"Tell us all about it!"
This is what Mrs. Brown, Bunny and Sue said as Uncle Tad, dripping wet, came back into the auto. Dix and Splash thumped their tails on the floor, as though also asking what the matter was.
"Oh, it isn't much," said Uncle Tad. "The brook rose into a river in the night, and tried to carry us away. But we are going to anchor to a tree until morning."
Bunny and Sue could easily understand what this meant, and they were not frightened, even though the automobile swayed about from side to side and bumped as a boat does when it goes over the bottom in shallow water.
Uncle Tad got the towrope out from a box, or locker, as Mr. Brown called it. The rope was a strong one, as it was intended to be used in case the big automobile went into a ditch, in which event it could be pulled out.
With the rope Uncle Tad went out on the back steps again.
"We're still moving," said Mr. Brown.
"Are we any nearer the trees, so it will be easier to catch hold of one of them with a loop of the rope?" asked Uncle Tad.
"No, we're farther off from the trees," said Bunny's father and, if the little boy had been listening, he would have felt worried about this. But Mr. Brown was a good sailor, and if he knew how to anchor, or make fast, a boat in a big ocean, he might be supposed to know how to anchor, or stop, an automobile in a flood on the road.
Mr. Brown took the rope, while Uncle Tad held the Teddy bear and flashed her eyes about on the flood that was moving the car along. Bunny's father was trying to catch sight of a tree around a limb of which he could cast the rope and so bring the drifting automobile to a stop. It was not moving quite so fast now, as the stream was not quite so swift. In fact if the flooded stream had not been so swift it never could have carried the heavy auto along at all.