Russ ran around the big rock that had fallen on the other track, and up the road a way. But there was no sign of Vi and Laddie. Mr. Bunker saw the path up the bank, and he climbed just as the twins had and reached the top.
The big pasture was then revealed to the anxious father; but Vi and Laddie were nowhere in view. Why! Daddy Bunker didn't even see the chipmunk Laddie and his sister had chased. Daddy Bunker shouted and shouted. If the twins had been within sound of his voice they surely would have answered. But no answer came.
"You'll have to come down from there, Mr. Bunker!" called the conductor of the train. "We can't wait any longer. We're holding up traffic as it is."
So Mr. Bunker came down to the railroad bed, very much worried and hating dreadfully to go back and tell Mother Bunker and the rest of the little Bunkers that the twins were not to be found.
There was nothing else to be done. Where the twins could have disappeared to was a mystery. And just what he should do to trace Vi and Laddie their father could not at that moment imagine.
The train started again, but ran slowly. Mrs. Bunker did not weep as Margy did, and as Rose herself was inclined to do. But she was very pale and she looked at her husband anxiously.
"My poor babies!" she said. "I think we will all have to get off the train at the next station, Charles, and wait until Vi and Laddie are found."
Daddy Bunker could not say "no" to this, for he did not see any better plan. Of course they could not go on to Cowboy Jack's ranch and leave Vi and Laddie behind.
The other passengers in the car took much interest in the Bunkers' trouble. Most of the men and women had grown fond of Violet, in spite of her inquisitiveness, and all admired Laddie Bunker. It seemed a really terrible thing that the two should have become separated from their parents and the other children.
"Something is always happening to us Bunkers," confessed Russ. "But what happens isn't often as bad as this. I don't see what Vi and Laddie could have been thinking of."
We know, however, that the twins had been thinking of nothing but gathering flowers and chasing a chipmunk until that train whistle had sounded. How the twins did run then across the pasture and up to the very verge of the high bank overlooking the railroad cut!