“Yes, we’re all right now,” Freddie said.  “But we’ll be righter when we get home.”

“So mamma won’t worry,” added Flossie.  “Mothers worry when their children are lost.”

“That’s too bad,” said the man.  “It isn’t good for mothers to worry.  But I’ll get you home as soon as I can.  You two youngsters have had quite a time of it, but I am glad to see you are brave and did not cry.”

“Flossie’s got some tears on her face,” reported Freddie, looking over at his sister.

“I have not!” cried Flossie.  “Those are melted snowflakes.  I wanted to get some in my ear, so they’d make a funny, tickly feeling,” she went on, “but there wouldn’t any fall in.  Some sat on my cheeks, though, and melted, and it’s those what you see, Freddie Bobbsey, and not tears at all!  I hardly ever cry, so there!”

“You cried when I busted your doll,” Freddie said.

“Well, that was a good while ago,” Flossie insisted, “and I was only a little girl.  I hardly ever cry since I’ve growed up.”

“No, I guess that’s right,” Freddie said.  “She’s ’bout as brave as me,” he went on to the man.

“I’m sure she is, and I’m glad to hear that.  You are both brave little tots, and I’m glad I found you.  Whew!” he exclaimed, as the wind blew a cloud of snowflakes into his face, “this storm is getting worse.  I’ll have some melted-snow tears on my own cheeks, I think.”

The strays kept on through the drifting snow, and, all the while, it was getting harder and harder for Flossie and Freddie to walk.  The piles of snow were up to their knees in some places, and though the man easily forced his way through them, because he was big and strong, it was not so easy for the little Bobbsey twins to do so.

Pretty soon they came again to the rounded pile of snow that the two tots had mistaken for a little house.  The white flakes had covered the hole Freddie had made with his stick.

“Let’s stop and see if the muskrat is home yet,” proposed the little boy.

“What muskrat?” asked the man.

“The one that lives in here.  I started to dig in so Flossie and I could get out of the storm, and the muskrat put his head out and looked at us.  I guess he was surprised.”

“We were surprised, too,” said Flossie.  “At first I thought it was a little bear.”

“Ha!  Ha!” laughed the man.  “And so you dug into a muskrat’s meadow-house to get out of the storm?  Well, that was a good idea, but I guess if you had gone in the muskrats would have run out.  But it was a good thing you found the shed, and I’m glad I also found it.  We will soon be home, I hope.”

They lingered a moment, as Freddie wished to see if the muskrat would come out; but the creature was, very likely, away down deep in his house of sticks and mud, eating the sweet, tender roots of the plants he had stored away before Winter set in.

Once more the man led the Bobbsey twins onward.