Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour Part 25

Mr. Brown was awakened in the morning feeling little hands tugging at him as he lay in his bunk, and childish voices crying:

"Come on, Daddy! Get up! Get up!"

"Eh? What's this? Get up!" he exclaimed. "Why, what's the matter, Bunny and Sue?" he went on, as he saw the two standing inside the curtains that hung in front of his bed.

"It's time to get up," said Sue.

"Why, it isn't six o'clock yet," answered her father, looking at his watch, which was under his pillow. "Why are you out of your bunks so early? Go back to sleep."

"But we want to get on to Portland to find Fred Ward," said Bunny. "It's only twenty miles and we can soon be there if we start early."

"There isn't much you children forget, is there?" asked Mr. Brown with a laugh, as he stretched and rubbed his eyes. Then as he opened wide his arms Bunny and Sue piled into the bunk with him, having a good, hearty tussle, until their shouts of laughter awakened Mrs. Brown and Uncle Tad, while Dix and Splash, asleep under the big car, added their barks to the din.

"What's the matter?" asked Mrs. Brown. "Has anything more happened?"

"Oh, these children want to leave before breakfast for Portland, to find that runaway boy," said Mr. Brown. "Well, as long as they're awake I suppose we might as well get up and start early. It's about time I attended to my business affairs."

Breakfast was soon ready, and when it had been eaten the "Ark" was once more chugging along the road. The travelers pa.s.sed through several small villages and then they came to the edge of a big city which, the children's father told them, was Portland.

"Are we going to stay in the auto while we're here?" asked Bunny, for Mr. Brown had said they would probably remain in Portland for nearly a week, as he had several matters to look after.

"No, I'll give you a chance to stretch your legs," said his father.

"We'll store the automobile in a garage and you can live at a hotel while I'm getting my business in shape."

"But what about Dix and Splash?" asked Bunny. "Where can they stay?"

"Oh, we'll find a hotel with a garage attached to it, and leave the dogs there in charge of the 'Ark,'" said Mr. Brown.

"And what about finding Fred?" Sue queried. She, as well as Bunny, was greatly interested in the missing boy.

"Oh, I'll do all I can to find him," promised Mr. Brown.

A hotel, with a garage attached to it, was easily found in Portland, and as the "Ark" went through the streets many persons turned to look at it.

But Bunny and Sue did not mind this in the least.

"They'll think we're a new kind of gypsy," said Bunny.

"And they'll all wish they was us, riding around this way," said Sue, as she laughed with Bunny.

"'They was us.' Oh, Sue!" groaned her mother.

Dix and Splash did not like very much being left alone in the garage, and they whined and barked as they were chained near the auto. But the garage keeper promised to be kind to them, to let them run about after a while and to feed and water them.

"And we'll come to see you every once in a while," said Bunny and Sue, as they patted and hugged their two pets.

Fluffy, the squirrel, now well again, had been set free, before entering the city, in the woods that he loved.

So, for a while the Browns gave up their "Ark," and settled down to hotel life. Mr. Brown had much business to look after in connection with his fish and dock affairs at home, for he was part owner of a steamship line that ran from Portland to Bellemere.

After a day or two he found a chance to ask about the missing boy. Mr.

Brown first appealed to the police. But they had no record of him, and though inquiries were made of a number of theater owners, Fred Ward was not found. The man whose name he had mentioned as being the one he intended to see in Portland had moved away.

"Well, Fred may have come here," said Mr. Brown, "and, after he found his friend was gone, he may have drifted on to some other town. I'm afraid we can't find him."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Bunny. "That's too bad!"

"Let us go to look for him," proposed Sue. "We found Nellie Jones, that girl who lives at the end of our street, when she was lost away over on the next block."

"Yes, but that was different from this," said Mrs. Brown. "Portland is a big city, and if you go wandering about in it you'll be worse lost than you were in the big woods. You children stay with me, and your father will do all he can to find Fred."

So Bunny and Sue had to be content to stay at the hotel, to go sightseeing with their mother, to go to the moving pictures, while Mr.

Brown looked after his business. Several times each day Bunny and Sue went to the garage to see the dogs. And how glad Dix and Splash were to see the children!

Finally the day came when Mr. Brown had finished his business. He made several more attempts to find Fred, but could not do so and at last wrote to Mr. Ward, as he had promised, that, as far as could be learned, the missing boy was not in Portland.

"We will keep watch for him on our way back to Bellemere," Mr. Brown said in his letter. "We are returning by a different route from that by which we came. Every chance we get we will look for your boy."

Then the "Ark" was taken from the garage, to the delight of the dogs no less than that of the children, and once more the Browns were on their tour.

As Mr. Brown had said, they were going back a different way from the one they had taken on coming to Portland. This was to give his family a chance to see new towns and villages. And, as the weather still promised to be fine, all looked forward to a jolly auto tour.

Every time he came to a good-sized city, and whenever he met a traveling show, Mr. Brown inquired for Fred, but it seemed that the missing boy was well hidden. Undoubtedly he did not want to be found.

Bunny and Sue had great fun on the homeward trip, which lasted even longer than the outgoing one.

The party had ridden on for several days, each one marked by sunshine, when one evening they came to a little clump of trees beside the road.

It was not far from a good-sized village.

"We'll stay here over night," said Mr. Brown, "and in the morning we'll take a little side trip to a waterfall not far away."

"Oh, that will be fun!" cried Bunny. "Maybe I can make a wooden water wheel, and have it splash in the falls and go around."

"No indeed you can't!" cried his father. "The falls are too big for that. They are seventy feet high."

But, as it happened, when morning came and Mr. Brown was about to start the automobile after breakfast, there was a sudden crash, and the big car settled down on one side, like a lame duck.

"Oh, my!" cried Mrs. Brown. "What has happened now?"

"It sounded as if one of the big springs had broken," said her husband, getting down off the seat to look. "Yes," he added, "that's it. This means we'll have to stay here three or four days until I can get a new spring put in."

For a moment Bunny and Sue looked a trifle sad. Then Bunny cried:

"Oh, that will be fun. We can camp out in a tent in the woods."

"Yes, you and Sue can play at camping, if you like," said their father.

"But I think you'll want to sleep in the auto at night."