CHAPTER II

“There’s A snake!”

With the first cries of alarm, Bert Bobbsey had jumped to his feet, one arm had gone out toward his sister Nan, and the other toward Flossie and Freddie.  But no boy has arms long enough to reach for three relatives at once, especially when two of them, as Flossie and Freddie happened to be, were some distance away.

Bert did, however, manage to put one arm around Nan, and he pulled her toward him, though just why he hardly knew.  As he did so there was a frightened movement on the part of all the other children aboard the truck, for they seemed to be sliding down toward the front of it.

“Oh, Bert! what has happened?” cried Nan.  “Get hold of Flossie and Freddie, can’t you?”

“I’m trying to,” he answered.

“What’s the matter?” Flossie called to Nan and Bert.  “We’re all slipping down!”

And this was just what was happening.  The bridge over the stream seemed to have broken in the middle, just as the heavy truck got to that spot, and the auto’s front wheels being lower than the rear ones, had slid the load of picnic merrymakers into a heap.

“Oh!  Oh!” screamed Grace Lavine.  “What is going to happen?”

“You’ll be all right if you just keep quiet!” called the driver of the auto in a loud voice.  “The bridge has only sagged a little!  It isn’t going to fall!”

This was good news provided it was true.

“All of you get off, and do it quietly,” advised the driver.  “You’ll be all right.”

“Are you sure?” asked Mrs. Simpson, one of the ladies in charge of the children.

“Oh, yes, ma’am.  There’s no danger,” declared the man.  He had jumped from his seat and was looking at the floor of the bridge under the front wheels of the truck.

“Keep quiet, every one!” ordered Mr. Blake, one of the gentlemen who had agreed to help the ladies look after the children.  “Don’t scream or cry, and move as quietly as you can.  The easier you move the less danger there will be.  The bridge hasn’t quite broken in two yet.”

But it was in grave danger of doing that, as Mr. Blake saw, and he was fearful that a bad accident would soon happen.

However, the thing to do now was to get all the children off the truck, over the bridge, and safe on solid ground.  After that it might be possible to get the truck over and keep on to the picnic.

One by one the children, including the Bobbsey twins, started to get off the truck.  They moved as carefully as they could, for they felt that they were like skaters on thin ice.  The least quick movement might break something.

The truck that had gotten safely over the bridge had come to a stop, and children and grown folks were piling off it to see what they could do to save those in danger on the broken bridge.

And while the work of rescue is going on I will take a moment or two to tell my new readers something about the Bobbsey twins.  Those of you who have read the other books in this series do not need to be introduced to Bert, Nan, Flossie and Freddie.