Mrs. Bobbsey was rather alarmed at what had happened to the automobile to cause it to stop. She was also worried, thinking perhaps they all might have to stay out in the woods all night, if they could not go on to camp. So when Nan asked the cause of the strange noise her mother did not at first answer.

The sound came again, just as Bert was getting down out of the car to go to his father, who had lifted the hood over the motor to see what was wrong, and the strange sound so startled this Bobbsey twin lad that he let go his hold of the side of the car and slid with a bump to the ground.

“Ugh!” grunted Bert, as he fell.

He grunted in such a funny way, and he looked so odd sitting there in the dusk, as if he did not know what had happened, that Flossie and Freddie laughed. And this laughter seemed to make them less afraid of the queer call of the woods.

“Hurt yourself, Bert?” asked his father, looking up from his task of throwing the gleams of a flashlight in among the parts of the automobile motor.

“No, sir,” Bert answered. “I just sat down sudden, that’s all. But what was that noise, Daddy? Is it——”

As if finding fault because the Bobbsey twins had come to Cedar Camp, once more the warning call came.

“There it goes again!” exclaimed Nan.

Flossie and Freddie shrank closer to their mother, and even Nan seemed a little afraid, but Mr. Bobbsey only laughed.

“That’s a hoot owl—or a screech owl, I don’t know which,” he said. “Anyhow, it’s only a bird with feathers and big, staring eyes. And, very likely, it’s looking down at us now and wondering what we’re doing in his woods.”

“Is the owl looking at us now?” asked Freddie, climbing away from his mother and venturing to the door of the car.

“Very likely,” his father said. “But the chances are you can’t see it. Owls keep pretty well hidden when there’s any daylight left.”

“Well, the light is fast fading,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “It’s getting dark very fast, Dick. And unless we get to camp soon—well, you know what may happen,” she said to her husband. “Do you think you can get the motor to going?”

“I think so,” he answered. “Bert, please come here and hold the light for me.”

Glad to be of help to his father, Bert arose from the ground, to which he had slipped when the sudden noise of the owl startled him, and went to hold the flash lamp. As he sent the beam moving about, in order to direct it just where his father wished it, there was a whirr and a flutter in the almost leafless branches of the trees overhead, and Flossie cried:

“There it is!”

“Yes, that’s Mr. Owl,” laughed her father. “He came up to look at us, but he doesn’t like our bright light, because it hurts his eyes. So he flew away. Now come on, Bert, and we’ll get the motor to running again. They’ll be anxious at Cedar Camp if we don’t get there soon.”

“Do they expect us?” asked Nan.

“Oh, surely,” said her father. “Hold the light steady, Bert.”

The Bobbsey twin lad did as requested, and after a little examination, his father exclaimed:

“I see what the trouble is—a loose wire on a spark plug! That’s easily fixed. We’ll be traveling on again in a few minutes.”

And so they were. Once the wire was fastened in place, the automobile could go again. Bert and his father got back in, there was a chugging and throb of the motor, and off they went through the woods, the two headlights gleaming along the dark road in the midst of the trees.

“I wish we could have arrived by daylight,” said Mr. Bobbsey, as he carefully steered the car. “Cedar Camp looks ever so much better then.”

“I’m glad to get here at all—so we don’t have to stay out in the woods all night,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.

“It would be fun to be out in the woods all night—if owls didn’t bite you—wouldn’t it, Flossie?” asked Freddie.

“Yes, I guess maybe,” answered the little girl. “But I’d rather be in our camp an’ have something to eat.”

“I guess I would, too,” agreed Freddie.

“Well, here we are, then. Cedar Camp!” suddenly cried Mr. Bobbsey, and, almost before the twins knew it, the car had turned from the dense woods and was in a clearing, or place where many trees were chopped down.

Around the clearing were many log cabins, and inside some of them, and outside others, lanterns were glowing, so the place was quite light, compared to the darkness of the forest.

“Cedar Camp!” cried Bert. “Is this it?”

“Yes,” his father answered. “Here we are—a little late, but better late than never! Now to find our cabin.”

He guided the car into the midst of the clearing, and the children could see the various cabin doors opening and men and women looking out.

“That you, Mr. Bobbsey?” a voice called.

“Yes, Jim Denton,” was the answer. “We’re here!”

“Thought maybe you’d given up and wouldn’t get here until to-morrow,” the voice went on.

As the car stopped the Bobbsey twins saw a tall, lanky man, wearing rough clothes, but whose face had a kind smile and whose blue eyes looked laughingly at them. He stood at the side of the car, peering in.

“We did have a little trouble,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “And one of your owls seemed to think we hadn’t any right in the woods. But here we are!”

“One of the owls, eh?” laughed Jim Denton, the foreman of the Christmas tree and lumber camp. “Well, they sure are queer birds! Make an outlandish racket, sometimes. But come on in. Your place is all ready for you, and Mrs. Baxter has had supper ready for some time.”

“That’s good!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. “The children are half starved, I fancy.”

“Run your car over to the shed,” said the foreman to Mr. Bobbsey. “It’ll be safe there if it snows.”

“Had any snow up here yet?” asked the father of the twins.

“Not yet, but it may come any day. I heard you had a little down your way.”

“But it didn’t last very long,” Freddie chimed in. “We didn’t have much coasting at all!”

“You didn’t, eh?” laughed Jim, as he lifted out Flossie and Freddie, Bert and Nan being too big for this attention. “Well, when we do get snow up here we generally get a lot, and it may come any time. But the longer it holds off the better we can get out lumber and Christmas trees.”

“What about my Christmas trees?” asked Mr. Bobbsey. “That’s what I came up about.”

“It is queer about those trees,” said the foreman, as he helped Mrs. Bobbsey out. “We sent a lot off from here, but they must be stuck somewhere on the railroad down below. However, if they’re lost we can cut more. There’s plenty in the woods.”

Mrs. Bobbsey and the children waited until Mr. Bobbsey had put the car under a shed, and then, when he joined them, the family, led by the foreman, walked toward the largest cabin in the clearing. This was to be the home of the Bobbseys while they were at Cedar Camp.

“Well, I am glad to see you folks!” exclaimed Mrs. Baxter, who was to do the cooking and help Mrs. Bobbsey during the stay in camp. “I began to be afraid that something had happened.”

“A wire came loose,” said Freddie. “But daddy soon fixed it. And we heard an owl hoot. Do you like owls?”

“Well, not specially,” answered Mrs. Baxter, with a laugh.

“I don’t, either,” said Flossie.

The Bobbsey twins looked about the cabin that was to be their home for a time. It was a large one, and had been used by a former foreman with a large family. There were several bedrooms and it had many of the comforts of life, even though it stood in the North Woods.

Mrs. Baxter was the wife of one of the men employed in cutting down trees, and she had agreed to cook for the Bobbseys during their stay. She and her husband lived in one of the smaller cabins, and her grown daughter would cook for Mr. Baxter while his wife was with the Bobbseys.

“Now get your things off and sit right up to the table,” cried Mrs. Baxter. “The supper’s sort of spoiled, keeping so long.”

“I fancy the twins are hungry enough to eat almost anything,” said their mother. “I know I am!”

In spite of what Mrs. Baxter said, the supper proved to be very good indeed, and Flossie and Freddie passed their plates back so often to be filled again that their father said:

“My goodness! there won’t be anything left for breakfast.”

“Won’t there, Mother?” asked Freddie anxiously, pausing with his fork half way to his mouth.

“Oh, yes! Of course! Your father’s only joking!” she said, with a laugh. “But don’t eat too much.”

“I want just a little more,” begged Flossie.

“Can we go out and look at the camp after supper?” Bert wanted to know.

“You can’t see much by lantern light,” his father told him. “You’ll have plenty of chances to-morrow and the next few days.”

Bert found it too dark out of doors when he took a look after leaving the table, and decided to wait until morning.

The cabin was warm and cosy, and the Bobbsey twins thought they had never come to a more delightful place than Cedar Camp. They sat and talked a little while after the meal, and then, when Flossie and Freddie began to show signs of being sleepy, their mother said it was time for them to go to bed. Bert and Nan soon followed.

It seemed to be the middle of the night when Flossie, awakened from a sound sleep, heard a great noise and loud shouting outside the log cabin.

“Mother! Mother! What’s that?” she whispered.

“Only the lumbermen going to work,” Mrs. Bobbsey answered.

“Do they go to work in the night?” Flossie wanted to know.

“It’s almost morning—the sun will soon be up,” her mother told the little girl. “Keep quiet and don’t awaken Freddie.”

Flossie turned over and closed her eyes, thinking it strange that men should have to get up and go to work in the night. It was dark, and the stars were shining, as she could see by a glimpse through her window.

“I guess maybe they’re like Santa Claus,” thought Flossie. “They have to go out to cut Christmas trees in the dark, same as St. Nicholas comes to our house in the dark on Christmas Eve.”

Content with this thought, the little girl fell asleep, not to awaken again until it was broad daylight. She found that all were up save Freddie and herself, but the youngest Bobbsey twins soon joined the others at the breakfast table.

“Oh, goodie!” cried Freddie, when he understood that Mrs. Baxter was baking buckwheat cakes and had maple syrup to pour over them. “That’s what I like!”

“He can’t like ’em all, can he, Mother?” cried Flossie. “I can have some pancakes, can’t I?”

“Hush! There’ll be plenty for all of you!” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “What will Mrs. Baxter think?”

“I’ll think they’re good and hungry; and that is what I like to see when I’m baking cakes,” laughed the good-natured cook. She was almost as nice as Dinah, Freddie whispered to Flossie.

“An’ if she has a birthday we—we’ll give her something,” whispered Flossie.

“Yes,” agreed Freddie, holding out his plate for another cake.

After breakfast Mrs. Bobbsey took the children for a walk in the woods around the camp, while Mr. Bobbsey went to talk with some of his lumbermen about the missing Christmas trees.

“Don’t go too far away,” he called to his wife.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because the woods here are rather wild, and you and the children might get lost. There aren’t many trails, paths, or roads. Keep close to camp.”

“I will,” she promised.

It was wonderful and beautiful in the North Woods, even though winter was at hand. Most of the birds had gone, and about the only trees that had any leaves on were the oaks. An oak tree holds many of its leaves all winter, the old ones being pushed off in the spring as the new ones come on. But there were so many spruce, pine, hemlock, and cedar trees growing all about—trees which remain green from one year to the other—that the woods were not as bare and dreary as are most forests. Cedar Camp was indeed a green Christmas camp, and a most lovely place.

“We’ll have lots of fun here!” cried Freddie, running to the edge of a little hill.

“Lots of fun!” agreed Flossie. “We’ll——” and then she stopped suddenly, for Freddie did a queer thing—or at least a queer thing happened to the little fellow. His feet seemed to slide out from under him, and down the hill he went, almost as though sliding on the ice!

“Oh, look! Look!” cried Flossie. “What made him do that?”

“I slid! I slid! Oh, I had a slide! I’m going to slide it again!” cried Freddie, jumping up and scrambling to the top of the hill again. “Come on, Flossie!”

“What makes him slide, Mother?” asked Flossie, as she saw her little brother go down the hill standing up, just as he and his small sister had often done on a snowy, icy slope.

“It’s the pine needles,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “The ground is covered with the long, brown, smooth pine needles, and they make a slippery carpet. You may slide on them. If you fall you won’t be hurt.”

Soon the two smaller Bobbsey twins were having great fun sliding down the slippery pine-needle-covered hill, and Bert and Nan also took their turns.

But after two or three slides Bert found something on the ground that made him exclaim in delight and run to his mother to show her.

“Look!” he cried. “A chestnut! Are there chestnuts in these woods?”

“Yes, I did hear your father say something about them,” Mrs. Bobbsey replied.

“Oh, let’s hunt for some!” cried Nan.

“We’ll help!” added Flossie and Freddie, deserting the pine-needle slide for the joys of nutting.

But though the twins looked in all directions they found only a few scattered chestnuts.

“The squirrels have picked up most of them,” said Jim Denton, coming along a little later. “But there’s a chestnut grove not far away, up Pine Brook, and there ought to be plenty left if you don’t wait too long.”

“Oh, Mother! may Nan and I go chestnutting?” asked Bert. “I want to get a lot!”

“Will it be safe for them?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey of the foreman.

“Oh, yes,” answered Jim. “It isn’t more than a mile and the trail is plain. I’ll tell ’em how to go and show ’em the way.”

And so, the next morning, Bert and Nan started off on a chestnut party, little dreaming of the strange things that were to happen to them and the other Bobbsey twins.