THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE GREAT WEST

CONTENTS

CHAPTER


I. THE TRAIN WRECK

II. THE QUEER OLD MAN

III. MR. BOBBSEY REMEMBERS

IV. THE OLD MAN'S STORY

V. NEWS FROM THE WEST

VI. AUNT EMELINE

VII. HAPPY DAYS

VIII. OFF FOR THE WEST

IX. DINNER FOR TWO

X. FREDDIE, AS USUAL

XI. IN CHICAGO

XII. NEARING LUMBERVILLE

XIII. THE SAWMILL

XIV. THE BIG TREE

XV. BILL DAYTON

XVI. THE TRAIN CRASH

XVII. AT THE RANCH

XVIII. A RUNAWAY PONY

XIX. THE WILD STEER

XX. THE ROUND-UP

XXI. IN THE STORM

XXII. NEW NAMES



CHAPTER I

THE TRAIN WRECK


"Come on, let's make a snow man!" cried Bert Bobbsey, as he ran about
in the white drifts of snow that were piled high in the yard in front
of the house.

"That'll be lots of fun!" chimed in Freddie Bobbsey, who was Bert's
small brother. "We can make a man, and then throw snowballs at him,
and he won't care a bit; will he, Bert?"

"No, I guess a snow man doesn't care how many times you hit him with
snowballs," laughed the older boy, as he tried to catch a dog that was
leaping about in the drifts, barking for joy. "The more snowballs you
throw at a snow man the bigger he gets," said Bert.

"Oh, Bert Bobbsey, he does not!" cried a girl with dark hair and
sparkling brown eyes, as she ran along with a smaller girl holding her
red-mittened hand. "A snow man can't grow any bigger! What makes you
tell Freddie so?"

"Course a snow man can grow bigger!" declared Bert. "A snowball grows
bigger the more you roll it in the snow, doesn't it?"

"Yes," admitted Nan--Nan being the name of the brown-eyed girl, Bert's
twin sister. "I know a snowball grows bigger the more you roll it, but
you don't roll a snow man!" went on the brown-eyed girl.

"Ho, ho! wouldn't that be funny?" laughed the little girl, whose hand
Nan held.

"What would be funny, Flossie?" asked Freddie, and one look at the two
smaller Bobbsey children would have told you that they, too, were
twins. In fact the four Bobbseys were twins--that is there were two
sets of them--Bert and Nan, and Flossie and Freddie. "What would be
funny?" Freddie wanted to know. "Tell me! I want to laugh."

"Yes, you generally do want to laugh, little fireman!" and Bert
Bobbsey laughed himself as he gave his small brother the pet name that
Daddy Bobbsey had thought up some time ago. "But, as Flossie says, it
would be funny to see a snow man rolling around in the drifts to make
himself bigger," went on Bert.

"But you said he'd get bigger if we threw snowballs at him," insisted
Nan.

"And he will," went on Bert. "You see, a snowball gets bigger when you
roll it around the yard, because more snow keeps sticking to it all
the while. And if we make a snow man and then throw little snowballs
at him, these snowballs will stick to him and he'll grow bigger, won't
he?"

"Oh, I didn't know you meant _that_ way!" and now Nan, herself,
began to laugh. Of course Flossie and Freddie joined in, though I am
not sure that they knew what the joke was all about, but they were
having fun in the snow and that was all they cared for.

It was a fine snow storm, at least for the Bobbsey twins and the other
children of Lakeport. It was not too cold, and the white flakes had
come down so fast that there was now enough snow to make many snow men
and snowballs, and leave plenty for coasting down hill.

The Bobbsey twins had hurried out to play in the snow as soon as they
got home from school, and now they were having fine fun. Snap, their
dog, was playing with them, leaping about in the drifts, diving
through them, as the Bobbsey twins had seen swimmers dive through
waves down at the seashore and Snap would come out on the other side
of the drift all covered with white flakes, as though he were a snow
dog.

Dear old Dinah, the fat, jolly, good-natured colored cook, who had
been with the Bobbseys many years, stood at the window looking at the
children having fun in the snow.