Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods Part 13

"Come on!" cried Bunny again, always ready to start something. "Let's get dressed and go to hunt for the Teddy bear."

It was very early, and Mr. and Mrs. Brown were not yet awake. Mrs.

Brown, however, soon heard the children moving about and she called to them:

"What's the matter?"

"Sue's doll is gone," said Bunny.

"My nice Teddy bear one," added Sue.

"He's gone off to find a bee's nest to get honey," went on Bunny.

"My bear ain't a 'he'--she's a 'she,'" declared Sue. "And her name is Sallie Malinda."

"Well, no matter what her name is, she is lost," said Bunny. "We're going to find her."

"Look here, children!" called Mr. Brown, who was now awake. "Don't go off on any wild goose chase."

"We're not after wild geese. We're going after Sue's bear," replied Bunny.

"What! Is Sue's bear taken, too?" cried Mr. Brown.

"She's either taken or else she walked away," Bunny said.

"Sue's bear wasn't the walking kind, though they did have some of that sort," said the children's father. "But if your bear is gone, some one must have taken it just as they did Bunny's train of cars. I must look into this. You children stay right where you are until I get dressed and we'll make a search. Meanwhile look around the tent and see if you can't find Sallie Jane."

"Her name is Sallie _Malinda_," said Sue, with some indignation.

"Well, take a look around for Sallie Malinda Teddy Bear Brown while I'm getting dressed," said her father.

The children soon slipped into their clothes, and then began to look around the tent, inside and out. Sue thought perhaps she had left her Teddy bear with its flas.h.i.+ng electrical eyes in a chair near the kitchen-tent table. She had had her there after her own supper. She even pointed out where she had put a small plate of cracker crumbs near the Teddy bear. The plate of crumbs was still there, but the doll was gone.

"We'll look outside," said Bunny; and when he and Sue were outside the tent, waiting for their father, Bunny began walking slowly along, bent over as though he had a peddler's pack on his back.

"What are you doing that for?" asked Sue in surprise. "We aren't playing any game."

"I know it. But I'm looking for the marks of the bear's tracks in the mud, just as Eagle Feather looked for the hoof prints of his lost cow in the sand. He found his cow that way, and maybe we'll find Sallie Malinda this way."

"But his cow was bigger than my Teddy bear, and made bigger tracks."

"That doesn't matter. I've been talking to the Indians about trailing animals this way, and you can trail a squirrel as easily as an elephant if you only know how to look for the feet marks. See, Sue!" and Bunny pointed to marks in the soft earth. "Aren't those the prints of your Teddy bear's feet?"

Sue looked to where Bunny pointed. There were marks plainly enough, but in a minute Sue knew what they were.

"Why, that's where Splash, our dog, walked," said the little girl.

"Oh, so it is," agreed Bunny. "Well, I made a mistake that time. We'll try again."

So the children went on, seeking for marks of the toy bear's paws, until Mr. Brown came out.

"It's of no use to look that way, children," he said. "If Sue's bear is missing some one took it away--it never walked, for it couldn't."

"That's what I said!" cried Sue.

"But how did it get away?" asked Bunny.

"Somebody must have taken it. The same one who took your train of cars.

We must look farther off than just around the tent."

"Say, Daddy, do you s'pose some of the Indians could have done it?"

asked Sue in a whisper.

"I hardly think so," answered Mr. Brown. "Still, they are not all as honest as Eagle Feather. We'll have a look around their camp."

"And maybe we'll find my train at the same time," said Bunny, hopefully.

"We'll look for it," replied Mr. Brown.

All of a sudden Bunny began to run around in a circle, bending down toward the ground.

"What are you doing?" asked Sue. "Playing stoop-tag?"

"No, I'm looking for the marks of Indians' feet," answered Bunny. "If Indians came around here to take your doll, they'd leave some mark. I'm trying to find it."

Sue shook her head.

"What's the matter?" asked Bunny.

"Indians don't leave any tracks," returned the little girl. "'They are very cunning,' it says in my school reader-book, 'and they can slip through a forest leaving no more trace than that of the wind.' I don't know what 'trace' is, but it must be true, for it's in my book."

"Oh, those were old-fas.h.i.+oned Indians," said Bunny. "That kind wouldn't leave any marks. But these Indians wear shoes, and they'd leave a mark in soft ground. Wouldn't they, Daddy?"

"I believe they would. But I don't want to think it was our good friends the Indians who have taken your things. But we will search and see. Come on, now, Bunny and Sue. We'll have a little hunt before breakfast."

CHAPTER X

LOST IN THE WOODS

Holding the hands of Bunny and his sister Sue, one on either side, Mr.

Brown started on a little search around the tents. They were trying to find the footprints of some one who did not belong to the camp. Some one other than Mr. and Mrs. Brown, Uncle Tad and the children themselves. Of course Bunker Blue came to the camp once in a while, and so did various peddlers and some people from neighboring farms. But most of these footprints were known to Mr. Brown, as he had seen them about the place ever since he and his family had been living at Camp Rest-a-While.

"What I want to see is a strange footprint," said the children's father.

"An Indian's footprint is stranger than ours," said Sue.