to do."
+
+A little later the second tent was in position, and everything about the
+camp was put in good shape.
+
+Then Cousin Jasper, Mr. Bobbsey and the captain, taking Bert with them,
+started around for the other side of the island to look and call for the
+missing Jack.
+
+"I want to come, too," said Freddie.
+
+"Not now," his mother told him. "It is too far for a little boy. Perhaps
+you and Flossie may go to-morrow. You stay and help me make the camp
+ready for night."
+
+This pleased Freddie and Flossie, and soon they were helping their
+mother, one of the sailors doing the heavy lifting.
+
+Meanwhile Bert, his father and the others walked on through the woods,
+around to the other side of the island. They found the place where
+Cousin Jasper's boat had struck the rocks and been wrecked, and Mr. Dent
+also showed them the place where he and Jack stayed while they were
+waiting for a boat to come for them.
+
+"And here is where we set up our signal," cried Mr. Bobbsey's cousin, as
+he found a pole which had fallen over, having been broken off close to
+the ground. On top was still a piece of canvas that had fluttered as a
+flag.
+
+"But why didn't Jack leave it flying, to call a boat to come and get him
+when he found you gone?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"I don't know," said Cousin Jasper. "This is very strange. I thought
+surely we would find Jack as soon as we reached the island. It may be
+that he has been taken off by some fishermen, but I think I would have
+heard of it. And he was here about a week ago, for Captain Harrison saw
+him, you remember he told us. Well, we must look further."
+
+"And yell and yell some more," added Bert. "Maybe he can hear us now."
+
+So they shouted and called, but no one answered them, and Cousin Jasper
+shook his head.
+
+"I wonder what can have happened to the poor boy!" he said.
+
+They walked along the beach, and up among the palm and orange trees,
+looking for the missing boy. But they saw no signs of him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+FOUND AT LAST
+
+
+When Bert, with his father, Cousin Jasper and Captain Crane, got back to
+the place where Mrs. Bobbsey had been left with Nan and the two smaller
+twins, the camp on Orange Island was nearly finished. The tents had been
+put up, and the oil-stove was ready for cooking.
+
+"Didn't you find that poor boy?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"No, we saw no trace of him," her husband answered.
+
+"Oh, isn't that too bad?"
+
+"Yes, I am very sorry," sighed Cousin Jasper. "But I have not yet given
+up. I'll stay here until either I find him, or make sure what has
+happened to him. Poor Jack has no relatives, and I am his nearest
+friend. I feel almost as though he were my son. We will find him if he
+is on this island."
+
+Bert and the others who had walked around to the other side of the
+island, hoping that Jack might be found, were tired from their trip, and
+when they got back were glad to sit on the beach in the shade. A meal
+was soon ready, and when they had eaten they all felt better.
+
+"It is too late to do much more searching to-day," said Cousin Jasper,
+"but we will start early in the morning."
+
+And this they did, after a quiet night spent on the island. As soon,
+almost, as the sun had risen, the Bobbsey twins were up, and Bert and
+Nan gathered oranges for breakfast.
+
+"I wish we could live here always," said Freddie. "I'd never have to go
+to the store for any fruit."
+
+"But if we stayed here we couldn't have Snap or Snoop or Dinah or Sam,
+or anybody like that from Lakeport," put in Flossie.
+
+"Couldn't we, Mother?" asked the little boy.
+
+"Course we couldn't!" insisted Flossie.
+
+"Well, I guess it would be hard to bring from Lakeport all the friends
+and all the things you like there," said Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"Well, then we'll go back home after we find Jack," decided Freddie.
+
+Breakfast over, the search for the missing boy was begun once more, Mrs.
+Bobbsey and the smaller twins going along.
+
+In some places, however, the way was rough and steep, and once on top of
+a little hill, Freddie suddenly cried:
+
+"Look out! I'm coming!"
+
+And come he did, but in a queer way. For he slipped and fell, and rolled
+to the bottom, bringing up with a bump against a stump.
+
+"Oh, my dear little fat fireman! Did you hurt yourself?" asked his
+father.
+
+Freddie did not answer at first. He slowly got to his feet, looked up
+the hill down which he had rolled, and then at the stump, which was
+covered with moss.
+
+"I--I guess I'm all right," he said.
+
+"He's so fat he didn't get hurt," said Cousin Jasper. "Fat boys and
+girls are just the kind to bring to a place like this. They can't get
+hurt easily."
+
+Freddie laughed, and so did the others, and then they went on again.
+They looked in different places for the missing boy, and called his name
+many times.
+
+But all the sounds they heard in answer were those of the waves dashing
+on the beach or the cries of the sea-birds.
+
+"It is very strange," said Captain Crane. "If that boy was here about a
+week ago, you'd think we could find some trace of him--some place where
+he had built a fire, or set up a signal so it would be seen by passing
+ships. I believe, Mr. Dent, that he must have been taken away, and when
+we get back to St. Augustine he'll be there waiting for us."
+
+"Well, perhaps you are right," said Cousin Jasper, "but we will make
+sure. We'll stay here a week, anyhow, and search every part of Orange
+Island."
+
+They had brought their lunch with them, so they would not have to go
+back to the camp when noon came, and, finding a pleasant place on the
+beach, near a little spring of water, they sat down to rest.
+
+Flossie and Freddie, as often happened, finished long before the others
+did, and soon they strolled off, hand in hand, down the sands.
+
+"Where are you going, children?" called Mrs. Bobbsey to them.
+
+"Oh, just for a walk," Freddie answered.
+
+"An' maybe we'll see Jack," added Flossie.
+
+"I only wish they would, but it is too much to hope for," said Cousin
+Jasper, and he looked worried.
+
+Bert, Nan and the others stayed for some little time after lunch,
+sitting in the shade on the beach, and talking. They were just about to
+get up and once more start the search; when Flossie and Freddie came
+running back. One look at their faces told their mother that something
+had happened.
+
+"What is it, children?" she asked.
+
+"We--we found a big, black cave!" answered Freddie, somewhat out of
+breath.
+
+"An'--an' they's a--a _giant_ in it!" added Flossie, who was also
+breathing hard.
+
+"A cave!" cried Mr. Bobbsey.
+
+"What do you mean by a giant in it?" asked Cousin Jasper.
+
+"Well, when you see a big black hole in the side of a hill, isn't that a
+cave?" asked Freddie.
+
+"It surely is," said his father.
+
+"An' when you hear somebody making a big noise like 'Boo-oo-oo-oo! Boo!'
+maybe that's a giant, like it is in the story," said Flossie.
+
+"Oh, I guess perhaps you heard the wind moaning in a cave," said Captain
+Crane.
+
+"No, there wasn't any wind blowing," Freddie said. And, surely enough,
+there was not. The day was clear and calm.
+
+"We heard the booing noise," Freddie said.
+
+"Are you sure it wasn't a mooing noise, such as the cows make?" asked
+Nan.
+
+"There aren't any cows on Orange Island; are there, Cousin Jasper?"
+asked Bert.
+
+"I think not. Tell me, children, just what you heard, and where it was,"
+he said to Flossie and Freddie.
+
+Then the little twins told of walking along the hill that led up from
+the beach and of seeing a big hole--a regular cave. They went in a
+little way and then they heard the strange, moaning sound.
+
+Cousin Jasper seemed greatly excited.
+
+"I believe there may be something there," he said. "We must go and look.
+If they heard a noise in the cave, it may be that it was caused by some
+animal, or it may be that it was----"
+
+"Jack!" exclaimed Bert. "Maybe it's Jack!"
+
+"Maybe," said Cousin Jasper. "We'll go to look!"
+
+Cousin Jasper and Mr. Bobbsey walked on ahead, with Flossie and Freddie
+to show where they had seen the big, black hole. It was not far away,
+but so hidden by bushes that it could have been seen only by accident,
+unless some one knew where it was.
+
+Outside the entrance they all stopped.
+
+"Listen!" said Flossie.
+
+It was quiet for a moment, and then came a sound that surely was a
+groan, as if some one was in pain.
+
+"Who's in there?" cried Cousin Jasper.
+
+"I am," was the faint answer. "Oh, will you please come in and help me.
+I fell and hurt my leg and I can't walk, and----"
+
+"Are you Jack Nelson?" cried Cousin Jasper.
+
+"Yes, that's my name. A friend and I were wrecked on this island, but I
+can't find him and----"
+
+"But he's found you!" cried Mr. Dent. "Oh, Jack! I've found you! I've
+found you! I've come back to get you! Now you'll be all right!"
+
+Into the cave rushed Cousin Jasper, followed by the others. Mr. Bobbsey
+and Captain Crane had pocket electric flashlights, and by these they
+could see some one lying on a pile of moss in one corner of the cavern.
+
+It was a boy, and one look at him showed that he was ill. His face was
+flushed, as if from fever, and a piece of sail-cloth was tied around one
+leg. Near him, on the ground where he was lying, were some oranges, and
+a few pieces of very dry crackers, called "pilot biscuits" by the
+sailors.
+
+"Oh, Jack, what has happened to you? Are you hurt, and have you been in
+this cave all the while?" asked Mr. Dent.
+
+"No, not all the while, though I've been in here now for nearly a week,
+I guess, ever since I hurt my leg. I can crawl about a little but I
+can't climb up and down the hill, so I got in here to stay out of the
+storms, and I thought no one would ever come to me."
+
+"You poor boy!" softly said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Don't talk any more now. Wait
+until you feel better and then you can tell us all about it. Poor boy!"
+
+"Are you hungry?" asked Freddie; for that, to him, seemed about the
+worst thing that could happen.
+
+"No, not so very," answered Jack. "When I found I couldn't get around
+any more, or not so well, on my sore leg, I crawled to the trees and got
+some oranges. I had a box of the biscuit and some other things that
+washed ashore from the wreck after you went away," he said to Cousin
+Jasper.
+
+"Well, tell us about it later," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Now we are going to
+take care of you."
+
+They made a sort of little bed on poles, with pieces of the sail-cloth,
+and the men carried Jack to the camp. There Captain Crane, who knew
+something about doctoring, bound up his leg, and when the lost boy had
+been given some hot soup, and put in a comfortable bed, he felt much
+better.
+
+A little later he told what had happened to him.
+
+"After you became so sick," said Jack to Cousin Jasper, the others
+listening to the story, "I walked to the other end of the island to see
+if I could not see, from there, some ship I could signal to come and get
+us. I was so tired I must have fallen asleep when I sat down to rest,
+and when I woke up, and went back to where you had been, Mr. Dent, you
+weren't there. I didn't know what had happened to you and I couldn't
+find you."
+
+"Men came in a boat and took me away," said Cousin Jasper, "though I
+didn't know it at the time. When I found myself in the hospital I
+wondered where you were, but they all thought I was out of my head when
+I wanted them to come to the island and rescue you. So I had to send for
+Mr. Bobbsey to come."
+
+"And we found the cave, didn't we?" cried Freddie.
+
+"Yes, only for you and Flossie, just stumbling on it, as it were," said
+his father, "we might still be hunting for Jack."
+
+"I'm glad we found you," said Flossie.
+
+"So'm I," added Freddie.
+
+"I'm glad myself," Jack said, with a smile at the Bobbsey twins. "I was
+getting tired of staying on the island all alone."
+
+"What did you do all the while?" asked Bert. "Did you feel like Robinson
+Crusoe?"
+
+"Well a little," Jack answered. "But I didn't have as much as Robinson
+had from the wreck of his ship. But I managed to get enough to eat, and
+I had the cave to stay in. I found that other one, and went into that,
+as it was better than where we first were," he said to Mr. Dent.
+
+"I made smudges of smoke, and set up signals of cloth," the boy went on,
+"but a storm blew one of my poles down, and I guess no one saw my
+signals."
+
+"Yes, Captain Harrison did, but it was so stormy he couldn't get close
+enough to take you from the island," said Captain Crane.
+
+"And then we came on as soon as we could," added Cousin Jasper. "Oh,
+Jack, I'm so glad we have found you, and that you are all right! You had
+a hard time!"
+
+"Yes, it was sort of hard," the boy admitted. "But it's a good thing
+oranges grow here. I got some clams, too, and I found a nest of turtle's
+eggs, and roasted some of them. I didn't like them much, but they
+stopped me from being hungry."
+
+"Well, now we'll feed you on the best in camp," said Mrs. Bobbsey.
+
+"And I caught a turkle, once!" added Flossie.
+
+"I guess you mean the turtle caught you," said Nan with a laugh.
+
+But now Jack's troubles were over. As he was weak from not having had
+good food, and from being ill, it was decided to keep him at the camp
+for a short while. In that time the Bobbsey twins had a good time on
+Orange Island, and when he was able to walk about, even though he had to
+limp on a stick for a crutch, Jack went about with the children, showing
+them the different parts of the cave where he had stayed. He could not
+have lived there much longer alone, for his food was almost gone when
+Flossie and Freddie heard him groaning in the cavern.
+
+"And we thought you were a giant!" said Flossie with a laugh.
+
+They had found, by accident, what the others had been looking for so
+carefully but could not find. And Jack had no idea his friends were on
+the island until they walked into the cave with the flashing lights.
+
+"Oh, I'm glad we traveled on the deep, blue sea," said Nan, about a week
+after Jack had been found. "This is the nicest adventure we ever had!"
+
+These were happy days on Orange Island. Jack rapidly grew better, and
+would soon be able to make the trip back to St. Augustine in the motor
+boat. But it was so lovely on that island in the deep, blue sea that the
+Bobbseys stayed there nearly a month, and by that time they were all as
+brown as berries, including Jack, who had been pale because of his
+illness.
+
+So the lost and lonely boy was found, and he and Cousin Jasper were
+better friends than ever. And as for the Bobbsey twins, though they had
+had many adventures on this voyage, still others were in store for them.
+But now we will say "Good-bye!" for a time.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS BY LAURA LEE HOPE
+
+THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES
+
+    THE BOBBSEY TWINS
+    THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY
+    THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE
+    THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL
+    THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE
+    THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT
+    THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK
+    THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME
+    THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN A GREAT CITY
+    THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON BLUEBERRY ISLAND
+    THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA
+
+THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES
+
+    BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE
+    BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON GRANDPA'S FARM
+    BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE PLAYING CIRCUS
+    BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT AUNT LU'S CITY HOME
+    BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AT CAMP REST-A-WHILE
+    BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE IN THE BIG WOODS
+    BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE ON AN AUTO TOUR
+    BUNNY BROWN AND HIS SISTER SUE AND THEIR SHETLAND PONY
+
+THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES
+
+    THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE
+    THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE
+    THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR
+    THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP
+    THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA
+    THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW
+    THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND
+    THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bobbsey Twins on the Deep Blue Sea, by 
+Laura Lee Hope
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE ***
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