“Yes, but the oars are lost.  I guess we’ll just have to stay here, Sue.  We’re losted again.  But I’m not afraid.  It’s nice here, and if we get hungry I can catch a fish.  I have my pole, and there’s a worm on my hook yet.”

“Is he a squiggily worm?” Sue wanted to know.

“He was kind of squiggily,” answered Bunny, “but I guess he’s all done squiggling now.  He’s deaded.”

“Then I wouldn’t be afraid of him,” Sue said.  “I could fish with him, too.  I don’t like squiggily worms.  They tickle you so.”

Bunny walked back to the boat, which the wind had blown partly up on shore.  He looked for his fishing pole and line, and, after he had taken it out, he saw the little basket of lunch his mother had put up.  It had not yet been opened.

“Oh, Sue!” Bunny cried.  “Look!  We’ve got our lunch!  And there’s a bottle of milk, too!  Now we can have a picnic!”

“And you won’t have to catch any fish!” cried Sue, clapping her hands.  “I’m hungry Bunny.  Let’s have the picnic now!”

Bunny was willing, for he was hungry too, and the children, taking the basket of lunch, sat down in a shady place on the shore to eat.  As Sue was taking off the napkins, in which the sandwiches and cakes were wrapped, she happened to think of something.

“Oh, Bunny!” Sue said.  “Part of this lunch was for Bunker Blue.”

Bunny thought for a second or two.

“Well, Bunker isn’t here now,” he said, “and he can’t get here, less’n he swims.  I don’t guess he’ll want any lunch, Sue.”

“And anyhow, he can catch a fish,” said Sue.  “Bunker is good at fishing, and he likes to eat ’em.”

“I wonder where Bunker is now,” pondered Bunny.

He looked back up the lake.  He could not see the island where they had left Bunker.  It was out of sight around a bend in the lake shore.

“Do you think he’ll swim down here and want some lunch?” asked Sue.

“No,” answered Bunny.  “We can eat all this.  Bunker won’t come.”

And so the children began on their lunch, sharing some of it with Splash, who, after a bath in the lake, lay down in the sun to dry himself.

By this time Bunker Blue, back on the far end of the island, had caught three fine, big fish.  He was so excited and glad about getting them that, for a while, he forgot all about Bunny Brown and his sister Sue.  Then he happened to remember them.

“I’ll go back to the boat and get the children,” said Bunker Blue to himself.  “They can catch fish here, and that will tickle Bunny.  He never yet caught real big fish like these.”

But when Bunker went to the place where he had left Bunny and Sue in the boat, the children were not there, nor was there any sight of the boat.  Bunker had been fishing by himself longer than he thought, and by this time Bunny and Sue were out of sight around a bend in the shore.

Bunker rubbed his eyes.  Then he looked again.  There was no doubt of it—­the boat was gone, and so were the children.