“Thank you, Sam!” said Bert.  “It’s more fun playing outdoors to-day than stacking hay in a barn.”

“Are you very sure you don’t mind doing it, Sam?” asked Nan, for she wanted to “play fair.”

“Oh, I don’t mind!” exclaimed the good-natured Sam.  “Hop along!”

“Didn’t you ever like to play outdoors, Sam?” questioned Bert, as he and Nan started to leave the barn.

“Suah I did,” answered Sam.  “When I was a youngster like you I loved to go fishin’ and swimmin’ in the ole hole down by the crick.”

“Oh, Sam, did you like to swim?” went on the Bobbsey boy quickly.

“I suah did, Bert.  Down in our pa’ts I was considered the bestes’ swimmer there.”

“Some day I’m going to see you, Sam,” declared Bert.  “Maybe you could teach me some new strokes.”

“I doan know about that, Bert.  You see, I ain’t quite so limber as what I used to be when I was your age or jest a little older.  Now you jest hop along, both of you, and enjoy yourselves.”

So Nan and Bert went out to find some other way of having fun.  They wanted to have all the good times they could, as school would soon begin again.

“But we’ll have a vacation at Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year’s,” said Nan, as she and her brother talked it over.

“Thanksgiving’s a long way off,” said Bert, with a sigh.

The two children were walking along the side path toward the front yard when suddenly Snap, their dog, gave a savage growl.  It was the kind of growl he never gave unless he happened to be angry, and Bert knew, right away, something must be wrong.

“What is it, Snap?  A tramp?” asked the boy, looking around.  Often Snap would growl this way at tramps who might happen to come into the yard.  Now there may be good tramps, as well as bad ones, but Snap never stopped to find out which was which.  He just growled, and if that didn’t scare away the tramp then Snap ran at him.  And no tramp ever stood after that.  He just ran away.

But now neither Bert nor Nan could see any tramp, either in the yard or in the street in front of the house.  Snap, though, kept on growling deep down in his throat, and then, suddenly, the children saw what the matter was.  A big dog was digging a hole under the fence to get into the Bobbsey yard.  The gate was closed, and though the dog might have jumped the fence, he didn’t.  He was digging a hole underneath.  And Snap saw him.  That’s why Snap growled.

“Oh, Bert!  Look!” cried Nan.

As she spoke the dog managed to get through the hole he had dug, and into the Bobbsey yard he popped.  But he did not stay there long.  Before he could run toward Bert and Nan, if, indeed, he had that notion, Snap had leaped toward the unwelcome visitor.

Snap growled and barked in such a brave, bold way that the other dog gave one long howl, and then back through the hole he wiggled his way, faster than he had come in.  But fast as he wiggled out, he was not quick enough, for Snap nipped the end of the big dog’s tail and there was another howl.