"Oh, what is it, child?" asked Aunt Sarah. "Look. There's Freddie!" cried Nan. "There he comes!" and she pointed to her little brother being led toward them by a boy about Bert's age. CHAPTER XVI FRANK'S STORY They all gazed in the direction in which Nan pointed. The crowd of visitors to the circus was thinning out now, and down toward the edge of a little creek could be seen the missing Freddie walking along, his hand thrust trustingly into that of the strange boy. "Why--why!" began Bert. "That fellow--that boy--he--" and then he stopped. Bert was not exactly sure of what he was going to say. "Oh, Freddie!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey, running forward. "Where have you been! Such a start as you've given us! Where were you?" But Freddie himself did not seem as anxious to rush into his mother's arms as she was to clasp him. He plodded along with the strange boy, looking quite content, and as if he wondered what all the fuss was about. "Dere de honey lamb am!" exclaimed black Dinah, a grin spreading over her face. "De ole lion didn't cotch him after all. Dere's mah honey lamb!" "Freddie! Freddie!" cried Flossie, who had been resting in Uncle Daniel's arms, "did a lion eat you, Freddie? Did he?" "A lion eat him? Of course not!" laughed Bert. And Bert was doing some hard thinking as he stared at the strange boy who had Freddie by the hand. "I thought we should find him," said Uncle Daniel. "I knew he couldn't be lost with all these circus people around. I say!" called Mr. Bobbsey's brother to one of the men who had been helping hunt for the missing boy. "Just tell them that we found him, will you, please? Freddie's found." "Yes, sir, I'll tell 'em," said the man. "I'm glad he's all right. I'll tell 'em!" "But where were you, Freddie?" asked his mother, who by this time had him safely in her arms. "Oh, where were you?" "I found him down by the edge of the creek, watching 'em water the elephants," explained the strange boy, who, Mrs. Bobbsey thought, had a good, kind face. "You see, we water the elephants every afternoon when the show is over," the boy went on, "and it was down there I found him." "Oh, I can't thank you enough for bringing him back to us," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "You were so good!" "I didn't know just where he belonged," the strange boy explained. "But he told me his name, and where he lived, and of course I knew I could send word to his folks, though I didn't see, at first, how he got here all the way from Lakeport." "Oh, we are visiting at his uncle's farm at Meadow Brook," explained Mrs. Bobbsey. "So he said," went on the boy. "I was bringing him to the lost tent, when he spied you and said you were his folks."