"Oh, we have been looking for you," said Bert's mother. "I am Mrs.

Bobbsey."

"That's what I guessed, lady," answered the man. "I am glad to meet you. I've been expecting you."

"So you are the foreman," said Mr. Bobbsey slowly. "May I ask your name?"

The man seemed to wait a few seconds before answering. Then he looked away over the tops of the trees and said:

"Bill Dayton."

And his voice sounded rather strange, Mrs. Bobbsey thought.

CHAPTER XVI

THE TRAIN CRASH

"Well, Mr. Dayton," said Mr. Bobbsey, after a moment's pause, "as I said before, I do not know how to thank you for what you did to save Flossie and Freddie. I hope, some day, I may be able to do you as great a service as you did me."

And the time was nearer than Mr. Bobbsey supposed when he could do a kindness to the lumber foreman.

They all walked back to the log cabin near the other buildings, all of which made what was called the "lumber camp." The story was told of the falling tree, and how nearly Flossie and Freddie had been caught under it.

"That foreman of ours sure is quick on his feet!" said Harvey Hallock, the driver who had brought the Bobbseys from the station. Mr. Hallock was speaking to Mr. Bobbsey, outside the log cabin. "Yes, Bill Dayton is sure a quick man," went on the driver.

"Has he been foreman here long?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.

"No, not very long," was the answer. "He came here when your wife's uncle owned the tract, just before the uncle died. But we don't know much about Bill Dayton. He's a quiet man, and he doesn't talk much."

"I thought there was something queer about him," said Mr. Bobbsey.

"But I shall always be his friend, for he saved my two children."

The Bobbsey twins thought they never had eaten such a jolly meal as the one served a little later in the log cabin. Even though it was in the midst of a great forest and in a lumber camp, the food was very good. The little bald-headed cook seemed to know almost as much as did black Dinah about making things taste good.

"The children have good appet.i.tes up here," said Mr. Bobbsey, as he filled Bert's plate for the second time.

"I want some, too!" called Freddie. "I'm hungry like a bear!"

"But you mustn't eat like a bear!" said his mother, laughing. "You must wait your turn," and she served Flossie first, for that little "fairy" was as hungry as the others.

"What funny little beds!" exclaimed Nan, when she saw where they were to sleep in the log cabin.

"They're almost like the berths in the sleeping car," said Bert.

"They are called 'bunks,'" his father told him. "Lumbermen move about so, from camp to camp, that they could not take regular beds with them. So they build bunks against the wall, spreading their blankets over pine or, hemlock boughs, as the driver did in the wagon we rode over in from the station."

But the bunks in the log cabin had mattresses stuffed with straw, and though they were not like the beds in the Pullman car, nor like those in the Bobbsey home, all the children slept well.

They did not awaken all night, nor did Freddie fall out of bed, as sometimes happened.

"I never slept so well in all my life!" exclaimed Mother Bobbsey, when she was getting ready for breakfast the next morning. "The sweet air of the lumber camp seems to agree with all of us."

Bert and Nan, as well as Flossie and Freddie, also felt fine, and they were ready for a day of fun. They had it, too, for there were so many things to do in the big tract of trees their mother now owned that the children did not know what to start first.

Of course Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey had business to look after--the business of taking over the lumber camp, since Mrs. Bobbsey was now the owner. But she made no changes. She said she wanted Bill Dayton still to act as foreman, and she wished to keep the same men he had hired from the first, as he said they were all good workers.

But while their father and mother were in the office of the lumber camp, looking over books and papers, Bert and Nan and Flossie and Freddie roamed about. They did not go alone, as that would not have been safe. Harvey Hallock, the good-natured driver of the wagon, went with them, and foreman Bill Dayton told him to be especially careful not to let Flossie and Freddie stray away.

"I guess he thinks I'll get lost," said Freddie, when the little "fireman" heard this order given to the driver.

"Do you often get lost?" asked Harvey Hallock.

"Oh, lots of times!" exclaimed Freddie. "I can get lost as easy as anything! But I always get found again!"

"Well, that's good!" laughed the driver.

He took the children to the sawmill, and, at a safe distance from the big saw, they watched to see how logs were turned into boards, planks, and beams.

They saw the rumbling wagons drive up, loaded with logs that were fastened on with chains so they would not roll off. The men, with big hooks fastened on handles of wood; turned the logs over, and slid them this way and that until they could be shoved up to the saw.

The logs were put on what was called a "carriage," to be sawed. This carriage moved slowly along on a little track, and the Bobbsey twins were allowed to ride on the end of the log farthest from the saw. When the end came too close to the big, whirring teeth that ripped through the hard knots with such a screeching sound, Bert and Nan and Flossie and Freddie were lifted off by the driver.

The children saw the place where the jolly, bald-headed cook made the meals ready for the hungry men. There was a big stove, and on it a pot of soup was cooking, and when Jed Prenty opened the oven door a most delicious smell came out.

"What's that?" asked Bert.

"Baked beans," the cook answered. "They're 'most done, too! Want some?"

"Oh, I do!" cried Freddie. "And I want a fried cake, too!"

"So do I!" echoed Flossie.

"Well, you shall have some," answered the good-natured cook. So he gave the children a little lunch on one end of the big, long table where the lumbermen would soon crowd in to dinner.

The Bobbsey twins had no fear of "spoiling their appet.i.tes" by eating thus before their regular lunch was ready. Walking about in the woods seemed to make them hungry all the while.

As the days pa.s.sed Mrs. Bobbsey found she would have to stay in Lumberville longer than she had at first thought. There was much business to be done in taking over the property her uncle had left her.

"The longer we stay the better I like it!" said Nan to Bert. "There are so many birds here, and squirrels and chipmunks. And the squirrels are so tame that they come right up to me."

"Yes, they are nice," said Bert. "But I want to get out West on the ranch, and see the cowboys and the Indians."

"I want to be an Indian, too!" exclaimed Freddie, who did not quite catch what Bert said.

"What else do you want to be?" laughed the older brother. "First you're going to be a fireman, and now you want to be an Indian!"