“Isn’t it a nice place?” said Bunny to Sue, as they went to bed.

“The bestest ever!” she cried.

It was about the middle of the night that Bunny was awakened by feeling a queer bumping, sliding motion.

“Why,” he cried, sitting up in his bunk, “we must be traveling on in the dark!  Daddy!  Momsie!” he cried.  “What are we moving for, when it’s dark?”

“What’s that?” cried Mr. Brown suddenly awakening.

“The automobile is running away!” cried Bunny, and outside they could hear a strange roaring sound amid the patter of the rain.

CHAPTER XI

IN THE FLOOD

For a moment all was confusion inside the big automobile.  Mr. and Mrs. Brown got up and dressed hastily.  Bunny and Sue thought little of doing that until Sue, feeling cold around her bare legs, called to her brother: 

“Wrap yourself up in a blanket, Bunny, like an Indian.”

“What’s going on?” yelled Uncle Tad, from his bunk.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” said Mr. Brown.

“Seems to me we’re afloat,” added Uncle Tad.  “We certainly are at sea.”

“It does feel so,” agreed Daddy Brown, for the automobile was bumping along the roadway, and the motor was not running, either.  Something was either pushing or pulling it.

Just then came the howls and whines of the two dogs, Dix and Splash.  They had been left out on the front seat of the car, with big curtains hung in front of them so no rain could splatter on them.

“Oh, something’s the matter with them!” cried Bunny Brown, and in a few minutes he had opened the window back of the seat and let the frantic dogs leap into the auto.  They barked joyfully now, and frisked about Bunny and Sue.

With the opening of the window, however, came in a gust of wind and rain that made Mrs. Brown call: 

“Children you’ll catch dreadful colds!  Get right to bed this instant.”

“Oh, Mother, we want to stay up and see what’s going to happen,” said Bunny.  “Maybe the automobile might tip over.”

“And if we were in bed we’d be all upside down and tangled in the clothes,” added Sue.  “Please let us stay up!  We’ll wrap in blankets like Indians.”

“Better let them get dressed,” said Mr. Brown in a low voice to his wife.  “There’s no telling what has happened.”

“What do you think?” and her voice was anxious.

“Well, it feels as if we were in a stream of some sort, partly afloat.  Let the children get dressed,” answered her husband.

Bunny Brown and his sister heard and hastened to their curtained-off bunks.  Meanwhile Uncle Tad had closed the window near the front seat and that kept out the wind and rain.  And it was raining and blowing hard.  Those in the cosy car could hear the drops dash against the panes, while the wind howled around the corners of the machine.