"Where do you suppose Margy can be?" Mrs. Bunker asked her husband, as she started down the stairs for the staterooms, or bedrooms, where they were to spend the night. "Oh, she's around somewhere," he answered. "She may be watching the men load the steamer." Boxes and barrels were still being put into the hold, or "cellar," of the steamer, which would soon start for Boston. Margy, from the upper deck, might have seen this work going on, and have stepped out of sight to watch. "Come on, Russ, we'll find her," said Mr. Bunker. Many people were now coming on board the steamer. There were some boys and girls, and certainly a number of them were tired and sleepy. As Mrs. Bunker went down the stairs with the four little Bunkers, she looked at every other child she saw, hoping it might be Margy. But she did not see her smallest daughter. Russ and his father walked around the upper deck. They met several men who worked on the steamer, and asked them if they had seen a little girl about five years old, with dark hair and eyes, for that is how Margy looked. Each of the men Mr. Bunker asked said he had not seen the little lost girl, and then Mr. Bunker said: "Well, Russ, we'll go 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.