irls will play," offered Nan.

"Pooh! Girls can't play ball!" sneered Charlie Mason.

"I can! I can bat a ball as far as you!" declared Nellie Parks.

"Maybe you can--if you can hit it!" admitted Charlie.

"I want to play ball!" chimed in Freddie. "I know how!"

"I guess if you sail your boat it will be all you want to do," said
Bert, looking at his cut finger to see if it would hinder him from
taking part in a game. He decided that it would not.

"We'll have lots of fun," said Dannie. "If we haven't enough for two
nines we'll play a scrub game."

"Sure!" agreed Bert.

They were well out in the country now, and almost at the Grove. To reach
it the trucks had to cross a bridge over a creek that flowed into Pine
Lake, as the body of water was called.

The first truck passed over this bridge with a rumble like thunder. As
it reached the other side Bert saw the driver of it lean from his seat,
look back, and shout something to the driver of the truck on which the
Bobbsey twins rode. What the man said Bert could not hear, and as he
was wondering about it the second truck started over the bridge.

Suddenly there was a cracking of wood, a splintering, breaking sound,
and the heavy truck, loaded with children, the Bobbsey twins among them,
seemed to be sinking down.

"Oh, the bridge is breaking!" screamed Grace.

"We'll fall in the creek!" added Nellie.

There was a thundering sound as the auto driver turned on full power,
and then, with another loud cracking noise, the truck came to a stop,
and seemed to be sinking down through the breaking bridge!

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 happe