“Oh, we’ll find a hotel with a garage attached to it, and leave the dogs there in charge of the ‘Ark,’” said Mr. Brown.

“And what about finding Fred?” Sue queried.  She, as well as Bunny, was greatly interested in the missing boy.

“Oh, I’ll do all I can to find him,” promised Mr. Brown.

A hotel, with a garage attached to it, was easily found in Portland, and as the “Ark” went through the streets many persons turned to look at it.  But Bunny and Sue did not mind this in the least.

“They’ll think we’re a new kind of gypsy,” said Bunny.

“And they’ll all wish they was us, riding around this way,” said Sue, as she laughed with Bunny.

“‘They was us.’  Oh, Sue!” groaned her mother.

Dix and Splash did not like very much being left alone in the garage, and they whined and barked as they were chained near the auto.  But the garage keeper promised to be kind to them, to let them run about after a while and to feed and water them.

“And we’ll come to see you every once in a while,” said Bunny and Sue, as they patted and hugged their two pets.

Fluffy, the squirrel, now well again, had been set free, before entering the city, in the woods that he loved.

So, for a while the Browns gave up their “Ark,” and settled down to hotel life.  Mr. Brown had much business to look after in connection with his fish and dock affairs at home, for he was part owner of a steamship line that ran from Portland to Bellemere.

After a day or two he found a chance to ask about the missing boy.  Mr. Brown first appealed to the police.  But they had no record of him, and though inquiries were made of a number of theater owners, Fred Ward was not found.  The man whose name he had mentioned as being the one he intended to see in Portland had moved away.

“Well, Fred may have come here,” said Mr. Brown, “and, after he found his friend was gone, he may have drifted on to some other town.  I’m afraid we can’t find him.”

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Bunny.  “That’s too bad!”

“Let us go to look for him,” proposed Sue.  “We found Nellie Jones, that girl who lives at the end of our street, when she was lost away over on the next block.”

“Yes, but that was different from this,” said Mrs. Brown.  “Portland is a big city, and if you go wandering about in it you’ll be worse lost than you were in the big woods.  You children stay with me, and your father will do all he can to find Fred.”

So Bunny and Sue had to be content to stay at the hotel, to go sightseeing with their mother, to go to the moving pictures, while Mr. Brown looked after his business.  Several times each day Bunny and Sue went to the garage to see the dogs.  And how glad Dix and Splash were to see the children!

Finally the day came when Mr. Brown had finished his business.  He made several more attempts to find Fred, but could not do so and at last wrote to Mr. Ward, as he had promised, that, as far as could be learned, the missing boy was not in Portland.