Then, turning to Mr. Brown and the children, the chief said: 

“No have got lil’ gal’s play bear.  Nobody here have got.  You look in all Indian houses and see for yourself.”

“No.  I’ll take your word for it,” said Mr. Brown.  “I believe the Teddy bear is not here.  It must have been taken by some one else.  I will look farther.”

But Eagle Feather insisted on some of the head men’s huts being searched, and this was done.  But no doll was found.

“Oh, dear!  Where can Sallie Malinda be?” half sobbed Sue.

“Never mind,” said her father.  “If you can’t find your bear, and Bunny’s cars are still gone, in two weeks I’ll get you new ones.  But I think they will come back as mysteriously as they went away.  Now, we must go home.”

“But I thought you were going to look in the cabin of the hermit,” said Bunny.

“We’ll have to do that after dinner,” answered Daddy Brown.  But when dinner was half over there came a telegram for Mr. Brown telling him he was needed back at his business office at once, as something had gone wrong about the fish catch.

“Well, I’ll have to go now,” said the children’s father; “but I’ll help you look for the Teddy doll and the train of cars when I come back,” he said.

It was a little sad in Camp Rest-a-While when Mr. Brown had gone, but Mother Brown let the children play store, with real things to eat and to sell, and they were soon happy again.  Finally Sue said: 

“Bunny, do you know where that hermit’s hut is—­the one where you got the milk the time the dog drank it?”

“Yes,” slowly answered Bunny.  “I do.  But what about it?”

“Let’s go there,” answered Sue.  “Maybe he has my Sallie Malinda.  Daddy was going to take us there, but he had to go away so quickly he didn’t have time.  But you and I can go.  I’m sure he’d give us my Teddy bear if he had her.”

“I guess he would,” agreed Bunny.  “But what would he want with it?  Anyhow, we’ll go and see.”

So he and Sue, saying nothing to their mother, except that they were going off into the big woods back of the camp, left the tent and headed for the hermit’s cabin.

On and on they went, leaving Splash behind, for, of late, their dog had not followed them as often as he had done before.

They had tramped through the woods for about an hour, looking in all sorts of places for the missing Teddy bear and the toy train, when Sue suddenly asked: 

“Aren’t we near his cabin now, Bunny?  It seems as if we’d come an awful long way.”

“I was beginning to think so myself,” said the little boy.  “Yet I was sure it was over this way.”

The children walked on a little farther, but found themselves only deeper in the big woods.  Finally Sue stopped and said: 

“Bunny, do you know where we are?”

“No, I don’t,” he answered.

“Then we’re lost,” said Sue, shaking her head.  “We’re lost in the woods, Bunny Brown, and we’ll never get home!”