d:

"Oh, Freddie, you're going to make me stuck, too! Don't pull me into the
water!"

Freddie stopped just in time, with the toes of Flossie's shoes almost in
the water.

"Did you pull loose a little bit?" she asked.

"Yes, a little. But I don't want to pull you in, Flossie. If you could
only hold on to a tree or a rock, then I wouldn't drag you along."

"Maybe I can hold to this tree," and Flossie pointed to one near by. "If
I can stretch my arms I can reach it."

"Look for a longer tree branch to hold out to me," said Freddie, and
when his sister had found this she could reach one end to her brother,
keep the other end in her right hand, and with her left arm hold on to a
small tree. The tree braced Flossie against being pulled along the bank,
and when next Freddie tried, he dragged his feet and legs safely from
the sticky mud, and could wade out on the hard, gravelly bottom of the
brook.

"I guess that was a mud hole where some fish used to live," said the
little fellow, as he came ashore, a little bit frightened by what had
happened.

"Your feet are all muddy," said Flossie, "and you are all wet around
your knees."

"Oh, that'll dry," said Freddie. "And I can wash the mud off my feet. It
was awful sticky."

It certainly seemed to be, for it took quite a while to wash it off his
bare feet and legs, though he stood for some time in the brook, where
there was a white, pebbly bottom, and used bunches of moss for a bath
sponge.

But at last Freddie's legs were clean, though they were quite red from
having been rubbed so hard with the moss-sponge. Flossie, too, having
helped her brother scrub himself, had gotten some water on her shoes and
stockings, and a little mud, too.

"But we can walk through places where the grass is high," said Freddie,
"and that will brush the mud off, and the sun will dry your stockin's
same as it will my pants."

"And we'll keep on calling for Snoop," said Flossie.

Freddie having put on his stockings and shoes, the two children set out
again, wandering here and there, calling for the black cat. But either
he did not hear them or he would not answer, and when, after an hour or
two, they got back to camp, they had not found their pet.

"Where have you two been?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "I was just getting
anxious about you."

"We've been looking for Snoop," said Flossie.

"And I went in wadin' an' got stuck in the mud, and my pants got a
little wet, and Flossie's shoes and st