"Let's go tell him now," suggested Nan. "We've stayed here long enough."

"And I guess I'll row back to the mainland," added Tom. "There's no use waiting here for the blueberries to get ripe. I'll come next week."

He walked back a little way with the Bobbsey twins to where he had left his boat. Then he was soon rowing across the lake, waving his hand to his new friends, his white teeth showing between his berry-stained lips.

"He's a nice boy--that blueberry boy," said Freddie. "I saw him first, I did!"

Mr. Bobbsey nodded his head thoughtfully when the twins, taking turns, told him what Tom had told them.

"Gypsies on the island, eh?" remarked Mr. Bobbsey. "Well, I suppose they think they have a right to camp here. But I'll see about it. Maybe some of them are all right, but I don't like the idea of staying here if the place is going to be overrun with them. I must see about it."

For the next few days and nights a close watch was kept about Twin Camp, but no gypsies were seen. Nor did any more blueberry-pickers come.

Indeed, the fruit was not ripe enough, as the Bobbseys could tell by looking at some bushes which grew near their tents.

It was about a week after this, when Mr. Bobbsey had gone to Lakeport one morning on business, that Flossie and Freddie went down to the sh.o.r.e of the lake not far from their camp.

As they looked across the water they saw drifting toward the island an empty rowboat. There was no one in it, as they could tell, and the wind was sending it slowly along.

"It's got loose from some dock," said Freddie, who knew more about boats than most boys of his age.

"Maybe it'll come here and we can get it," said Flossie. "Let's throw stones at it."

"No, that would only scare it away," said Freddie. "Wait till it gets near enough, and then I'll wade out and poke it in with a stick."

So the two little twins waited on sh.o.r.e for the drifting boat to come to them.

CHAPTER XIII

IN THE CAVE

"Look out, Freddie! Don't you go wadin' too far!" cried Flossie, as she saw her little brother kick off his low shoes, quickly roll off his stockings, and start out toward the boat which now a strong puff of wind had blown quite close to the island sh.o.r.e.

"I'll be careful," he answered. "Mother said I could wade up as far as the wig-wag cut on my leg, and I'm not there yet."

Freddie had several scars and scratches on his legs, reminders of accidents he had suffered at different times. One scar was from a cut which he had got when he had fallen over the lawn mower about a year before. It was the biggest cut of all, and was near his right knee. He called it his "wig-wag" cut, because it was a sort of wavy scar, and when he wanted to go in wading his mother always told him never to go in water that would come above that cut, else he would get his knickerbockers wet.

So now he was careful not to go out too far. He watched the water rising slowly up on his bare legs as he waded along on the sandy bottom of the lake toward the drifting boat.

"If you took a stick you could reach it now," called Flossie.

"I guess I could," Freddie said.

"I'll hand you a stick," Flossie offered, looking for one along the sh.o.r.e. There were many dead branches, blown from the trees, and she soon handed Freddie a long one. With it the little boy was able slowly to pull the boat toward him, and he had soon shoved the "nose," as he sometimes called the bow, against the bank of the island.

"Now I can get in!" laughed Flossie. "And I won't have to take off my shoes and stockings either," and into the boat she scrambled.

"Oh!" exclaimed Freddie. "Are you going to get in the boat?"

"I am in," answered his sister. "Aren't you comin' in, too?"

Freddie looked at the boat, at his sister, at the lake, and at his shoes and stockings on the sh.o.r.e. Then he said:

"Well, it doesn't belong to us--this boat don't."

"I know," said Flossie. "But you pulled it to sh.o.r.e and we can keep it till somebody comes for it. And we can make-believe have a ride in it.

Momsie won't care as long as it's fast to the sh.o.r.e. Come on, Freddie!"

It seemed all right to Freddie when Flossie said this, especially as the boat was close against the sh.o.r.e. He put on his shoes and stockings, drying his feet in the gra.s.s, and then he took his seat in the boat beside his little sister.

"Now we'll play going on a long voyage," she said. "We'll take a trip to New York and maybe we'll be shipwrecked."

"Like Tommy Todd's father," added Freddie.

"Yep. Just like him," said Flossie, "only make-believe, of course."

"And I'll be captain of the ship, and you can be a sailor," went on Freddie. "It'll be lots of fun!"

Bert and Nan had gone riding in the goat wagon to the other end of the island, Mr. Bobbsey was at his office and Mrs. Bobbsey, with Dinah, was working about Twin Camp, so there was no one to watch Flossie and Freddie. Mrs. Bobbsey supposed they were playing safely at the lake sh.o.r.e, and, as a matter of fact, they were on sh.o.r.e, though in the boat.

"I wonder whose it is?" said Freddie, when they had made a make-believe voyage safely to New York, after having been shipwrecked at Philadelphia--a place the little twins remembered, as one of their aunts lived in that city.

"Maybe it's a gypsy boat," said Freddie.

"Or else it's the one the blueberry boy had," added his sister.

"Oh, yes, maybe it is his!" cried Freddie. "And if it is, didn't we better ought to take it to him?"

"How?" asked Flossie.

"Why, we can push it along the sh.o.r.e with sticks, 'cause there's no oars in it, and when we see him picking blueberries we can holler to him to come an' get his boat."

Flossie thought this over a few seconds. Then she said:

"Let's!"

This meant she would do as Freddie said. The twins did not stop to consider whether they were doing something they ought not to do. They planned to keep near sh.o.r.e, and that was as much as they remembered of what their mother had told them--that they were not to go out on the lake in any boat without her permission or their father's.

"But paddling along the sh.o.r.e isn't going out," said Freddie. "Anyhow, mother and father would want us to give back the boat to the blueberry boy, wouldn't they?"

"Course," said Flossie. "Get another stick, Freddie, and we can poke the boat along, and we won't have to go far out at all."

In a little while the two twins were shoving the drifted boat along the sh.o.r.e by pushing the ends of their sticks into the soft bank. The boat was of good size, and it was flat-bottomed, which meant it would not easily tip over. Flossie and Freddie each knew how to row, though they had to have oars made especially for them. But they knew how to keep in the middle of a boat, and never thought of rocking it or changing seats, so they were much safer than most children of their age would have been.

Having lived near Lake Metoka all their lives, they knew more about boats and water than perhaps some of you small boys and girls do; and they could both swim, though, of course not very far, nor were they allowed to try it in deep water.