the others laughed.

Picnics, however delightful, cannot go on forever, and this one came to
an end as the afternoon shadows were falling. Mr. Bobbsey had been very
busy helping his wife and the other ladies, and now, as the time came
for him to go home in the small auto in which he and his wife had ridden
to the grove, he rolled down his sleeves, and looked about him.

"What are you after?" his wife asked.

"My coat. I hung it on a tree limb right here, I thought."

"Yes, I saw you," said Nan.

"But it isn't here now!" her father went on.

"Here's some sort of coat," announced Bert, picking up one from the
ground under a tree near the ice cream pavilion.

"That's where I hung my coat," said Mr. Bobbsey. "And this coat isn't
mine. Mine was a good, new one. This is an old, ragged one. Dear me! I
hope my coat hasn't been stolen! It had some money in one pocket, and
also some papers I need at the lumber office! Where is my coat?"

CHAPTER V

SAM IS WORRIED

While fathers, mothers, and other relatives were gathering up their own
children, or children of whom they had charge, to see that they were
safely loaded into the two big trucks to go home from the picnic, the
Bobbsey twins--at least Bert and Nan--were searching for their father's
coat. Flossie and Freddie were too small to pay much attention to
anything of this sort. The smaller twins were talking about the
merry-go-round and starting over again the dispute as to who should ride
on the wooden lion.

"Are you sure you left your coat hanging on the tree limb?" asked Mrs.
Bobbsey.

"I'm certain of it," her husband answered. "And this old coat never was
mine--I wouldn't own it!"

He dropped to the ground the ragged garment that had been found lying
beneath the tree.

"I thought maybe you had hung your coat over by the ice cream shed,"
went on Mrs. Bobbsey. "You may have done that and have forgotten about
it."

"No, I didn't do that," said the father of the Bobbsey twins. "I
remember hanging my coat on the tree, for I recall noticing what a
regular hook, like one on our rack at home, a broken piece of the branch
made. My coat was here. But it's gone now, and this old one is left in
place of it."

There was no question about that. Search as Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey and the
children did, over the picnic grounds, the lumberman's coat, with money
in one pocket and papers in another, was gone.

"Who do you s'pose could have taken it?" asked Nan, as h