"Oh, Bunny can do almost anything, and Sue isn't far behind him. Probably he found a box to stand on."
"Suppose we take a look," suggested Mr. Parker, the gentleman who had brought Mr. Brown to the station in the automobile. The 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?"