“Where are they?” asked Bert, looking in surprise at Nan.  “Where are Flossie and Freddie?”

“Dat’s whut I wants to know!” declared Dinah.  “Where is dey?  Has yo’ all been playin’ a trick on ole Dinah?” and she looked sadly at Bert and Nan.

“Playing a trick?” cried Nan.

“We didn’t play any trick!” exclaimed Bert.  “Flossie and Freddie were down under that hay!”

“But they’re not there now!” went on Nan.

“No,” said Dinah, as she poked aside some of the wisps of hay with her foot.  “Dey isn’t heah now, an’ where is dey?  Dat’s whut I’se askin’ yo’ all, Bert an’ Nan?  Where is dem two little lambkins?”

Bert looked at Nan and Nan looked at Bert.  It was a puzzle.  What had become of Flossie and Freddie between the time they disappeared under the sliding pile of hay and now, when it had been cleared away to another part of the barn.

“I saw them playing on the floor,” said Nan.  “Then, when Bert and I let go the ropes and jumped in the mow, a lot of hay came down all at once, and then I—­I didn’t see Flossie and Freddie any more.  They surely were under the hay!”

“Yes,” agreed Bert, “they were.  But they aren’t here now.  Maybe they fell down through the floor!” he added hopefully.  “The cow stable is under this part of the barn.”

“Yes, but there isn’t any hole in the barn floor here,” said Nan.  “And the cracks aren’t big enough for Flossie and Freddie to slip through.”

“No, dey didn’t go t’rough de flo’, dat’s suah!” exclaimed Dinah.  “It’s mighty queer!  I guess yo’ all had best go call Sam,” she went on to Nan.  “Mebby he know something ’bout dish yeah barn dat I don’t know.  Go git Sam an’—­”

Just then there came a joyous shout from the big barn doors behind Nan, Bert and Dinah.

“Here we are!  Here we are!  Oh, we fooled you!  We fooled you!” cried two childish voices, and there stood the missing Flossie and Freddie, hay in their fluffy, golden hair, hay hanging down over their blue eyes, and hay stuck over their clothes.

“Here we are!” cried Freddie.  “Did you was lookin’ for us?”

“I should say we did was!” cried Bert, laughing, now, at Freddie’s queer way of speaking, for, though the little fireman usually spoke quite properly, he sometimes went wrong.

“Where have you been?” asked Nan.  “And how did you get out?”

“We crawled out from under the hay when it fell on us,” explained Flossie.  “Then Freddie says let’s play hide and coop and we climbed up the little ladder and went up in the haymow and then we slid out of the little window and got outside the barn and then we just hid an’ waited to see what you’d do.”  By this time Flossie was out of breath, having said all this without pause.

“But you didn’t come after us,” said Freddie, “and so we came to see where you were.  And we fooled you, didn’t we?  We fooled you bad.”

“I should say you did!” cried Bert.  “We were digging the hay away.  I thought you’d be away down underneath.”