Russ ran away directly after he had been excused from the table and they
did not find him again for quite a while. He appeared with his usual
cheerful whistle on his lips and made up a fine game of hide and seek on
the afterdeck. But it was noticeable, if anybody had thought to notice
it at all, that Russ kept them all from going near the lifeboat and the
raft, and he would not hear to their playing castaway at all.

"Why not?" asked Vi.

"Oh, that's too old," Russ declared. "We can play that at any time.
Let's go and listen to the wireless spark. When we get to that
plantation where we are going maybe I can set up a wireless mast and we
will send messages."

"To Grandma Bell? And to Aunt Jo?" asked Vi.

"Oh!" cried Laddie, "let's send one to Cowboy Jack. I know he'd be glad
to hear from us."

So Russ turned the interest of his brothers and sisters away from the
castaway play. All but Rose. She wondered just what it was that was
troubling Russ and what the lifeboat had to do with it.

But there were so many new things to be interested in aboard the
steamship that even Rose forgot to be puzzled after a while. Their
friend, the quartermaster, took them all over the ship. They saw the
engines working, and peered down into the stoke hole which was very hot
and where the firemen worked in their undershirts and trousers and a
great clanging of shovels and furnace doors was going on.