"Wait a minute," said Russ, "and we'll all go and hunt for him."
Russ had noticed a post of the old fence that had rotted off close to the ground. It was quite a heavy post, but Russ was strong enough to drag it to the side of the miry pool where the calf was fixed. He rolled the post upon the platform, and then on the end of the rail which the other children were holding down.
The post did not stay there very firmly at first. It was not perfectly round and it was gnarled (which means lumpy), and it did not seem to want to stay in place at all. Russ, however, was very persevering. He was anxious too, to keep the poor calf from drowning in the mud. And at length he got the post fixed to suit him.
"Now get up," Russ told them, and Rose and Vi and Laddie stood up.
"That fixes it!" cried Laddie, in great excitement.
"It's all right if the calf doesn't struggle much while we are gone," said Russ doubtfully. "Which way did Mun Bun go?"
"He went on ahead, towards that Dripping Rock we started to see," said Vi. "I saw him start, but I didn't think he was going to run away."
So the five Bunkers started off hurriedly along the log road through the swamp, calling for Mun Bun as they went, and hoping he had not got into real trouble. And he had not come to any harm, although he had wandered some distance from the swampy pool where the calf was.
By and by Mun Bun heard them calling, and he called back. But he was so busy that he did not return. They ran on along the road and at last around a turn, and there was Mun Bun down on his hands and knees in the middle of the road, so much interested in what he was looking at that he did not at first give the others much of his attention.
"What are you doing, Mun Bun?" cried Rose, first to reach the little boy.