Mr. Brown took the rope, while Uncle Tad held the Teddy bear and flashed her eyes about on the flood that was moving the car along.  Bunny’s father was trying to catch sight of a tree around a limb of which he could cast the rope and so bring the drifting automobile to a stop.  It was not moving quite so fast now, as the stream was not quite so swift.  In fact if the flooded stream had not been so swift it never could have carried the heavy auto along at all.

“I suppose,” said Mr. Brown, “I could start the motor and make the car go itself.  But I would not know where to steer her.”

“No, it is better to make her fast, I think,” said Uncle Tad.

Just then they passed under a tree.  Mr. Brown tried to catch the rope to it, but the auto rolled past too quickly.

“Better luck next time,” he said.

Presently they were swept under another tree, and this time, as Mr. Brown cast the rope, it whirled about a big limb and was held fast.  The other end had been tied to the automobile near the back door and now the big car came to a slow stop.

“If she only holds we’ll be all right,” said Mr. Brown, his hand still on the rope.

The automobile moved a little bit farther, as the rope stretched, and then it stopped altogether, and Mr. Brown tied tighter the end of the rope that was about the tree.

“Anchored at last!” cried Uncle Tad, as he got ready to go inside the car.  “Now let it rain and flood as much as it likes.”

“Are we all right?” asked Bunny as his father and his Uncle Tad came in.

“We won’t go out to sea, will we?” Sue questioned.

“No indeed, to your question, Sue,” answered her father.  “And as to yours, Bunny, we are anchored safe and sound I hope.  Now we can go back to bed and sleep.”

But first Bunny and Sue had to ask many questions, and Sue had to take off her Teddy bear’s water-proof cloak, in spite of which the toy was wet.

“But it won’t hurt her batteries inside or her eyes,” said the little girl.

“And as for her fur, that will soon dry,” added Mother Brown.

“She gave us good light,” said Father Brown.  “Now, off to bed with you.”

No one slept very much the rest of the night except the children and the dogs.  Dix and Splash did not think of worrying, and as for Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue, they thought that whatever Daddy Brown and Uncle Tad did was just right anyhow.  So they had no fear.

Mrs. Brown, her husband, and Uncle Tad did not sleep very soundly, however.  The rain still came down in torrents and the wind blew hard.  The rush of the flood beneath the auto could still be heard.  But it came no higher.

The rope held to the tree, the big car did not drag, and when morning came the travelers found themselves some distance from the place where they had been the evening before.  They were about a mile down the road, and all about them, over the road and the adjacent fields, was a lake of water.