e of the rain,
the banks were full.

"I hope this bridge is strong enough for our car to go over," said Mr.
Brown. Slowly he steered the big machine on it. Hardly had it reached
the middle when there was a cracking of wood, and the bridge bent down.
The automobile sank with it.

"Oh!" cried Bunny, who sat in the back door. "We're going into the
ditch, Daddy!"

"We're there _now_!" said Sue as the "Ark" stopped with a jerk and a
bounce.

CHAPTER XVII

ON TO PORTLAND

There was no doubt about it, the big automobile was in the ditch. Or
rather, the rear wheels, having gone through the small bridge, were now
in the water of a little brook. The rains had made the usually dry ditch
into a brook that flowed swiftly along.

"Oh dear!" cried Mrs. Brown. "This is too bad!"

"Anybody hurt back there?" asked Mr. Brown, who, at the first feeling
that something was wrong, had put on the brakes. The automobile would
have stopped anyhow, as the wheels were held fast in the mud and the
broken pieces of the bridge.

"No, we're all right," answered Uncle Tad, looking at Bunny and Sue,
who, at the first sound of something wrong had crept closer to their
mother.

"My nose feels as if I had bumped it," said Bunny, rubbing his
"smeller" as he sometimes called it. "Though I don't remember doing it,"
he went on.

"I guess you did it when you jumped out of your seat," said his mother.
"We all jumped, it came so suddenly."

"And I dropped my Teddy bear and Uncle Tad stepped on her," murmured Sue
with sorrow in her tones. "Look, Uncle Tad, you've turned on her eyes!"

And, surely enough, the electric eyes of Sallie Malinda were glowing
brightly. Uncle Tad must have stepped on the switch button in the toy's
back and turned it on.

"But I guess she's all right," went on Sue, as she turned off the switch
and then turned it on again to see that it was working as it should.
"You didn't hurt her, Uncle Tad," she said.

"I'm glad of that, Sue," said the old soldier. "Now I guess I'd better
get around to see if I can help your father get the automobile out of
the ditch."

Dix and Splash, who had been racing up and down the road, came back,
panting and with their long red tongues hanging out of their mouths, to
see what the trouble was. They looked at the ditched automobile with
their heads on one side, and then sort of barked at one another. It was
as if Dix said:

"Well, what do you think about it, Splash? Do you think we