"Come on, Russ, we'll find her," said Mr. Bunker.
Many people were now coming on board the steamer. There were some boys and girls, and certainly a number of them were tired and sleepy. As Mrs. Bunker went down the stairs with the four little Bunkers, she looked at every other child she saw, hoping it might be Margy. But she did not see her smallest daughter.
Russ and his father walked around the upper deck. They met several men who worked on the steamer, and asked them if they had seen a little girl about five years old, with dark hair and eyes, for that is how Margy looked.
Each of the men Mr. Bunker asked said he had not seen the little lost girl, and then Mr. Bunker said:
"Well, Russ, we'll go down on the next deck. Maybe she is there."
There were several decks to the steamer, just as there are several floors in a large house. Russ and his father went downstairs, and as they started to look on the lower deck they met a man who had shiny gold braid on the sleeves of his coat, and also on his cap.
"Are you looking for some one?" asked this man, who was a mate, or helper, to the captain.
"We are looking for my little girl," said Mr. Bunker. "She has wandered away since we came on board."
"Was she a very little girl?" asked the mate.
"Rather small," answered Daddy Bunker.