on
the boat for perhaps three days before going to the Cove. They could
sleep in the little bunks with which the boat was provided.

"It's a funny way to go to bed," said Sue, after looking at the bunks
for the tenth time.

"Well, I guess you can sleep here just as well as at home," answered her
brother.

"You'd better not walk in your sleep, Bunny, 'cause you might walk
overboard."

"I ain't going to walk in my sleep any more," answered Bunny. "I told
daddy I wasn't."

"Maybe you can't help it."

"Yes, I can. You wait and see."

It was toward the close of the afternoon, and Bunny and Sue were
beginning to wonder how much longer it would be before supper was ready,
when, as they stood near Bunker, who was steering, the children saw a
canoe with two young men and two young women in it being slowly paddled
across the bay.

"They'd better watch where they're going," said Bunker Blue. "They seem
to be aiming to cross our bows, and if they do---- Look out there!" he
suddenly cried, as the canoe turned. "Do you want to be run down?"

The next moment there was a collision. The _Fairy_ struck the small
boat, upsetting it and spilling into the water the two young men and the
young women.

"Oh! Oh!" cried Sue. "We've run over 'em!"

CHAPTER IX

THE MERRY GOAT

Bunny Brown, who had been sitting near his sister Sue on the deck of the
_Fairy_, had jumped to his feet and run to the rail, or side of the
boat, as the little girl cried out that their craft had run over the
canoe. That was really what had happened. The two young men and the
young women in the canoe had got in the way of the motor boat, and had
been struck.

"Man overboard!" yelled Bunny. He had often enough heard that cry on his
father's boat and on the pier, for more than once boys or men had fallen
off into the water. Sometimes on warm summer days the boys pushed each
other off, just for fun.

And often, at such times, the cry would be raised:

"Man overboard!"

Bunny knew what that meant. It meant that somebody ought to jump to the
rescue or throw into the water something the person who had fallen in
could grab. There were, on his father's dock, a number of life
buoys--round rings of cork covered with canvas and having a long rope
attached to them. And there were some of these same things on the deck
of the _Fairy_.

"Man overboard!" cried Bunny again, and, running to the nearest life
ring, he took it off the hook and sent it spinnin