Just what time it was Bunny and Sue did not know, but they were both suddenly awakened by feeling the tent, on the side nearest to which they slept, being pushed in.  The canvas walls bulged as though some one were trying to get through them.

“Oh, Daddy!” cried Sue, as she saw the tent move in the light of a lantern that burned dimly beyond the curtains behind which she and Bunny slept.  “Oh, Daddy, something is after us.”

“Yes, and it’s an elephant!” cried Bunny, as he, too, saw the tent sway.  “It’s an elephant got loose from the circus, and he’s after us!”

With that he bounded out of bed, and, waiting only long enough to clasp each other by the hand, the two children burst into that part of the tent where Mr. and Mrs. Brown slept.

CHAPTER V

BUNNY ROLLS DOWN HILL

“What’s the matter?” asked Mr. Brown, thrusting his head out from between the two curtains behind which his wife and he had their cots.  “Why are you two children up at this time of night?”

“We—­we couldn’t sleep in our part of the tent,” explained Sue, snuggling up closer to Bunny.

“Couldn’t sleep, my dear?  Was it the mosquitoes?” asked Mrs. Brown.

“No’m.  It was an elephant,” explained Bunny.

“A burglar elephant,” added Sue.

“He poked his head into the tent right over our bed,” went on Bunny.

“But we didn’t stay,” added Sue.  “We came out to see if you and daddy were all right.  Burglar elephants aren’t nice at all.”

“What in the world are they talking about?” asked Mr. Brown.  “A burglar elephant?  What does it mean?”

“It must have been some sound they heard outside the tent,” said Mrs. Brown.  “Or perhaps they dreamed something.”

“No’m, we didn’t dream,” cried Bunny, while his sister Sue nodded her head to show that she thought as he did.  “It was something as big as an elephant and it most shook the tent down.”

“I felt something move the tent from the outside,” said Mrs. Brown, “but I thought it was the wind.”

“I’ll soon see what it was!” cried Mr. Brown.  “You two kiddies jump into bed with your mother, and I’ll take a look outside.”

He put on his dressing gown and slippers, and while Bunny and his sister Sue went behind the curtains to snuggle down in the bed with their mother, Mr. Brown, taking a lantern, started for the outside of the tent.

He had just reached the flaps, the ropes of which he was loosening, and Bunny and his sister were hardly in their mother’s cot—­a tight fit for three—­when the canvas house was violently shaken and within the very tent itself sounded a loud: 

“Moo!  Moo!”

“Oh, it’s a cow!” cried Bunny.

“And I can see it!” cried Sue, poking her head out between the curtains nearest her mother’s bed.  “I can see it.”

“Is it an elephanty cow?” eagerly asked Bunny from his side of the cot.