down on the next deck. Maybe she is there."

There were several decks to the steamer, just as there are several
floors in a large house. Russ and his father went downstairs, and as
they started to look on the lower deck they met a man who had shiny gold
braid on the sleeves of his coat, and also on his cap.

"Are you looking for some one?" asked this man, who was a mate, or
helper, to the captain.

"We are looking for my little girl," said Mr. Bunker. "She has wandered
away since we came on board."

"Was she a very little girl?" asked the mate.

"Rather small," answered Daddy Bunker.

"And did she have dark hair?"

"Yes!" exclaimed Russ eagerly. "Oh, have you seen her? She's my sister
Margy."

"Well, I just happened to pass a stateroom, where I chance to know no
little girl belongs on this trip. The door was open, and I looked in,"
went on the mate. "On the bunk, which is what we call the beds on a
steamer," he told Russ, "I saw a little girl with dark hair curled up in
a heap. She seemed to be asleep, and there was a little white poodle dog
with her."

"A little white poodle dog!" exclaimed Mr. Bunker. "Then I'm afraid it
can't be my little girl. We have no white poodle dog."

"Maybe Margy found one, Daddy, and that's why she didn't come with us,"
said Russ.

"Better take a look at this little girl," went on the mate. "She seems
to be all alone in this stateroom, and she may be yours."

"We'll look," said Mr. Bunker. "But I hardly think it can be Margy."

He followed the mate, holding Russ by the hand so the little boy would
not get lost, though Russ was almost too big for this.

"Here she is," said the mate, as he came to a stop at an open door of a
stateroom. And there, on the clean, white bunk, curled up with one arm
around a white poodle dog was a little girl, whose dark hair mingled
with the white coat of the poodle.

"Oh, it is Margy!" exclaimed Russ.

"Yes, so it is," said Mr. Bunker. "Thank you," he added to the captain's
helper. "Now we are all right. We have found our lost little girl."

"I was wondering to whom she belonged," said the mate. "And I was going
to tell the captain about her. Now I won't have to."

When Mr. Bunker and Russ went into the room, the little poodle dog
raised up his head, opened one eye, and wagged his little stump of a
tail, as if he were saying:

"It's all right. You don't need to worry. I'm taking care of Margy and
she's taking care of me."

And it was Mar