He and the other boys took off their shoes and stockings, and waded out to the tent.  It was hard work to get it to shore, but they finally managed to do it.  The tent was wet and muddy, and torn in two places, but it could be dried out, mended and used.

“And now for the big tent—­see if you can find that, Bunny!” called Ben.

But Bunny was not as lucky as was his sister Sue.  After they had walked on half a mile farther, it was Bunker himself who saw the big tent, caught on a sunken tree, just where the brook flowed into the river.

“Now if we get that we’ll be all right,” he said.

“Yes, but it isn’t going to be as easy to get that as it was the little one,” commented Ben Hall.  “We’ll have to work very hard to get that tent to shore.”

“I’ll help,” offered Bunny Brown, and the other boys laughed.  Bunny was so little to offer to help get the big tent on shore.

CHAPTER XX

THE MISSING MICE

The big tent, once used at the fair, but which the boys had now borrowed for their circus, was all tangled up in the water.  The ropes and cloth were twisted and wound around among the sticks and stones, where the tent had drifted, after the flood of the night before had carried it away.

“Oh, we’ll never get that out so we can use it,” said Charlie Tenny, one of the boys who was helping Ben, Bunker and the others.

“Yes, we’ll get it out,” said Ben.  “We’ve got Bunny Brown to help us you know.”

Some of the boys laughed, and Bunny’s face grew red.

“Now I mean just what I say!” cried Ben.  “Bunny Brown is a brave little chap, and if it hadn’t been for him and his sister Sue we big fellows wouldn’t have thought of getting up a circus show.  So it’s a good thing to have a chap like him with us, even if he is small.”

Bunny felt better after this, and he thought Ben was very kind to speak as he had done.

“Splash is here, too,” said Bunny.  “He can get hold of a rope and pull like anything.”

“That’s right,” said Bunker Blue.  “Maybe Splash can help us.  He is a strong dog.”

“It’s a good thing the tent didn’t go all the way down to the river,” said Charlie.  “Otherwise we might never have found it.”

“Yes,” put in Bunker.  “And now let’s see if we can get it to shore.  It’s not going to be easy.”

The boys worked hard, and Bunny helped.  He could wade out, where the water was not too deep, and pull on the ropes.  There were a great many of these ropes to hold the tent together, but now they were all tangled.

But Ben Hall seemed to know how to untangle them, and soon the work of getting the tent to shore began to look easier.  Splash did his share of work, too.  He pulled on the ropes Bunker Blue handed him, shutting his strong, white teeth on them, and straining and tugging until you would have thought that Splash, all alone, would pull the tent ashore.