don't believe he has
done even that. And there are so many officers and men going up and down
the ladders that I believe he has not even gone off this deck. For
somebody would be sure to see him."

"Of course he didn't go ashore again?" suggested Rose, who with the
other children had returned to the staterooms.

"Oh, no. We had started--were well down the harbor in fact--before he
disappeared."

"Mun Bun is a reg'lar riddle," said Laddie. "He runs away and we can't
find him; and we hunt for him and there he ain't. Then he comes back by
himself--sometimes."

"Is that a riddle?" asked his twin scornfully.

"We-ell, maybe it will be when I get it fixed right."

"I don't think much of it," declared Violet. "And I want to find Mun
Bun."

"Don't you other children get lost on this big ship," said Mother
Bunker. "Don't go off this floor."

"You mean deck, don't you, Mother?" asked Russ politely. "Floors are
decks on board ship. Daddy said so."

"You'd better go and look for him, Russ; and you, too, Rose," the
anxious woman said, as Daddy Bunker strode away. "But you other three
stay right here by me. I thought that traveling on the train with you
children was sometimes trying; but living on shipboard is going to be
worse."

"Yes, Mother," said Rose gravely. "There are so many more places for Mun
Bun to hide in aboard this ship. Come, Russ."

The two older Bunker children did not know where to look for their
little brother. But Russ had an idea. He usually did have pretty bright
ideas, and Rose admitted this fact.

"You know we got up early this morning," Russ said to his sister, "and
we have been awful busy. And here it is noontime. Mun Bun doesn't
usually have a nap until after lunch, but I guess he's gone somewhere
and hidden away and gone to sleep. And when Mun Bun's asleep it is awful
hard to wake him. You know that, Rose Bunker."

"Yes, I know it," admitted Rose. "But where could he have gone?"

Russ thought over that question pretty hard. Daddy Bunker would have
said that the little lost boy's older brother was trying to put himself
in Mun Bun's place and thinking Mun Bun's thoughts.

Now, if Mun Bun had been very sleepy and had crept away to take a nap,
as he often did after lunch when they were at home, without saying
anything to Mother Bunker about it, where would he have gone to take
that nap on this steamboat?

Mun Bun was a bold little boy. He was seldom afraid of anything or
anybody. Had he n