Archie was so excited that he still held up the sliding door of the oat bin, and the grains kept on sliding down the chute, carrying with them the Elephant and Doll, though now the toys were not in sight.
"Come on downstairs and get my Doll!" begged Elsie, tugging at her brother's hand. "Come on and get your Elephant and my Doll."
"Yes, we'd better do that," Archie agreed.
Then he saw that he was still holding open the little door in the oat bin, so that pecks and bushels of the grains were still sliding down the chute.
"I'd better close that, or the Elephant and the Doll will be buried away down under so many oats they'll never get out," said the little boy.
He let go the handle that they had pulled to raise the door, and it dropped shut, thus preventing any more oats from sliding down the chute. Then he took Elsie's hand and hurried toward the stairs that led to the lower floor of the barn.
Meanwhile, as you have guessed, the Elephant and the Doll were not having a very good time. At first, when the Elephant felt himself fall in with the sliding oats, he did not know what had happened.
"I wonder what sort of adventure this is!" thought the Elephant. "It's almost as bad as being pitched out into a snow drift, though I'm glad it isn't cold. These oats are very scratchy, though, and they make me want to sneeze. But where am I going?"
The Elephant did not know. All he could tell was that he was being hurried along in the dark with a lot of oats, for it was dark inside the grain chute.
Down, down, down went the Elephant, just as he had gone up, up, up on the rope.