“Where did it wash them?” asked Bunny.

“Oh, away down toward the river, I guess.  I’m afraid we’ll never get ’em back.”

“It’s too bad,” said Ben.  “Just when we were all ready for the nice circus.  But, Bunker, we won’t give up yet.  We’ll look for those tents, and maybe we can put them up again.”

“Well, maybe we can do it,” said the red-haired boy.  “But I’m afraid everything is spoiled.”

“We’ll help you look for the tents,” said Bunny.  “Won’t we, Sue?”

“If—­if the water isn’t too deep,” said Sue.  She was always afraid of deep water, though she, like Bunny, was learning to swim.

“Oh, the water isn’t deep now,” Bunker assured her.  “It was a regular flood in the night when Ben and I went out to look at it, but it has all gone down now, since the rain stopped.”

“Was it deep when you were out last night?” Bunny wanted to know.

“It surely was,” answered Bunker.  “It was almost over our boots.  We couldn’t get near the tents, and we had to watch them be knocked down by the flood, and carried away on the big waves.  Then we came back to the house.”

“We couldn’t do anything in the dark, anyhow,” remarked Ben.  “But now that it’s daylight maybe we can find the tents.”

“We’ll help—­come on!” exclaimed Bunny to his sister.

They finished their breakfast, and, after promising to keep out of mischief, Bunny and Sue were allowed to go with Bunker and Ben to look for the missing tents.

First they went down to the meadow where the white canvas houses had been first put up.  The brook was higher than Bunny or Sue had ever seen it before, and the bent-over, twisted and muddy grass showed how high up in the meadow the water had come.  There were some wooden pegs still left in the ground, to show where the tents had stood.

“And now they’re gone,” said Bunny sadly.

“Yes.  Carried away in the flood,” remarked Bunker.

“But maybe we’ll find them,” said Ben hopefully.

They walked along the bank of the brook.  About a mile farther on it flowed into a small river.

“And if our tents have floated down the river we may never get them back,” said Bunker.  “Now everybody look, and whoever first sees the white tents, caught on a stone or on a log, tell us, and we’ll try to get them,” said Bunker.

You may be sure Bunny and Sue kept their eyes wide open, and were very desirous to be the first to see the tents.  It was Sue who had the first good look.

As she and Bunny, with Ben, Bunker and some other big boys who had come to help, went around a turn in the brook, Sue, who had run on ahead, saw something white bobbing up and down in the water.

“Oh, there’s a tent—­maybe!” she cried.

The others ran to her side.

“So it is!” shouted Bunker.  “That’s the small tent, caught fast on a rock in the brook.  We’ll get that out first!”