“Sammy elevatored us up,” explained Dot.

“Well, you wanted to go!” replied the small boy in self justification.

The goat kept on eating grass, of which there was an ample supply in the yard of the Corner House.

“What shall we do?” cried Agnes.

“Run into the house and get a strong blanket or quilt,” advised Mr. Howbridge quickly, but in a quiet, insistent voice which seemed to calm the excitement of every one. “Bring the blanket here. We will hold it beneath the basket like a fire net, though I do not believe there is any immediate danger of the children falling. The rope seems to be firmly caught in the pulley block.”

His quick eye had taken in this detail of the “elevator.” The rope really had jammed in the block, and, as long as it held, the basket could not descend suddenly. Even if the rope should be unexpectedly loosened, there would still be the weight of the attached goat to act as a drag on the end of the cable, thus counterbalancing, in a measure, the weight of the girls in the clothes basket.

“But I don’t want to take any chances,” explained the lawyer. “We’ll take hold and extend the blanket under them, in case they should fall.”

“I have my apron ready now!” cried Mrs. MacCall. “Oh, the puir bairns! What ever possit it ye twa gang an’ reesk their lives this way, ye tapetless one?” she cried to Sammy angrily, suddenly, in her excitement, using the broadest of Scotch.

“Well, they wanted to ride in an elevator, an’ I—I made one,” he declared.

And that is just what he had done. Whether it was his idea or that of Tess and Dot did not then develop. What Sammy had done was to take the largest clothes basket, getting it unobserved when Mrs. MacCall and Linda were busy over Ruth’s party. He had fastened the basket to a long rope, which had been thrown over the high limb of the oak tree. Then Sammy had passed the rope through a pulley block, obtained no one knew where, and had hitched to the cable the goat, Billy Bumps.

By walking away from the tree Billy had pulled on the rope. The straightaway pull was transformed, by virtue of the pulley, into an upward motion, and the basket ascended. It had formed the “elevator” to which Uncle Rufus alluded.

And, really, it did elevate Dot and Tess. They had been pulled up and had descended as Sammy made the goat back, thus releasing the pull on the rope. All had gone well for several trips until the rope jammed in the pulley, thus leaving the two girls suspended in the basket at the highest point. Their screams, the fright of Sammy, the alarms of Uncle Rufus and Mrs. MacCall had followed in quick succession.

“Here’s the blanket!” cried Agnes speeding to the scene with a large woolen square under her arm. “Have they fallen yet?”

Behind her came stringing the guests. It had been impossible for them to remain in the library with their minds on civic betterment ideas when they heard what had happened.

“Well, did you ever!” cried one of the number in astonishment.

“What can it mean?” burst out a second.

“Looks to me like an amateur circus,” giggled a third. She was a lighthearted girl and had not taken much of an interest in the rather dry meeting.

“Those children will be hurt,” cried a nervous lady. “Oh, dear, why did they let them do such an awful thing as that?”

“I think they did it on their own account,” said another lady. “Our Tommy is just like that—into mischief the minute your back is turned.”

“I’m glad they came!” said Mr. Howbridge. “They may all take hold of the edges of the blanket and extend it as firemen do the life net. You may stand aside now, Mrs. MacCall, if you will,” he told the Scotch housekeeper, and not until then did she lower her apron and move out from under the swaying basket, murmuring as she did so something about Sammy being a “tapetless gowk” who needed a “crummock” or a good “flyte,” by which the girls understood that the boy in question was a senseless dolt who needed a severe whipping or a good scolding.

Ruth, Agnes and the guests took hold of the heavy blanket and held it under the basket as directed by Mr. Howbridge. Then, seeing there would be little danger to the children in case the basket should suddenly fall, the lawyer directed Sammy to loosen the goat from the rope.

“He’ll run if I do,” objected Sammy.

“Let him run, you ninnie!” cried Mrs. MacCall. “An’ if ever ye fetchet him yon again I’ll—I’ll—”

But she could not call up a sufficiently severe punishment, and had to subside.

Meanwhile the mischievous boy had led Billy Bumps off to one side, by the simple process of loosening the rope from the wagon harness to which it was fastened. Mr. Howbridge then took a firm hold of the cable and, after loosening it from where it had jammed in the pulley block, he braced his feet in the earth, against the downward pull of the basket, and so gently lowered Tess and Dot to the ground.

“I’m never going to play with you again, Sammy Pinkney!” cried Tess, climbing out of the basket and shaking her finger at the boy.

“Nor me, either!” added Dot, smoothing out the rumpled dress of her Alice-doll.

“Well, you asked me to make some fun and I did,” Sammy defended himself.

“Yes, and you made a lot of excitement, too,” added Ruth. “You had better come into the house now, children,” she went on. “And, Sammy, please take Billy away.”

“Yes’m,” he murmured. “But they asked me to elevator ’em up, an’ I did!”

“To which I shall bear witness,” said Mr. Howbridge, laughing.

Mrs. MacCall “shooed” Tess and Dot into the house, murmuring her thanks to providence over the escape, and, after a while, the excitement died away and Ruth went on with her meeting.

The Civic Betterment League was formed that afternoon and eventually, perhaps, did some good. But what this story is to concern itself with is the adventure on a houseboat of the Corner House girls. Meanwhile about a week went by. There had been no more elevator episodes, though this does not mean that Sammy did not make mischief, nor that Tess and Dot kept out of it. Far from that.

One bright afternoon, when school was out and the pre-supper appetites of Dot and Tess had been appeased, the two came running into the room where Ruth and Agnes sat.

“He’s here! He’s come!” gasped Tess.

“And he’s got, oh, such a dandy!” echoed Dot.

“Who’s here, and what has he?” asked Agnes, flying out of her chair.

“You shouldn’t say anything is a ‘dandy,’” corrected Ruth to her youngest sister.

“Well it is, and you told me always to tell the truth,” was the retort.

“It’s Mr. Howbridge and he’s out in front with a—the—er the beautifulest automobile!” cried Tess. “It’s all shiny an’ it’s got wheels, an’—an’ everything! It’s newer than our car.”

Ruth was sufficiently interested in this news to look from the window.

“It is Mr. Howbridge,” she murmured, as though there had been doubts on that point.

“And he must have a new auto,” added Agnes. “Oh, he has!” she cried.

A moment later they were welcoming their guardian at the door, while the smaller children formed an eager and anxious background.

“What has happened?” asked Agnes, while Ruth, remembering her position as head of the family, asked:

“Won’t you come in?”

“I’d much rather you would come out, Miss Ruth,” the man responded. “It is just the sort of day to be out—not in.”

“Especially in such a car as that!” exclaimed Agnes. “It’s a—”

“Be careful,” murmured Ruth, with an admonishing glance from Agnes to the smaller girls. “Little pitchers, you know—”

“It’s a wonderful car!” went on Agnes. “Is it yours?”

“Well, I sometimes doubt a little, when I recall what it cost me,” her guardian answered with a laugh. “But I am supposed to be the owner, and I have come to take you for a ride.”

“Oh, can’t we go?” came in a chorus from Tess and Dot.

“Yes, all of you!” laughed Mr. Howbridge. “That’s why I waited until school was out. They may come, may they not, Miss Ruth?” he asked. Always he was thus deferential to her when a question of family policy came up.

“Yes, I think so,” was the low-voiced answer. “But we planned to have an early tea and—”

“Oh, I promise to get you back home in plenty of time,” the lawyer said, with a laugh. “And after that, if you like, we might take another ride.”

“How wonderful!” murmured Agnes.

“Won’t you stay to tea?” asked Ruth.

“I was waiting for that!” exclaimed Mr. Howbridge. “I shall be delighted. Now then, youngsters, run out and hop in, but don’t touch anything, or you may be in a worse predicament than when you were in the clothes basket elevator.”

“We won’t!” cried Tess and Dot, running down the walk.

“You must come back and be washed!” cried Ruth. It was a standing order—that, and the two little girls knew better than to disobey.

But first they inspected the new car, walking all around it, and breathing in, with the odor of gasoline, the awed remarks of some neighboring children.

“That’s part our car,” Dot told these envious ones, as she and Tess started back toward the house. “We’re going for a ride in it, and don’t you dare touch anything on it or Mr. Howbridge’ll be awful mad!”

“Um, oh, whut a lubly auto,” murmured Alfredia Blossom, who had come on an errand to her grandfather, Uncle Rufus. “Dat’s jest de beatenistest one I eber see!”

“Yes, it is nice,” conceded Tess, proudly, airily and condescendingly.

A little later the two younger children and Agnes sat in the rear seat, while Ruth was beside Mr. Howbridge at the steering wheel. Then the big car purred off down the street, like a contented cat after a saucer of warm milk.

“It was very good of you to come and get us,” said Ruth, when they were bowling along. “Almost the christening trip of the car, too, isn’t it?” she asked.

“The very first trip I have made in it,” was the answer. “I wanted it properly christened, you see. There is a method in my madness, too. I have an object in view, Martha.”

Sometimes he called Ruth this, fancifully, with the thought in mind that she was “cumbered with many cares.”

Again he would apply to her the nickname of “Minerva,” with its suggestion of wisdom. And Ruth rather liked these fanciful appellations.

“You have an object?” she repeated.

“Yes,” he answered. “As usual, I want your advice.”

“As if it was really worth anything to you!” she countered.

“It will be in this case, I fancy,” he went on with a smile. “I want your opinion about a canal boat.”

CHAPTER V—THE HOUSEBOAT

Ruth stole a quick glance at the face of her guardian. There was a silence between them for a moment, broken only by the purr of the powerful machine and the suction of the rubber tires on the street. Agnes, Dot and Tess were having a gay time behind the two figures on the front seat.

“A canal boat?” murmured Ruth, as if she had not heard aright.

“Perhaps I had better qualify that statement,” went on Mr. Howbridge in his courtroom voice, “by saying that it is, at present, Minerva, on the canal. And a boat on the canal is a canal boat, is it not? I ask for a ruling,” and he laughed as he slowed down to round a corner.

“I don’t know anything about your legal phraseology,” answered Ruth, entering into the bantering spirit of the occasion, “but I don’t see why a boat on the canal becomes a canal boat any more than a cottage pudding becomes a house. The pudding has no cottage in it any more than a club sandwich has a club in it and—”

“I am completely at your mercy,” Mr. Howbridge broke in with. “But, speaking seriously, this boat is on the canal, though strictly it is not a canal boat. You know what they are, I dare say?”

“I used to have to take Tess and Dot down to the towpath to let them watch them often enough when we first came here,” said Ruth, with a laugh. “They used to think canal boats were the most wonderful objects in the world.”

“Are we going on a canal boat?” asked Tess, overhearing some of the talk on the front seat. “Oh, are we?”

“Oh, I hope we are!” added Dot. “My Alice-doll just loves canal boats. And wouldn’t it be splendiferous, Tess, if we could have a little one all to ourselves and Scalawag or maybe Billy Bumps to pull it instead of a mule?”

“That would be a sight on the towpath!” cried Agnes. “But what is this about canal boats, Mr. Howbridge?”

“Has some one opened a soda water store on board one?” asked Dot suddenly.

“Not exactly. You’ll see, presently. But I do want your opinion,” he went on, speaking directly to Ruth now, “and it has to do with a boat on a canal.”

“I still think you are joking,” she told him. “And except for the fact that we have a canal here in Milton I should think you were trying to fool me.”

“Impossible, Minerva,” he replied, soberly enough.

As Ruth had said, Milton was located on both the canal and a river, the two streams, if a canal can be called a stream, joining at a certain point, so that boats could go from one to the other. Gentory River, which acted as a feeder to one section of the canal, also connected with Lake Macopic, a large body of water. The lake contained many islands.

The automobile skirted the canal by a street running parallel to it, and then Mr. Howbridge turned down a rather narrow street, on which were situated several stores that sold supplies to the canal boats, and brought his machine to a stop on the bank of the waterway beside the towpath, as it is called from the fact that the mules or horses towing the boats walk along that level stretch of highway bordering the canal and forming part of the canal property.

At this part of the canal, the stream widened and formed a sort of harbor for boats of various kinds. It was also a refitting station; a place where a captain might secure new mules, hire helpers, buy grain for his animals and also victuals for himself and family; for the owners of the canal boats often lived aboard them. This place, known locally as “Henderson’s Cove,” was headquarters for all the canal boatmen of the vicinity.

“Here is where we disembark, to use a nautical term,” said Mr. Howbridge, with a smile at the younger children.

“Is this where we take the boat?” asked Dot eagerly.

“You might call it that,” said Mr. Howbridge, with another genial smile. “And now, Martha, to show that I was in earnest, there is the craft in question,” and he pointed to an old hulk of a canal boat, which had seen its best days.

“That! You want my opinion on that?” cried the girl, turning to her guardian in some surprise.

“Oh, no, the one next to it. The Bluebird.”

Ruth changed her view, and saw a craft which brought to her lips exclamations of delight, no less than to the lips of her sisters. For it was not a “rusty canaler” they beheld, but a trim craft, a typical houseboat, with a deck covered with a green striped awning and set with willow chairs, and a cabin, the windows of which, through their draped curtains, gave hint of delights within.

“Oh, how lovely!” murmured Agnes.

“A dream!” whispered Ruth. “But why do you bring us here to show us this?” she asked with much interest.

“Because,” began Mr. Howbridge, “I want to know if you would like—”

Just then an excited voice behind the little party burst out with:

“Oh, Mr. Howbridge, I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Neale O’Neil came hurrying along the towpath, seemingly much excited.

“I hope that Supreme Court decision hasn’t gone against me,” Ruth heard her guardian murmur. “If that case is lost—”

And then Neale began to talk excitedly.

CHAPTER VI—MORE NEWS

“They told me at your office you had come here, Mr. Howbridge,” said Neale. “And I hurried on as fast as I could.”

“Did they send you here to find me?” asked the lawyer.

“Yes, sir.”

“With any message?” As Mr. Howbridge asked this Ruth noticed that her guardian seemed very anxious about something.

“Yes, I have a message,” went on Neale. “It’s about—”

“The Jackson case?” interrupted the lawyer. “Is there a decision from the court and—”

“Oh, no, this isn’t anything about the Jackson case or any other,” Neale hastened to say. “It’s about my father. And—”

Ruth and Agnes could not help gasping in surprise. As for the two smaller Kenway children all they had eyes for was the houseboat.

“Oh, your father!” repeated Mr. Howbridge. “Have you found him, Neale?” There was very evident relief in the lawyer’s tone.

“No, sir, I haven’t found him. But you know you told me to come to you as soon as I had found that tramp mule driver again, and he’s back in town once more. He just arrived at the lower lock with a grain boat, and I hurried to tell you.”

“Yes, that was right, Neale,” said Mr. Howbridge. “Excuse me, Miss Ruth,” he went on, turning to the girl, “but I happen to be this young man’s legal adviser, and while I planned this for a pleasure trip, it seems that business can not be kept out of it.”

“Oh, we don’t mind!” exclaimed Ruth, with a smile at Neale. “Of course we know about this, and we’d be so glad if you could help find Mr. O’Neil.”

“All right then, if the young ladies have no objection,” said the lawyer, “we’ll combine business with pleasure. Suppose we go aboard the Bluebird. I want Miss Ruth’s opinion of her and—”

“I don’t see why in the world you want my opinion about this boat,” said the puzzled girl. “I’m almost sure there’s a joke in it, somewhere.”

“No, Martha, no joke at all, I do assure you,” answered her guardian. “You’ll understand presently. Now, Neale, you say this mule driver has come back?”

“Yes, sir. You know I went to you as soon as he gave me a hint that my father might have returned from Alaska, and you said to keep my eyes open for this man.”

“I did, Neale, yes. You of course know this story, don’t you, Miss Ruth?” he asked.

“Yes, I believe we were the first Neale told about it.”

“Well,” went on Mr. Howbridge, while Tess and Dot showed signs of impatience to get on board the boat, “I told Neale we must find out more from this Hank Dayton, the mule driver, before we could do anything, or start to advertise for Mr. O’Neil. And now, it seems, he is here again. At first, Neale, when I saw you hurrying along, excited, I was afraid I had lost a very important law case. I am glad you did not bring bad news.”

Ruth stole a glance at her guardian’s face. He was more than usually quiet and anxious, she thought, though he tried to be gay and jolly.

“We’ll have a look at this boat,” said Mr. Howbridge, as they advanced toward it. “I’ll get Minerva’s opinion, and then we’ll try to find Hank Dayton.”

“I know where to find him,” said Neale. “He’s going to bunk down at the lower lock for a while. I made him promise to stay there until he could have a talk with you.”

“Very good,” announced the lawyer. “Now come on, youngsters!” he cried with a gayer manner, and he caught Dot up in his arms and carried her aboard the boat, Neale, Ruth and the others following.

It was a typical houseboat. That is, it was a sort of small house built on what would otherwise have been a scow. The body of the boat was broad beamed forward and aft, as a sailor would say. That is, it was very wide, whereas most boats are pointed at the bow, and only a little less narrow at the stern.

“It’s like a small-sized canal boat, isn’t it?” remarked Agnes, as they went down into the cabin.

“But ever so much nicer,” said Ruth.

“Oh, look at the cute little cupboards!” cried Dot. “I could keep my dolls there.”

“And here’s a sweet place for the cats!” added Tess, raising the cover of a sort of box in a corner. “It would be a crib.”

“That’s a locker,” explained Mr. Howbridge, with a smile.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to lock Almira in there!” exclaimed the little girl. “She might smother, and how could she get out to play with her kittens?”

“Oh, I don’t mean that it can be locked,” explained the lawyer. “It is just called that on a boat. Cupboards on the wall and the window seats on the floor are generally called lockers on board a ship.”

“Is this a ship?” asked Dot.

“Well, enough like one to use some of the same words,” replied Mr. Howbridge. “Now let’s look through it.”

This they did, and each step brought forth new delights. They had gone down a flight of steps and first entered a small cabin which was evidently intended for a living room. Back of that was very plainly the dining room, for it contained a table and some chairs and on the wall were two cupboards, or “lockers” as the lawyer said they must be called.

“And they have real dishes in them!” cried Tess, flattening her nose against one of the glass doors.

“Don’t do that, dear,” said Ruth in a low voice.

“But I want to see,” insisted Tess.

“So do I!” chimed in Dot, and soon the two little sisters, side by side, with noses pressed flat against the doors, were taking in the sights of the dishes. Mr. Howbridge silently motioned to Ruth to let them do as they pleased.

“Oh, what a lovely dolls’ party we could have here!” sighed Dot, as she turned away from the dish locker.

“And couldn’t Almira come?” asked Tess, appealing to Agnes. “And bring one of her kittens?”

“Yes, we’ll even allow you two kittens, for fear one would get lonesome,” laughed Mr. Howbridge. “But come on. You haven’t seen it all yet.”

There was a small kitchen back of the dining room, and both Ruth and Agnes were interested to see how conveniently everything was arranged.

“It would be ever so much easier to get meals here than in the Corner House,” was Ruth’s opinion.

“Do you think so?” asked the lawyer.

“Yes, everything is so handy. You hardly have to take a step to reach anything,” added Agnes. “You only have to turn from the stove to the sink, and another turn and you have everything you want, from a toasting fork to an egg beater,” and she indicated the different kitchen utensils hanging in a rack over the stove.

“I’m glad you like it,” said Mr. Howbridge, and Ruth found herself wondering why he said that.

They passed into the sleeping quarters where small bunks, almost like those in Pullman cars, were neatly arranged, even to a white counterpane and pillow shams on each one.

“Oh, how lovely.”

“And how clean and neat!”

“It’s just like a sleeping car on the railroad.”

“Yes, or one of those staterooms on some steamers.”

“A person could sleep as soundly here as in a bed at home,” was Ruth’s comment.

“Yes, unless the houseboat rocked like a ship,” said Agnes.

“I don’t think it could rock much on the canal.”

“No, but it might on a river, or a lake. I guess a houseboat like this can go almost anywhere.”

There were two sets of sleeping rooms, one on either side of a middle hall or passageway. Then came a small bathroom. And back of that was something that made Neale cry out in delight.

“Why, the boat has an engine!” exclaimed the boy. “It runs by motor!”

“Yes, the Bluebird is a motor houseboat,” said Mr. Howbridge, with a smile. “It really belongs on Lake Macopic, but to get it there through the canal mules will have to be used, as this boat has such a big propeller that it would wash away the canal banks. It is not allowed to move it through the canal under its own power.”

“That’s a dandy engine all right!” exclaimed Neale, and he knew something about them for one summer he had operated a small motor craft on the Gentory River, as well as running the Corner House girls’ automobile for them. “I wish I could run this,” he went on with a sigh, “but I don’t suppose there’s any chance.”

“I don’t know about that,” said the lawyer, musingly. “That is what I brought Minerva here to talk about. Let’s go back to the main cabin and sit down.”

“I’m going to sit on one of the lockers!” cried Tess, darting off ahead of the others.

“I want to sit on it, too!” exclaimed Dot.

“There are two lockers on the floor—one for each,” laughed Mr. Howbridge.

As the little party moved into the main cabin, Ruth found herself wondering more and more what Mr. Howbridge wanted her opinion on. She was not long, however, in learning.

“Here is the situation,” began the lawyer, when they were all seated facing him. His tone reminded Ruth of the time he had come to talk to them about their inheritance of the Corner House. “This boat, the Bluebird, belongs to an estate. The estate is being settled up, and the boat is going to be sold. A man living at the upper end of Lake Macopic has offered to buy it at a fair price if it is delivered to him in good condition before the end of summer. As the legal adviser of the estate I have undertaken to get this boat to the purchaser. And what I brought you here for, to-day, Minerva,” he said, smiling at Ruth, “is to ask your opinion about the best way of getting the boat there.”

“Do you really mean that?” asked the girl.

“I certainly do.”

“Well, I should say the best plan would be to start it going, and steer it up the canal to the river, through the river into the lake and up the lake to the place where it is to be delivered,” Ruth answered, smiling.

“But Mr. Howbridge said the boat couldn’t be moved by the motor on the canal,” objected Agnes.

“Well, have mules tow it, then,” advised Ruth. “That is very simple.”

“I am glad you think so,” replied the lawyer. “And the next matter on which I wish your advice is whether to start the boat off alone on her trip, or just in charge of, say, the mule driver.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to trust a lovely houseboat like this to only a mule driver!” exclaimed Ruth.

“That’s what I thought,” went on her guardian, with another smile. “It needs some one on board to look after it, doesn’t it?”

“Well, yes, I should say so.”

“Then how would you like to take charge?” came the unexpected question.

“Me?” cried Ruth. “Me?”

“You, and all of you!” went on the lawyer. “Listen. Here is the situation. I have to send this houseboat to Lake Macopic. You dwellers of the Corner House need a vacation. You always have one every summer, and I generally advise you where to go. At least you always ask me, and sometimes you take my advice.

“This time I advise you to take a houseboat trip. And I make this offer. I will provide the boat and all the needful food and supplies, such as gasoline and oil when you reach the river and lake. Everything else is on board, from beds to dishes. I will also hire a mule driver and engage some mules for the canal trip. Now, how does that suit you?”

“Oh! Oh!” exclaimed Agnes, and it seemed to be all she could say for a moment. She just looked at Mr. Howbridge with parted lips and sparkling eyes.

“How wonderful!” murmured Ruth.

“Can we go?” cried Tess.

“The whole family, including Neale,” said Mr. Howbridge.

“Oo-ee!” gasped Dot, wide-eyed.

Agnes and Neale stared entranced at each other, Agnes, for once, speechless.

“Well, now I have made the offer, think it over, and while you are doing that I’ll give a little attention to Neale’s case,” went on Mr. Howbridge. “Now, young man, suppose we go and find this mule driver who seems to know something of your father.”

“Oh, wait! Don’t go away just yet!” begged Ruth. “Let’s talk about the trip some more! Do you really think we can go?”

“I want you to go. It would be doing me a favor,” said the lawyer. “I must get this boat to Lake Macopic somehow, and I don’t know a better way than to have Martha and her family take it,” and he bowed formally to his ward.

“And did you really mean I may go, too?” asked Neale.

“If you can arrange it, and Miss Ruth agrees.”

“Of course I will! But, oh, there will be such a lot to do to get ready. We’d have to take Mrs. MacCall along, too,” she added.

“Of course,” assented Mr. Howbridge. “By all means!”

“And would you go too?” asked Ruth.

“Would you like me to?” the lawyer countered.

“Of course. We’d all like it.”

“I might manage to make at least part of the trip,” was the reply. “Then you have decided to take my offer?”

“Oh, I think it’s perfectly wonderful!” burst out Agnes.

As for Tess and Dot, it could be told what they thought by just looking at them.

“Very well then,” said the guardian, “we’ll consider it settled. I’ll have to see about mules and a driver for the canal part of the trip and—”

An exclamation from Neale interrupted him.

“What is it?” asked the lawyer.

“Why couldn’t we hire Hank Dayton for a mule driver?” Neale asked. “He’s rough, but I think he’s a decent man and honest, and he knows a lot about the canal and boats and mules.”

“It might not be a bad idea,” assented Mr. Howbridge. “We’ll find him and ask him, Neale. And it would be killing two birds with one stone. He could help you in your search for your father. Yes, I think that will be a good plan. Girls, I’ll leave you here to look over the Bluebird at your leisure while Neale and I go to interview the mule driver.”

“And I hope he will be able to tell you how to find your father, Neale,” said Agnes, in a low voice.

“I hope so, too,” added the boy. “You don’t know, Aggie, how much I’ve wanted to find father.”

“Of course I do, Neale. And you’ll find him, too!”

Neale went on with Mr. Howbridge, somewhat cheered by Agnes’ sympathy.

CHAPTER VII—MAKING PLANS

Left to themselves on the Bluebird, Ruth, Agnes, Dot and Tess went over every part of it again, from the engine room to the complete kitchen and living apartments.

“Neale will just love fussing around that motor,” said Agnes.

“You speak as if we had already decided to make the trip,” remarked Ruth, with a bright glance at her sister.

“Why, yes, haven’t you?” Agnes countered. “I thought you and Mr. Howbridge had fixed it up between you when you were chatting up on the front seat of the auto.”

“He never said a word to me about it,” declared Ruth.

“He must have said something,” insisted her sister.

“Oh, of course we talked, but not about this,” and Ruth swept her hands about to indicate the Bluebird. “I was as much surprised as you to have him ask us if we would take her up to the lake.”

“Well, it will be delightful, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I think it will. But of course it depends on Mrs. MacCall.”

“I don’t see why!” exclaimed Agnes quickly and reproachfully.

“Of course you do. She’ll have to go along to act as chaperone and all that. We may have to tie up at night in lonely places along the canal or river and—”

“We’ll have Neale and Mr. Howbridge! And how about asking Luke Shepard and his sister Cecile?” went on Agnes.

Ruth flushed a little.

“I don’t believe Cecile and Luke can go,” she replied slowly. “Cecile has got to go home to take care of her Aunt Lorena, who is sick, and Luke wrote me that he had a position offered to him as a clerk in a summer hotel down on the coast, and it is to pay so well that he would not dream of letting the opportunity pass.”

“Oh, that’s too bad, Ruth. You won’t see much of him.”

“I am not sure I’ll see anything of him.” And Ruth’s face clouded a little.

“Well, anyway, as I said before, we’ll have Neale and Mr. Howbridge,” continued Agnes.

“Neale. But Mr. Howbridge is not sure he can go—at least all the way. However, we’ll ask Mrs. MacCall.”

“I think she’ll be just crazy to go!” declared Agnes. “Come on, let’s go right away and find out.”

“But we must wait for Mr. Howbridge to come back. He told us to.”

“Well, then we’ll say we’re already living on board,” said Agnes. “Oh, won’t it be fun to eat on a houseboat!” and she danced off to the dining room, took her seat at the table, and exclaimed: “I’ll have a steak, rare, with French fried potatoes, plenty of gravy and a cup of tea and don’t forget the pie à la mode.”

Tess and Dot laughed and Ruth smiled. They then went all over the boat again, with the result that they grew more and more enthusiastic about the trip. And when Mr. Howbridge and Neale came back in the automobile a little later, beaming faces met them.

“Well, what about it, Minerva?” Mr. Howbridge asked Ruth. “Are you going to act as caretakers for the boat to help me settle the estate?”

“Since you put it that way, as a favor, I can not refuse,” she answered, giving him a swift smile. “But, as I told the girls, it will depend on Mrs. MacCall.”

“You leave her to me,” laughed the lawyer. “I’ll recite one of Bobby Burns’ poems, and if that doesn’t win her over nothing will. Neale, do you think you can manage that motor?”

“I’m sure of it,” said the boy. “It isn’t the same kind I had to run before, but I can get the hang of it all right.”

“Is there any news about your father?” asked Ruth, glancing from her guardian to the boy.

“Nothing very definite,” answered the lawyer. “We found Hank Dayton, and in spite of his rough and ragged clothes I discovered him to be a reliable fellow. He told us all he knew about the rumor of Mr. O’Neil having returned from the Klondike, and I am going to start an inquiry, with newspaper advertising and all that. And I may as well tell you that I have engaged this same Hank Dayton to drive the mules that will draw the Bluebird on the canal part of the trip.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Agnes. “I thought Neale said this man was a tramp!”

“He is, in appearance,” said Mr. Howbridge, with a smile. “A person can not wear an evening suit and drive canal mules. But Hank seems to be a sterling chap at the bottom, and with Neale and Mrs. MacCall to keep him straight, you will have no trouble.

“It is really necessary,” he went on, “to have some man who understands the canal, the mules, and the locks to look after the boat, and I think this Dayton will answer. He has just finished a trip, and so Neale and I hired him. It will be well for Neale to keep in touch with him, too, for through Hank we may get more news of Mr. O’Neil. And now, if you have sufficiently looked over the Bluebird, we may as well go back.”

“It would be a good while before I could see enough of her!” exclaimed Agnes. “I’m just in love with the craft, and I know we shall have a delightful summer on her. Only the trip will be over too soon, I’m afraid.”

“There is no necessity for haste,” the lawyer assured her. “The purchaser of the boat does not want her until fall, and you may linger as long as you like on the trip.”

“Good!” exclaimed Agnes.

A family council was held the next day at which Mr. Howbridge laid all the facts before Mrs. MacCall. At first the Scotch housekeeper would not listen to any proposal for the trip on the water. But when Ruth and Agnes had spoken of the delights of the boat, and when the housekeeper had personally inspected the Bluebird, she changed her mind.

“Though I never thought, in my old age, I’d come to bein’ a houseboat keeper,” she chuckled. “But ’tis all in the day’s work. I’ll gang with ye ma lassies. A canal boat is certainly more staid than an ice-boat, and I went alang with ye on that.”

“Hurray!” cried Agnes, unable to restrain her joy. “All aboard for Lake Macopic!”

The door opened and Aunt Sarah Maltby came in.

“I thought I heard some one calling,” she said anxiously.

“It was Agnes,” explained Ruth. “She’s so excited about the trip.”

“Fish? What fish? It isn’t Friday, is it?” asked the old lady, who was getting rather deaf.

“No, Auntie dear, I didn’t say fish—I said trip.” And Ruth spoke more loudly. “We are going to make a trip on a houseboat for our summer vacation. Would you like to come along?”

Aunt Sarah Maltby shook her head, as Tess pulled out a chair for her.

“I’m getting too old, my dear, to go traipsing off over the country in one of those flying machines.”

“It’s a houseboat—not a flying machine,” Agnes explained.

“Well, it’s about the same, I reckon,” returned the old lady. “No, I’ll stay at home and look after things at the Corner House. It’ll need somebody.”

“Yes, there’s no doubt of that,” Ruth said.

So it was arranged. Aunt Sarah Maltby would stay at home with Linda and Uncle Rufus, while Mrs. MacCall accompanied the Corner House girls on the houseboat.

There was much to be done before the trip could be undertaken, and many business details to arrange, for, as inheritors of the Stower estate, Ruth and her sisters received rents from a number of tenants, some of them in not very good circumstances.

“And we must see that they will want nothing while we are gone,” Ruth had said.

It was part of her self-imposed duties to play Lady Bountiful to some of the poorer persons who rented Uncle Peter Stower’s tenements.

“Well, as long as you don’t go to buying ‘dangly jet eawin’s’ for Olga Pederman it will be all right,” said Agnes, and they laughed at this remembrance of the girl who, when ill with diphtheria, had asked for these ornaments when Ruth called to see what she most wanted.

Eventually all the many details were arranged and taken care of. A mechanic had gone over the motor of the Bluebird and pronounced it in perfect running order, a fact which Neale verified for himself. He had made all his plans for going on the trip, and between that and eagerly waiting for any news of his missing father, his days were busy ones.

Mr. Howbridge had closely questioned Hank Dayton and had learned all that rover could tell, which was not much. But it seemed certain that Mr. O’Neil had started from Alaska for the States.

That he had not, even on his arrival, written to Neale, was probably due to the fact that the man did not know where his son was. His Uncle Bill Sorber, of course, knew Neale’s address, but the trouble was that the circus, which was not a very large affair, traveled about so, on no well-kept scheduled route, that Mr. Sorber was difficult to find. Letters had been addressed to him at several places where it was thought his show might be, but, so far, no answer had been received. He was asked to send a message to Mr. Howbridge as soon as any word came from Mr. O’Neil.

To Hank Dayton was left the task of picking out some mules to tow the houseboat through the stretch of canal. About a week, or perhaps longer, would be consumed on this trip, as there was no hurry.

Where the voyage is kept up for any length of time, two sets of mules or horses are used in towing canal boats. When one team is wearied it is put in the stable, which is on board the canal boat, and the other team is led out over a bridge, or gangplank, specially made for the purpose, on to the towpath.

But on the Bluebird there were no provisions for the animals, so it was planned to buy only one team of mules, drive the animals at a leisurely pace through the day and let them rest at night either in the open, along the canal towpath, or in some of the canal barns that would be come upon on the trip. At the end of the trip the animals would be sold. Mr. Howbridge had decided that this was the best plan to follow, though there was a towing company operating on the canal for such boat owners as did not possess their own animals.

As Mr. Howbridge had shrewdly guessed, the rough clothes of Hank Dayton held a fairly good man. He had been in poor luck, but he was not dissipated, and even Mrs. MacCall approved of him when he had been shaved, a shave being something he had lacked when Neale first saw him. Then, indeed, he had looked like a veritable tramp.

Gradually all that was to be done was accomplished, and the day came when Ruth and Agnes could say:

“To-morrow we start on our wonderful trip. Oh, I’m so happy!”

“What about your Civic Betterment Club?” asked Agnes of her sister.

“That will have to keep until I come back. Really no one wants to undertake any municipal reforms in the summer.”

“Oh, my! The political airs we put on!” laughed Agnes. “Well, I’m glad you are going to have a good time. You need it.”

“Yes, I think the change will be good for all of us,” murmured Ruth. “Tess and Dot seem delighted, and—”

She stopped suddenly, for from the floor above came a cry of alarm followed by one of distress.

“What’s that?” gasped Ruth.

“Dot or Tess, I should say,” was the opinion of Agnes. “They must have started in to get some of their change already. Oh, gee!”

“Agnes!” Ruth took time to protest, for she very much objected to Agnes’ slang.

A moment later Dot came bursting into the room, crying:

“Oh, she’s in! She’s in! And it isn’t holding her up at all! Come on, quick. Both of you! Tess is in!”

CHAPTER VIII—THE ROBBERY

Dot Kenway stood in the middle of the room, dancing up and down, fluttering her hands and crying over and over again:

“She’s in! She’s in! And it isn’t holding her up! Oh, come quick!”

With a bound Ruth was at her sister’s side. She grasped Dot by the arm and held her still.

“Be quiet, honey, and tell me what the matter is,” Ruth demanded.

“Oh, she’s in! She’s in! And it isn’t holding her up!” Dot repeated.

“We’d better go and see what it is,” suggested Agnes. “Tess may merely have fallen out of bed.”

“Fallen out of bed—this time of day?” cried Ruth. “Impossible!”

But she let go of Dot and sped up the stairs whence floated down a series of startled cries. Agnes followed, while Dot called after them:

“Look in the bathroom! She’s in! It isn’t holding her up!”

To the bathroom rushed Ruth and Agnes, there to behold a sight which first made them gasp and then, instantly, started them into energetic action. For Tess was floundering about in the tub, full of water, with part of her bathing suit on and something bulky tied around her waist. She was clinging to the edge of the tub with both hands and trying to get to her feet. The tub was filled with water, and much of it was splashing over the side. Fortunately the floor of the bathroom was tiled.

“Oh, Tess! what are you doing?” cried Agnes, as she and Ruth pulled the small girl to her feet. Tess was gasping for breath, and had evidently swallowed some water.

“I—I—er—gug—I—was—” That was all Tess could say for a while.

“You poor child!” exclaimed Ruth, reaching for a towel, to dry the dripping face. “Did you fall in? And what possessed you to put on your bathing suit?”

“And what have you got around your waist?” cried Agnes.

“That—that—that’s my—my life preserver!” exploded Tess. “If—if you’ll take the towel out of my moo-oo-oo-uth I’ll t-t-tell—you!” she stammered.

“Yes, do let’s let her tell, for mercy’s sake!” exclaimed Ruth. “Did your head go under, Tessie, dear?”

Tess nodded. It was easier than speaking, especially as she had not yet quite got her breath back.

The two older sisters dried her partly on the towel, the little girl raising her hands to keep her sisters from stuffing any more of the Turkish towel into her mouth, and then Dot came up the stairs.

“Is she—is she drowned?” was the awed whisper.

“No, but she might have been,” answered Ruth.

“What were you two doing? This is worse than the clothes basket elevator. What were you doing?”

“I was making a life preserver,” volunteered Tess, when she had been helped out of the bathtub and was standing on a big mat that absorbed the little rivulets of water streaming from her.

“A life preserver?” questioned Agnes.

“Yes,” Tess nodded. “I thought maybe I might fall off the houseboat and I didn’t see any life preservers on it, so I made one.”

“Out of the hot water bag,” put in Dot. “She tied it around her waist and she wanted me to tie one on me and make believe we fell into the bathtub. But I wouldn’t, and she got in, and it didn’t hold her up.”

“I should say it didn’t!” cried Agnes. “How could you expect a rubber bag full of water to hold you up? It couldn’t hold itself up.”

“It wasn’t full of water. I blew it up full of air just as Sammy Pinkney blows up his football,” said Tess. “And that floats in water, ’cause I saw it.”

“A hot water bag is different,” returned Ruth. “Yes, she has one on,” she added, as she and Agnes unwrapped from their sister some folds of cloth by which the partly inflated hot-water bag had been fastened around Tess’s waist.

“Don’t you ever do anything like that again!” scolded Dot, as Tess was sent to her room to dress while Linda came up to mop the floor.

“Well, what am I to do if I fall overboard off the Bluebird, I’m asking you?” called Tess, turning back, and holding her bath robe around her slim form. “There aren’t any life preservers on it!”

“We will provide some if they are needed,” said Ruth, laughing.

Just then Aunt Sarah Maltby came in and heard the story from Agnes.

“Just think, Dot and Tess, one of you might have been drowned,” she said severely. “If that bag had got around your feet, and the winding strips had tangled, your feet might have been held up and your head down. You might easily have been drowned in the bathtub.”

“Not me—I wouldn’t!” declared Dot.

“Why not?” Agnes wanted to know.

“’Cause I wouldn’t get in it! I told Tess maybe it was dangerous.”

“Well, it wouldn’t have been if I’d had more air in the bag,” called Tess from the half-open door of her room. “That was the matter.”

Mrs. MacCall shook her head when she heard what had happened.

“I ha me doots about them on the boat,” she said. “If they cut up such didoes here, what’ll they do then?”

“Oh, I think we shall manage somehow,” said Ruth with cheerful philosophy. “We’re used to mishaps.”

By dint of hard work the final preparations for the houseboat trip were made. The Bluebird was got in shape for the first part of the trip through the canal. Hank Dayton had been “slicked up,” and had his two sturdy mules in readiness. Neale had tested the motor again. A supply of food had been put on board, together with gasoline to use as soon as the transition from the canal to the river should have taken place.

Mr. Howbridge had arranged his plans so as to start with the girls, and Mrs. MacCall had her small trunk packed and in readiness. All that was possible had been done to get into communication with Neale’s father, and all that could be done was to await word from him, or from Mr. Sorber, who might be the first to hear, that the missing Klondike explorer had returned.

And at last the morning of the start arrived.

“Oh, it’s going to rain!” cried Tess as she arose early and ran to the window to look out.

“I don’t care. We can take umbrellas, and the boat has a roof on it,” said Dot. “My Alice-doll has been wet before.”

“But Almira doesn’t like rain, and her kittens might get cold,” objected Tess.

“We can’t take Almira!” said Ruth in a voice that Tess knew it was useless to appeal from. “The poor cat wouldn’t have a good time, Tessie, and she’d be in the way with her kittens.”

“She could catch mice,” suggested Tess, as a sort of last hope.

“There are mice on canal boats. I heard Hank Dayton say so,” put in Dot, seeking to strengthen Tess’s position.

“We’ll get a cat later if we need it,” compromised Ruth. “Don’t think of bringing Almira.”

“All right!” assented Dot, and then Tess called:

“There’s Sammy, and he’s got Billy Bumps. Let’s go down and tell them good-by!”

“Can’t Sammy come with us?” asked Dot, turning to Ruth.

“No indeed, nor the goat either! So don’t ask him and make him feel bad when I have to refuse him.”

“All right,” sighed Dot.

Then she and Tess finished dressing and went out to greet Sammy, who was paying one of his early morning calls.

“Want me to do any errands for you, Ruth?” he politely asked when he had refused an invitation to breakfast, saying he had already eaten.

“No, thank you, Sammy,” was the answer.

“I could go quick—hitch Billy to the wagon and get anything you wanted from the village,” he went on.

Ruth shook her head, and then had to hurry away to see about one of the many last-minute details.

“Well, good-by, then,” said Sammy to the other sisters, as he prepared to depart. “I wish I was going! We could take Billy Bumps.”

“But if they wouldn’t let me take a cat on the boat I don’t suppose they’d want a goat,” put in Tess.

“I don’t guess so,” said Sammy, more meekly than he usually spoke. “Well, good-by!” And down the street he went, taking Billy Bumps, who belonged to Tess and Dot, with him.

“It does look like rain,” said Agnes, when it was almost time for Mr. Howbridge to call for them in his machine to take them and their baggage to the houseboat.

“It may hold off until we get on board,” said Ruth. She gave a sudden start. “Oh, Agnes! Our jewelry! We forgot to take it to the bank!”

“That’s so! I knew we’d forget something! Well, haven’t we time to run down with it now before Mr. Howbridge comes?”

Ruth looked at her wrist watch.

“Just about,” was her decision. “Come on. You and I can take the package down and then hurry back.”

“You’d best take an umbrella, ma dearies!” cautioned Mrs. MacCall. “’Tis showery goin’ to be this day!”

“We’ll take one,” assented Ruth.

She and Agnes had planned to leave their jewelry and some other articles of value in their safe deposit box, but had forgotten it until now.

The two older girls sallied forth with a large umbrella, which Agnes carried, while Ruth had the package of jewelry.

They were half way to the bank, no great distance from home, when suddenly a downpour began with the usual quickness of a summer shower.

“Hurry! Raise the umbrella!” cried Ruth. “I’m getting drenched!”

“Isn’t it terrible!” gasped Agnes.

She and her sister stepped into the shelter of the nearest doorway for a moment. Something was wrong with the catch of the umbrella. Ruth was just going to help her sister raise it when suddenly two rough-looking men rushed from the hall back of the doorway in which the girls had taken shelter.

One of the men rudely brushed past Ruth, and, as he did so, he made a grab for the packet of jewelry, snatching it from her.

“Oh!” screamed the girl. “Stop! Oh! Oh, Agnes!”

The other man turned and pushed Agnes back as she leaned forward to help Ruth.

Then, as the rain came down harder than ever, the men sped up the street, leaving the two horror-stricken girls breathless in the doorway.

CHAPTER IX—ALL ABOARD

For a moment after the robbery neither Ruth nor Agnes felt capable of saying anything or doing anything. Ruth, it is true, had cried out as the burly ruffian had snatched the packet of jewelry from her, and then fear seemed to paralyze her. But this was only for a moment. In few seconds both she and Agnes became their energetic selves, as befitted the characters of Corner House girls.

“Oh, Agnes! did you see? He has the jewelry!” cried Ruth.

“Yes, I saw! He pushed me back or I’d have grabbed it away again! We must take after them!”

The girls started to leave, having managed to get the umbrella up, but at that instant there came such a fierce blast of wind and such a blinding downpour of rain that they were fairly forced back into the doorway.

And, more than this, their umbrella was turned inside out and sent flapping in their faces by the erratic wind, so that they could not see what they were doing.

“This is awful!” exclaimed Agnes, and she was near to crying.

“We must call for help,” said Ruth, but they would have needed to shout very loud indeed to be heard above the racket made by the wind and rain. A momentary glimpse up and down the street, when a view of it could be had amid the sheets of rain, showed no one in sight.

“What shall we do?” cried Ruth, vainly trying to get the umbrella to its proper shape.

At that moment the door behind them opened. The girls turned, fearing a further attack, but they saw Myra Stetson, whose father kept a grocery, and it was in the doorway adjoining the store that the Corner House girls had taken refuge.

“What is the matter?” asked Myra, when she saw who it was. “I heard the door blow open and I came down to shut it.”

The Stetson family lived up over the grocery, where there were two flats.

“What has happened?” went on the grocer’s daughter. She was rather more friendly with Agnes than with Ruth, but knew both sisters, and, indeed, Ruth was planning to have Myra on one of the Civic Betterment committees. There had been some little differences of opinion between Myra and Agnes, but these had been smoothed out and the girls were now good friends.

“We’ve been robbed! At least Ruth has!” exclaimed Agnes. “A ruffian took our jewelry box!”

“You don’t mean it!” cried Myra.

“I only wish I didn’t,” said Ruth brokenly. “Oh, my lovely rings!”

“And my pins!” added Agnes.

“Tell me about it,” begged Myra, and, rather breathlessly, the Corner House girls told the story of the assault of the two burly men in the doorway.

“They ran off down the street with the box of jewelry we were taking to the bank,” explained Ruth.

“Then you’d better tell the police at once,” advised Myra. “Come on up into our flat and you can telephone from there. Mr. Buckley is a special officer and he has a telephone. Father will send for him. Do come up!”

“Yes, I think we had better,” agreed Ruth. “And we must notify Mr. Howbridge. That is, if he hasn’t left his office.”

“If he has we can get him at our house,” said Agnes. “We were just going to start on a houseboat trip when this terrible thing happened,” she explained to Myra.

“Isn’t it too bad!” said the grocer’s daughter. “But do come upstairs. Did you say the man came out of our hallway?”

“Yes,” answered Ruth. “We stepped into the doorway to be out of the rain for a moment and to raise the umbrella, the catch of which had been caught in some way, when they both rushed past us, one of them grabbing the box from under my arm.”

“And one gave me a shove,” added Agnes.

“That’s the most amazing thing I ever heard of!” declared Myra. “Those men must have been hiding in there waiting for you.”

“But how did they know we were coming?” asked Ruth. “We didn’t think of going to the bank with the jewelry ourselves until a few minutes ago. Those men couldn’t have known about it.”

“Then it’s very strange,” said Myra. “I must tell father about it. There may be more of them hiding upstairs.”

“Do you mean in your house?” asked Agnes, for they were now ascending the stairs, the refractory umbrella having at last been subdued and turned right side out.

“I mean in the vacant flat above ours,” went on Myra. “It’s to let, you know, and two men were in to look at it yesterday. They said they were from the Klondike.”

“From the Klondike!” exclaimed Ruth, and she and Agnes exchanged significant glances.

“Yes. That’s in Alaska where they dig gold, you know,” explained Myra. “I didn’t see the men. Father said they came to look at the flat, and one of them remarked they had just come back from the gold regions. They didn’t rent it though, as far as I know.”

“Isn’t that strange?” said Agnes slowly.

“Very,” agreed Ruth, and, by a look, she warned her sister not to say any more just then.

They were ushered into the Stetson living apartment over the store and Mr. and Mrs. Stetson were soon listening to the story.

“The idea of any men daring to use our hallway to commit a robbery!” cried Mrs. Stetson. “Father, you’d better see if any more of the villains are hiding. I’m sure I’ll not sleep a wink this night.”

“I’ll take a look,” said the grocer. “That hall door often blows open, though. The lock needs fixing. It would be easy for any one to slip into the lower hall from the street and wait there.”

“That’s what they probably did,” said Agnes. “And it was just by accident that we went up to the doorway to raise the umbrella. The men must have seen us, and, though they couldn’t have known what was in the box, they took it anyhow. Oh, it’s too bad! Our trip is spoiled now!” and she was on the verge of tears.

“Don’t worry, my dear,” advised Mrs. Stetson. “We’ll get the police after them. Father, you must telephone at once. And you must have a look in those vacant rooms upstairs.”

“I will,” promised the grocer, and then began a period of activity. A clerk and a porter from the grocery downstairs made a careful examination of the upper premises, but, of course, discovered no more thieves. And, naturally, there were no traces of the men who had robbed Ruth and Agnes.

The telephone soon put the police authorities of Milton in possession of the facts, and Special Officer Buckley, was soon “on the job,” as he expressed it. He came, a burly figure in rubber boots and a glistening rubber coat, to the Stetson apartment, there to hear the story first-hand from Ruth and Agnes. With him also came Jimmy Dale, a reporter from the Milton Morning Post.

Jimmy had been at the police headquarters when word of the robbery was telephoned in, and he, too, “got on the job.”

All the description Ruth and Agnes could give of the men was that they were rough and burly and not very well dressed. But it had all taken place so quickly and in such obscurity amid the mist of the rain that it was difficult for either girl to be accurate.

Then as much as was possible was done. Several other special officers were notified of the occurrence, and the regular police force of Milton, no very large aggregation, was instructed to “pick up” any suspicious characters about town.

Mr. Stetson confirmed the statement made by Myra that two men who claimed to have recently returned from the Klondike had been to look at the vacant flat the day before. In appearance they were rather rough, the grocer said, though he would not call them tramps by any means.

There might be a possible connection between the two, it was agreed. Mr. Howbridge was notified by telephone, and called in his automobile for the two girls, who, after some tea, felt a little more composed.

“But, oh my lovely jewelry!” exclaimed Agnes. “It’s gone!”

“And mine,” added Ruth. “There were some things of Dot’s and Tessie’s in the box, too, and mother’s wedding ring,” and Ruth sighed.

“The police may recover it,” said the lawyer. “I am glad neither of you was harmed,” and his gaze rested anxiously on his wards.

“No, they barely touched me,” said the older girl. “One of them just grabbed the box and ran.”

“The other one gave me a shove,” declared Agnes. “If I had known what he was up to he wouldn’t have got away so easily. I haven’t been playing basket ball for nothing!” she boasted.

“Well, I think there is nothing more to be done,” said their guardian. “While there is no great rush, I think the sooner we get started on our houseboat trip the better. So if you’ll come with me, I’ll take you home, we can gather up the last of the baggage and make a quick trip to the Bluebird. I have the side curtains up and the rain is stopping, I think.”

“Oh, are we going on the trip—now—after the robbery?” asked Ruth doubtfully.

“Yes. Why not?” inquired the lawyer, with a smile. “You can do nothing by staying here, and if the men should be arrested I can arrange to bring you back to identify them. I know how bad you feel, but the trip will be the best thing in the world for you, for it will take your mind from your loss.”

“Yes, Ruth, it will!” agreed Agnes, for she saw that her sister was much affected.

“Well, we’ll go back home, anyhow,” assented Ruth. And after they had thanked the Stetson’s for their hospitality the two sisters left in charge of Mr. Howbridge. As he had said, the rain was stopping, and when they reached the Corner House the sun was out again, glistening on the green leaves of the trees.

“It’s a good omen,” declared Agnes.

Of course there was consternation at the Corner House when the story of the robbery was told. But even Aunt Sarah Maltby agreed with Mr. Howbridge that it would do Ruth and Agnes good to make the houseboat trip. Accordingly, after the two robbed ones had calmed down a little more, the last belongings were gathered together, Dot and Tess, who had considerably mussed their clothes playing tag around the furniture, were straightened out, good-bys were said over and over again, and then, in Mr. Howbridge’s automobile, the little party started for the Bluebird.

“Where’s Neale?” asked Agnes, as they neared the canal.

“He’ll meet us at the boat,” said the lawyer. “I just received a letter from his uncle, the circus man, which contains a little information about the boy’s father.”

“Has he really returned from the Klondike?” asked Ruth.

“I believe he has. But whether he has money or is as poor as when he started off to seek his fortune, I don’t know. Time will tell. But I am glad the sun is out. It would have been rather gloomy to start in the rain.”

“If it had not rained those men never would have gotten our jewel box!” declared Agnes. “It was only because we were confused by the umbrella in the hard shower that they dared take it.”