"
That afternoon, as Harry and the Bobbsey children, with Tom Mason and
Mabel Herold were going down the road to pick some blackberries, they
met a farmer boy driving an empty hay wagon. This boy knew Bert, Harry
and Tom.
"Hello!" he called to them, "did you hear the news about the circus?"
"What news?" asked Bert, wondering if the boy meant that Mr. Mason had
reached the show and taken away Frank.
"News about the wild animals escaping from the circus," went on the
boy on the hay-wagon.
"Wild animals escaping!" exclaimed Nan, with a frightened look over
her shoulder, while Flossie came over closer to her sister.
"That's it!" said the boy. "When the show was moving out of Rosedale
last night, some tigers and lions got loose, and ran off in the woods.
They looked for 'em, but couldn't find 'em. Some of the farmers around
here are out now with guns."
"Oh, Nan!" exclaimed Flossie. "Let's go back home! I don't like wild
animals!"
CHAPTER XVIII
WHAT FREDDIE SAW
For a few seconds Bert and Harry, his cousin, stared at the boy on the
hay-wagon. Then Harry, who knew him well, asked:
"Say, Jim Bates, are you joking or did you really hear about some wild
animals escaping from the circus?"
"Indeed I'm not joking!" cried Jim.
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