he three of them
walked down the tracks where the freight cars had stood before being
hauled away.

"There's a box!" exclaimed Mr. Brown, pointing to one near the track.
"It's just about high enough for a person to get from it into an open
boxcar."

"And here are the marks of their feet!" cried Mrs. Brown, pointing to
the very footprints of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, made by the
children in the soft dirt between the tracks. "Oh, they are in that
train! How shall we get them?" she cried.

"Well, now that we know this much, it will be an easy matter to
telegraph on ahead and have the train searched," said Mr. Parker. "I'll
go and see the train dispatcher here."

It was now getting late, and soon the train arrived on which the Brown
family should have made the remainder of their trip to Florida. But of
course daddy and mother would not travel on until they had found Bunny
and Sue. So they let the train go, and went to the ticket office to find
the name of the first station where the freight train might stop, in
order that a telegram could be sent to have it searched.

It was quite dark when the telegram had been sent, and Mr. and Mrs.
Brown were invited to stay at the home of Mr. Parker for supper, and to
remain there all night, if necessary.

There were some hours of anxious waiting, and at last a telegram came
back to Mr. Brown saying that the train crew of the freight had looked
into every empty car, but the children had not been found. In one car,
however, were some empty nut boxes and pieces of candles.

"That's the car they were in!" declared Mr. Parker.

"But where are they now?" asked the distracted mother. "Oh, where are
Bunny and Sue?"

"They must have got out when the train stopped," said Daddy Brown.

"Then the thing to do," went on Mr. Parker, "is to find out the names of
all the stations and water tanks where stops, were made, and telegraph
there."

So after some work the railroad people found out the different regular
stops the freight train had made, but at none of these places were there
any traces of Bunny or Sue.

"Then a water tank stop is our only hope," Mr. Parker said. "Some of the
tanks are in lonely places, and if the children got out there they would
be taken in charge by the pumpman or switchman. He would have no way of
telegraphing back. We shall have to wait until morning."

You can imagine that Mrs. Brown did not sleep much that night. She did
not sleep as well as did Bun