med quickly to open at their very feet, between two clumps of bushes.

"Oh!" cried Freddie, as he felt himself falling down.

"Oh, dear!" echoed Flossie.

Then they found themselves in great darkness.

CHAPTER XX

THE QUEER NOISE

Freddie Bobbsey sat down with a thump. Flossie Bobbsey sat down with a
bump. This was after they had fallen down the queer hole. And yet it had
not been so much of a fall as it was a slide.

Both of them being fat and plump--much fatter and plumper since they had
come to Twin Camp than before--the thump and the bump did not hurt them
very much.

They had slid down into the hole on a sort of hill of sand, and if you
have ever slid down a sandy hillside you know the stopping part doesn't
hurt very much. And, after all, the part of a fall that hurts, as the
Irishman said, is not really the falling, it's the stopping so suddenly
that causes the pain.

"Freddie! Freddie!" called Flossie, a few seconds after she and her
little brother had fallen down the hole. "Freddie, are you there?"

"Yep, I'm here, Flossie," was Freddie's answer, "only I dunno 'xactly
where it is. I can't see."

"Nor me neither. But are you been hurted, Freddie?"

"No, are you?"

The children were forgetting all about the right way to use words, which
their mother had so often told them, but as they were excited, and a
little frightened, perhaps we must excuse them this time.

"I--I just sort of--of bumped myself, Flossie," said Freddie. "Are you
all right? And where are you?"

"I'm right here," replied the little girl, "but I can't see you.
I--I----It's awful dark, Freddie!"

"I can see a little light now," Freddie went on. "Let's get up and see
if we can crawl back. My legs are all right."

"So's mine, Freddie. I guess I can----" and then Flossie suddenly
stopped and gave a scream.

"What's the matter?" asked Freddie, and the little boy's voice was not
quite steady.

"I--I touched something!" gasped his sister. "It was something soft and
fuzzy."

"Oh, was that you?" asked Freddie, and his voice did not sound so
frightened now. "Well, that was my head you touched. I--I thought maybe
it was something--something after me. I didn't know you were so close to
me, Flossie."

"I didn't either. But I'm glad I touched you. Where's your hand. I'm
sort of stuck in this sand and I can't get up."

By this time the eyes of both the children had become more used to the
darkness of the place into which the