"Yes, I know it," admitted Rose. "But where could he have gone?"
Russ thought over that question pretty hard. Daddy Bunker would have said that the little lost boy's older brother was trying to put himself in Mun Bun's place and thinking Mun Bun's thoughts.
Now, if Mun Bun had been very sleepy and had crept away to take a nap, as he often did after lunch when they were at home, without saying anything to Mother Bunker about it, where would he have gone to take that nap on this steamboat?
Mun Bun was a bold little boy. He was seldom afraid of anything or anybody. Had he not instantly made friends with Sam, the strange colored boy, at Aunt Jo's house? So Russ knew he would not be afraid to run right out on the deck among the other passengers.
"But that would not be a nice place to go for a nap," said Russ aloud.
"What wouldn't?" asked Rose, quite surprised by her brother's sudden speech.
"Out here on the deck. No, he didn't come out here at all," said Russ, with confidence.
Russ was an ingenious boy, as we have seen. Once having got the right idea in his head he proceeded to think it out.
"Come on back, Rose," he said suddenly, seizing his sister's hand.
"What for?"