“Have you lost something, Mother?” asked Bunny.

“Well, yes, I have—­sort of,” she said, smiling.  “I’ve lost a pie!”

“Oh, a pie!” cried Sue.  “Did you drop it, Mother, and did it fall down a crack in the board walk, like my penny did once?”

“No!” laughed Mrs. Brown.  “It wasn’t that way.”

Then she told of having made four pies, setting them on the table to cool while she went to the spring for a pail of water.

“And when I came back, a whole pie was gone!” she said.

“Well, we certainly didn’t take it, for we weren’t here,” said Daddy Brown.  “And you were all alone in camp, Mother?”

“Yes, even Uncle Tad was gone.”

“Oh, maybe he came back and took it!” exclaimed Bunny.

“No, he wouldn’t do that,” said his mother.  “Some animal, perhaps a big muskrat, like the one Splash tried to catch, came up out of the lake and carried away my pie.  I was just looking to see if I could find any marks of the rat’s paws in the soft ground, when you came along.  But I couldn’t see any.”

“I don’t believe it was a rat, or any other animal, that took your pie,” said Mr. Brown, as he, too, looked carefully on the ground around the table where the pie had been placed.  The three other pies were there, but the fourth one was gone.

“There isn’t a sign of any four-legged animal having been here,” Mr. Brown went on.  “I think it was some animal with only two legs who took the pie.”

“Oh, you mean a—­a man!” cried Mother Brown.

Daddy Brown nodded his head for yes.

“Do you mean a tramp?” asked Bunker Blue.

“Well, yes, it might have been a tramp, though we haven’t seen any around here since we’ve been in camp.  However, if a pie is all they took we don’t need to worry.”

“Perhaps the poor man was hungry,” said Mrs. Brown.  “I’m sure I hope he enjoys my pie.”

“He couldn’t help liking it,” said Bunny Brown.  “Your pies are always so good, Mother!”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” exclaimed Mrs. Brown.  “Well, we have enough for the next two days, anyhow, and I’ll bake again to-morrow.”

“Splash didn’t take the pie,” said Sue, “’cause he was with us in the boat.”

“Then it must have been the tramp,” Mrs. Brown said.  “Never mind, we won’t worry any more about it.  Did you have a nice time?”

Then they told about their little fishing trip.  When Uncle Tad came back from his walk in the woods, he, too, had to be told of the missing pie.  Uncle Tad shook his head.

“We’ll have to lock up everything around our camp if tramps are going to come in and take our pies, and the other good things Mother Brown makes,” he said with a smile.  “Or else one of us will always have to stay here to keep watch.”

“I wish we had Tom Vine back,” said Bunny.  “I wonder where he is?”

Of course no one knew, and Mr. Brown began to think that, after all, Tom had done just as Mr. Trimble had said—­had run away.