He waved good-bye to them as they went off again.

Bunny and Sue were eager to ask questions about the colored boy who played the banjo for the medical show.

“Do you think he could have been Fred?” asked Bunny.

“It is possible,” answered his father.

“Maybe we can find him,” added Sue.

“We’ll make inquiries about this show in the next town we come to,” said Mr. Brown.

But as the next town was the one outside of which they were to spend the night, they decided to put off until the next day asking questions about the colored banjo player.

Uncle Tad and Mr. Brown helped Mrs. Brown get the supper.  When it was over there was a large platter full of good things left for the two dogs.  They were hungry, for they had run far that day, and they ate up every scrap.

Then they stretched out for a while near a campfire Mr. Brown made under some trees, for it was a little cool in the evenings.  As the children had been up early that morning, Mrs. Brown told them they must be early in bed, and after watching the fire until their eyes began to shut of themselves, Bunny and Sue started for their little bunks.

Just as they were getting undressed, though it was scarcely dark, the barking of dogs was heard down the road.

“That’s Dix and Splash!” exclaimed Bunny.  “And something must have happened.  Splash wouldn’t bark that way if there was nothing the matter.”

“Here comes Dix now,” said Sue, looking out of the automobile window.  “And oh, Bunny!  Look what he’s brought home with him!”

“What is it?” asked Bunny, whose bunk was on the other side of the big car.

“It’s a cow.  Dix is leading home a cow on the end of a rope!” exclaimed Sue.

CHAPTER IX

TWO DISAPPEARANCES

For a moment the two children looked out of the automobile windows at the strange sight.  Then, unable longer to think of going to bed when there was likely to be some excitement, they both came out from behind the curtains that screened off their cots, and cried together: 

“Dix has got a cow!”

“Dix has got a what?” asked Mrs. Brown, thinking she had not understood.

“Dix has got a cow!” went on Bunny.  “He’s leading her by a rope.  I guess he thinks it’s our cow.”

“Well, what will those dogs do next?” asked Mr. Brown, who was reading a newspaper he had purchased from a passing boy, who rode his route on a bicycle.

“It’s true enough—­about the cow,” said Uncle Tad, who was outside the automobile putting out the last embers of the campfire, that there might be no danger during the night.  “One of the dogs is leading home a ‘cow critter,’ as some farmers call them.

“It’s Dix,” he went on a moment later as the two dogs, both barking excitedly, came close to the big moving van, Dix having hold of the rope that was tied fast to the cow’s neck.  He was leading her along, and the cow did not appear to mind.  “Dix must have found the cow wandering along the road,” went on Uncle Tad, “and, thinking we might need one, he just brought her home.”