matter?" asked Freddie, who had taken his sandwich a little
distance away to eat.

"A snake! I saw a big snake!" cried Flossie again.

"Where is it?" asked Nan, for, as yet, she had caught no sight of any
serpent.

"I--I almost sat on it," explained Flossie, clinging to Nan, and looking
down over her shoulder.

Nan glanced toward where her sister had been sitting just before the
alarm. She saw no wiggling snake crawling over the ground.

"Are you sure, Flossie?" Nan asked. "Are you sure you saw a snake?"

"Course I did. He almost put his head in my lap."

"Maybe he was hungry and wanted your sandwich," suggested Freddie. As he
spoke he stepped forward to look at the place Flossie had pointed to as
being the spot where she had seen the snake. And no sooner did Freddie
take a step than Flossie cried:

"There it is again! Oh, the snake! The snake! Don't let him get me,
Nan!"

Nan, too, saw something round and black moving near the place where
Flossie had been sitting, and, fearing for the safety of her sister, the
older Bobbsey girl lifted Flossie in her arms.

But no snake glided across the brown pine needles, and there was no
hissing sound nor any forked tongue playing rapidly in and out, as Nan
had once seen in a little snake Bert and Charlie Mason had caught.

"I don't believe there is a snake," Nan said, as Flossie slipped to the
ground. "If there was one it has gone away."

"I'll hit him with a stone!" cried Freddie, turning to look for a rock.
And as he moved Flossie cried again:

"There it is! I saw it move! That black thing!"

This time she pointed so carefully that Nan, letting her eye follow
along Flossie's finger, saw what the little girl meant. And Nan laughed.

"Why, that isn't a snake!" she cried. "It's only a crooked, black tree
branch! It does look a little like a snake, but it isn't really one,
Flossie."

"But what made it move?" the little girl asked.

"I think it was Freddie, though he didn't do it on purpose," went on
Nan. "Take another step, Freddie, as you did when you were looking for a
stone."

Freddie moved a little and then they all saw what it was that had caused
Flossie's fright. A long, dead branch of a tree lay on the ground. The
larger end of it was close to where Flossie had been sitting with Nan,
and this end did look somewhat like a snake, with a mouth and eyes. The
middle of the stick was covered with pine needles, and the lower end
stuck out beyond the needles and