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.