house in the leafy bower, and they had gone farther than
they intended. So they could not hear Bunny and Sue calling.

"It's no use," said Bunny, after a bit. "We've got to save him
ourselves, Sue. But I wonder how we can do it."

Sue thought for a minute. She did not rub her nose as Bunny had done.
She could think without doing that. Then Sue said:

"If we only had a string on the boat, Bunny, we could pull Tom right to
us. We could stand on shore and pull him in, just as we did with your
little sail boat."

"That's right--we could!" cried Bunny. Then he called:

"Tom, has you got a rope on your boat? If you has throw it to me and
Sue, and we'll pull you in by it."

Tom looked in the bottom of the boat.

"There's a rope here," he said, "but it isn't long enough to reach to
shore."

He held it up so the children could see. Certainly it was not half long
enough. It was the rope by which the boat had been tied to the tree.

While Bunny and Sue stood there, wondering what to do, there came a
rustling, cracking sound in the bushes back of them. They quickly
turned, and saw their dog, Splash. He had been roving about in the
woods, and had now come back to camp.

"Oh, Splash!" cried Bunny. "You can do it, I know you can!"

"What can he do?" asked Sue.

"He can swim out to Tom in the boat, and pull him back to shore. Go on,
Splash!" cried Bunny, pointing to poor Tom. "Go on and get him! Bring
him back!"

Splash bounded around and barked. He looked to where Bunny pointed, but
though the dog could understand some of the things Bunny said, he could
not tell just what his little master wanted this time. Tom was watching
what was going on, and now he called:

"I know a better way than that."

"What?" asked Bunny.

"If you had a long cord, you could tie one end to a stick, and give it
to Splash to bring to me. Then I could tie it to the boat, and you could
pull me to shore."

"Oh, yes, we can do that!" cried Bunny.

"Have you got a long cord?" Tom asked.

"Yes, one I fly my kite with. I brought the cord along, but now I
haven't any kite. I'll get that."

Bunny ran to the tent where he kept his box of playthings. He soon
returned with a stick, on which was wound a long and very strong cord.

"This will pull the boat," he said.

He looked around for a stick to tie onto the end of the cord, and when
he had done this he gave the stick to the dog.

"Take it out to Tom!" ordered Bunny.

But Splash only bar