rt said
afterward, like a soldier sentinel on guard. "Who's there?"

"It's me--Sam," was the answer. "I done heard some queer noise, Mr.
Bobbsey, an' Dinah said as how I'd better git up and see what it was."

"Oh, all right, Sam. We heard it too. Listen again."

Sam stood still, and Mr. Bobbsey remained quietly outside the big tent.
Sam and his wife lived in a smaller tent not far away, and they usually
went to bed early, so Sam had had to get up when the queer noise
sounded.

Suddenly it came again, and this time Bert, who had stuck his head out
between the flaps of the tent, called:

"There it is!"

"Who! Who! Who!" came the sound, and as Mr. Bobbsey heard it he gave a
laugh.

"Nothing but an owl," he said. "I should have known it at first, only I
couldn't hear well in the tent. You may go back to bed, Sam, it's only
an owl."

"Only an owl, Mr. Bobbsey! Yas, I reckon as how it is; but I don't like
t' heah it jest de same."

"You don't? Why not, Sam?"

"'Cause as how dey most always ginnerally bring bad luck. I don't like
de sound ob dat owl's singin' no how!"

"He wasn't singing, Sam!" laughed Bert, after he had called to the rest
of the family inside the tent and told them the cause of the noise.

"Ha! Am dat yo', Bert?" asked the colored man. "Well, maybe an owl don't
sing like a canary bird, but dey makes a moanful soun', an' I don't like
it. It means bad luck, dat's what it means! An' you all'd better git t'
bed!"

"Oh, I'm not afraid, Sam. We thought it was Snoop mewing, or Snap
howling, maybe. You didn't see anything of our lost dog, did you?"

"Not a smitch. An' I suah would like t' hab him back."

"Ask him if he or Dinah saw Snoop," called Flossie.

Bert asked the colored man this, but Sam had seen nothing of the pet cat
either.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Freddie. "Both our pets gone--Snap and Snoop! I wish
they'd come back."

"Maybe they will," said his mother kindly. "It's time for you to go to
bed now, and maybe the morning will bring good news. Snap or Snoop may
be back by that time."

"That's what we've been thinking about poor Snap for a long while,"
grumbled Nan.

"Well, I'm afraid Snap _is_ lost for good," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "He never
stayed away so long before. But Snoop may be back in the morning. He may
have just wandered off. It isn't the first time he has been away all
night."

"Only once or twice," said Bert, who came back to the book he was
reading. "And both times it was