ot instantly made friends with Sam, the strange
colored boy, at Aunt Jo's house? So Russ knew he would not be afraid to
run right out on the deck among the other passengers.

"But that would not be a nice place to go for a nap," said Russ aloud.

"What wouldn't?" asked Rose, quite surprised by her brother's sudden
speech.

"Out here on the deck. No, he didn't come out here at all," said Russ,
with confidence.

Russ was an ingenious boy, as we have seen. Once having got the right
idea in his head he proceeded to think it out.

"Come on back, Rose," he said suddenly, seizing his sister's hand.

"What for?"

"To find Mun Bun."

"But he isn't with Mother!"

"I bet--No, I don't mean that word," said Russ. "I mean I _think_ he is
with Mother, only she doesn't know it."

"Why, Russ Bunker, that sounds awfully silly!"

But she followed after him in much haste. They came running to the two
staterooms which Daddy Bunker had engaged. Mother and the other
children were the center of a group of sympathetic people in the
corridor.

"Oh! did you find him?" Rose cried.

"Of course not," said Vi. "Where should we find him?"

"Here," announced Russ, pushing through the crowd.

"Of course he isn't here, Russ," said Vi. "Can't you count us? Mun Bun
is not here."

"Well, let me see," said the boy, and he pushed into the bigger
stateroom where his mother had been working when Mun Bun disappeared.
Then he opened the door between that room and the other room. It was all
quiet in there. He glanced into the two berths. There was nobody in
either of them.

"You are mistaken, Russ," whispered Rose, looking in at the door he had
left open. "He can't be here. Daddy has just come and says the captain
has promised to have the ship searched."

But without making any reply Russ Bunker went down on his knees, looked
under the lower berth, and then stretched an arm under and grabbed
something with his hand.

A sleepy squeal came from under the berth. Russ, laughing, dragged at
the chubby ankle his hand had grasped. Mun Bun's cross, sleepy voice was
raised in protest:

"Don't you! Don't you! Let me be!"

Mother and Daddy Bunker came running.

"That blessed baby!" cried his mother.

"That pestiferous youngster!" exclaimed his father.

But he smiled happily, too, when Mun Bun was completely drawn out from
under the berth by Russ and was in his mother's arms again. She sat down
and rocked him to and fro while he "came awake" a