“Oh, Bunny, don’t!” she exclaimed.  “You hurt my arm!”

“I—­I couldn’t help it,” Bunny said.

“Was it a fish?” asked Sue, hopefully, “Did he pull you over?”

Bunny shook his head.  Nothing had taken hold of the pin-hook.  Then he turned his head and looked around.

“Oh, Sue!” he cried.  “We’ve run ashore on an island.  Now we can get out and have some fun!  This is great!”

CHAPTER VIII

SUE FALLS IN

The boat, in which Bunny Brown and his sister Sue had gone adrift, had really “bunked into an island,” as Bunny told about it afterward.  He said “bunked,” and he meant bumped, for that is what the boat had done.

There were a number of islands in the river, some small and some larger, and it was at one of the larger ones that Bunny and Sue now found themselves.  Their boat swung around in the shallow water, and did not move any more.  It was fast aground on the edge of the island.

“Let’s get out,” suggested Bunny, and he did so, followed by Sue.  As Bunny pulled his fish line from the water, his sister saw the dangling bent-pin hook, and cried out: 

“Oh, Bunny, you didn’t get a fish after all!”

“No,” the little fellow answered.  “I guess I can fish better from the island, anyhow.  We’ll fish here now, and if we catch anything we can build a fire and cook it.  That is, we could if we had any matches.”

“Mother told us we musn’t play with fire,” remarked Sue.

“That’s so,” her brother agreed.  “Well, we can wait till we get home to cook the fish.  But we’ve got to fasten the boat, or it may go away and leave us.”

Bunny’s father was in the boat business and the little fellow had often heard how needful it was to tie boats fast so they would not drift away or be taken out by the tide.  So it was one of the first things he thought of when he and Sue landed on the island.

There was a rope in the front part, or bow of the rowboat, and Bunny tied one end of this rope to a tree that grew near the edge of the island.

“Now I can fish,” he said.

“What can I do?” asked Sue.  “I wish I had one of my dolls with me—­even the old sawdust one, with the sawdust coming out.  I could play house with her.  What can I do, Bunny?”

“Well, you can watch me fish, and then I’ll let you have a turn.  If you had another pin I could make you a hook.”

“Nope, I haven’t anymore,” and Sue looked carefully over her dress, thinking she might find another pin.  But there was none.

Bunny was about to cast in the line from the shore of the island, near the boat, where he and Sue were standing, when he suddenly thought of something.

“Oh, I forgot!  I haven’t any bait on my hook!” he said.  “No wonder I didn’t get a bite.  I’ll have to get a worm, or something the fish like to eat.  Come on, Sue, you can help at that—­hunting for worms.”