"What is it?" asked his wife.

"There seems to be some one on this boat beside ourselves," answered
Mr. Bobbsey. "I'll go look."

CHAPTER V

THE STRANGE BOY

The Bobbsey twins looked at one another, and then at their mother, as Mr. Bobbsey went out of the living room of the houseboat, toward the stairway that led up on deck.

Bert tried to look brave, and as though he did not care. Nan moved a little closer to her mother. As for Flossie, she, too, was a little frightened, but Freddie did not seem at all alarmed.

"Is it somebody come to take the boat away from us?" he asked in his high-pitched, childish voice. "If it is—don't let 'em, papa."

They all laughed at this—even Mr. Bobbsey, and he turned to look around, half way up the stairs, saying:

"No, Freddie, I won't let them take our boat."

"Pooh! Just as if they could—it's ours!" spoke Bert.

"Who could it be on board here, mamma?" asked Nan.

"I don't know, dear, unless it was some one passing through the lumber yard, who stopped to see what the boat looked like," answered Mrs. Bobbsey. "Papa will soon find out."

The noise they had heard was the footsteps of some one walking about on the deck of the houseboat.

"Perhaps it was one of the men from the office, who came to tell papa he was wanted up there, or that some one wanted to speak to him on the telephone," went on Mrs. Bobbsey. She saw that the children, even Bert, were a little alarmed, for the boat was tied at a lonely place in the lumber yard, and tramps frequently had to be driven away from the piles of boards under which there were a number of