“Don’t think about it!” advised Mr. Howbridge.
They reached the Bluebird, to find Neale waiting for them with smiling face.
“I only wish we could start under gasoline instead of mule power!” he cried gayly.
“Time enough for that!” said Mr. Howbridge, with a smile. “Is Hank on hand?”
“He’s bringing out the hee-haws now,” said Neale, pointing down the towpath, while Dot and Tess laughed at his descriptive name for the mules.
The driver was leading them from the stable where they had taken shelter from the downpour, and they were soon hitched to the long towing rope.
“It ’minds me of the time I came from Scotland,” murmured Mrs. MacCall as she went up the “bridge,” as the gangplank of a canal boat is sometimes called.
“All aboard!” cried Neale, and they took their places on the Bluebird. Mr. Howbridge had arranged for one of his men to come and drive back the automobile, and there was nothing further to be looked after.
“Shall I start?” called Hank, from his station near the mules, after he had helped Neale haul up the gangplank which had connected the houseboat with the towpath.
“Give ’em gas!” shouted the boy through his hands held in trumpet fashion.
The animals leaned forward in their collars, the rope tauted, pulling with a swishing sound up from the water into which it had dropped. The Bluebird began slowly to move, and at last they were on their way.
Ruth, Agnes and the others remained on deck for a while, and then the older folk, including Neale, went below to get things “shipshape and Bristol fashion.” Dot and Tess remained on deck under the awning.
“Don’t fall overboard!” cautioned Mrs. MacCall to the small sisters.
“We won’t!” they promised.
It was about ten minutes later, during which time the Bluebird was progressing slowly through the quiet waters of the canal, that Agnes heard shouts on deck.
“Hark!” she exclaimed, for they were all moving about, getting matters to rights in the cabins.
“What is it?” asked Ruth.
“I thought I heard Tess calling,” went on Agnes.
There was no mistake about it. Down the stairway that led from the upper deck to the cabin came the cry of:
“Oh, come here! Come here quick! One of the mules is acting awful funny! I think he’s trying to kick Mr. Hank into the canal!”
Ruth dropped some of the garments she was unpacking from her trunk. Agnes came from the dining room, where she was setting the table for the first meal on the craft. Neale and Mr. Howbridge ran from the motor compartment in the lower hold of the boat. Mrs. MacCall raised her hands and began to murmur in her broadest Scotch so that no one knew what she was saying. And from the upper deck of the boat, where they had been left sitting on camp stools under the green striped awning, came the chorused cries of Tess and Dot:
“Oh, come on up! Come on up!”
“Something must have happened!” exclaimed Ruth.
“But the girls are all right, thank goodness!” added Agnes.
Together all four of them, with Mrs. MacCall bringing up the rear, ascended to the upper deck. There they saw Dot and Tess pointing down the towpath. Hank Dayton was, indeed, having trouble with the mules. And Tess had not exaggerated when she said that one of the animals was trying to kick the driver into the canal.
“Oh! Oh!” screamed Ruth and Agnes, as the flying heels barely missed the man’s head.
“I’ll go and give him a hand!” exclaimed Neale, and before any one knew what his intention was he ran down the stairs, out to the lower forward deck of the craft, and leaped across the intervening water to the towpath, an easy feat for a lad as agile as Neale O’Neil.
“What’s the matter, Hank?” those on the Bluebird could hear Neale ask the driver.
“Oh, Arabella is feeling rather frisky, I guess,” was the answer. “She hasn’t had much work to do lately, and she’s showing off!” Arabella was the name of one of the mules.
Neale, born in a circus, knew a good deal about animals, and it did not take him and Hank Dayton long to subdue the fractious Arabella. After she had kicked up her heels a few more times, just to show her contempt for the authority of the whiffle-tree and the traces, she quieted down. The other mule, a more sedate animal, looked at his companion in what might have been disgust mingled with distrust.
“Are they all right now?” asked Ruth, as Neale leaped aboard the boat again.
“Oh, yes. Hank can manage ’em all right. He just had to let Arabella have her kick out. She’s all right now. Isn’t this fun, though?” and Neale breathed in deeply of the fresh air.
“Oh, Neale, it’s glorious!” and Agnes’ eyes sparkled.
The day had turned out a lovely one after the hard shower, and everything was fresh and green. They had reached the outskirts of Milton by this time, and were approaching the open country through which the canal meandered before joining the river. On either side of the towpath were farms and gardens, with a house set here and there amid the green fields or orchards.
Now and then other boats were passed. At such times one of the craft would have to slow up to let the tow-rope sink into the canal, so the other boat might pass over it. The mules hee-hawed to each other as they met, and Hank exchanged salutations with the other drivers.
“I think it’s just the loveliest way to spend a vacation that ever could be thought of,” said Agnes to Mr. Howbridge.
“I hope you all like it,” he remarked.
“Oh, yes, it’s going to be perfect,” said the older Kenway girl. “If only—”
“You are thinking of your jewelry,” interrupted her guardian. “Please don’t! It will be recovered by the police.”
“I don’t believe so,” said Ruth. “I don’t care so much about our things. We can buy more. But mother’s wedding ring can never be replaced nor, I fear, found. I believe those Klondikers will dispose of it in some way. They’ll never be caught.”
“Klondikers!” cried Neale, coming into the main cabin just then. “Did you say Klondikers?” and it was plain to be seen that he was thinking of his father.
“Yes. There is a suspicion that the men who robbed Ruth were two men who the day before looked at the Stetson flat,” explained Agnes. “They said they were Klondike miners.”
“Klondike miners!” murmured Neale. “I wonder if they knew my father or if he knew them. I don’t mean the robbers,” he added quickly. “I mean the men who came to rent the flat. I wish I had a chance to speak to them.”
“So do I,” said Mr. Howbridge. “I have hardly yet had a chance to tell you, Neale, but I have a letter from your Uncle Bill.”
“Does he know about father?” asked the boy quickly.
“No. This letter was written before he received mine asking for your father’s last known address. But it may be possible for you to meet your uncle during this trip.”
“How?” asked Neale.
“He tells me in his letter the names of the places where the circus will show in the next month. And one place is not far from a town we pass on the canal.”
“Then I’m going to see him!” cried Neale joyfully. “I’ll be glad to meet him again. He may know something of my father. I wonder if they have any new animals since last summer. They ought to have a pony to take Scalawag’s place.
“He didn’t say,” remarked the lawyer. “But I thought you’d be glad to know that your uncle was in this vicinity.”
“I am,” said the boy. “This trip is going to be better than I thought. Now, if he only has word of my father!”
“We’ll find him, sooner or later,” declared the guardian of the Corner House girls. “But now, since the mules seem to be doing their duty, suppose we take account of stock and see if we need anything. If we do, we ought to stop and get it at one of the places through which we pass, because we may tie up at night near some small village where they don’t keep hair pins and—er—whatever else you young ladies need,” and he smiled quizzically at Ruth.
“Thank you! We brought all the hairpins we need!” Agnes informed him.
“And I think we have enough to eat,” added Ruth. “At least Mrs. Mac is busy in the kitchen, and something smells mighty good.”
Indeed appetizing odors were permeating the interior of the Bluebird, and a little later the company were sitting down to a most delightful meal. Dot and Tess could hardly be induced to come down off the upper deck long enough to eat, so fascinated were they with the things they saw along the canal.
“Isn’t Hank going to eat, and the mules, too?” asked Dot, as she finished and took her “Alice-doll” up, ready to resume her station under the awning.
“Oh, yes. Mrs. MacCall will see that he gets what he needs, and Hank, as you call him, will feed the mules,” said Mr. Howbridge.
“Do you think we ought to call him Hank?” asked Tess. “It seems so familiar.”
“He’s used to it,” answered Neale. “Everybody along the canal calls him that. He’s been a driver for years, before he went to traveling around, and met men who knew my father.”
“Hum! That just reminds me,” said the lawyer musingly, as Dot and Tess hurried from the table. “Perhaps I ought to question Hank about the two Klondikers who inquired about the Stetson flat. He may know of them. Well, it will do to-night after we have tied up.”
“Where is Hank going to sleep?” asked Ruth, who, filling the rôle of housekeeper, thought she must carry out her duties even on the Bluebird.
“He will sleep on the upper deck. I have a cot for him,” said the lawyer. “The mules will be tethered on the towpath. It is warm now, and they won’t need shelter. They are even used to being out in the rain.”
The afternoon was drawing to a close, matters aboard the houseboat had been arranged to satisfy even the critical taste of Ruth, and Mrs. MacCall was beginning to put her mind on the preparation of supper when Dot, who had come below to get a new dress for her “Alice-doll,” ran from the storeroom where the trunks and valises had been put.
“Oh! Oh, Ruth!” gasped the little girl. “Somebody’s in there!”
“In where?” asked Ruth, who was writing a letter at the living-room table.
“In there!” and Dot pointed toward the storeroom, which was at the stern of the boat under the stairs that led up on deck.
“Some one in there?” repeated Ruth. “Well, that’s very possible. Mrs. Mac may be there, or Neale or—”
“No, it isn’t any of them!” insisted Dot. “I saw everybody that belongs to us. It’s somebody else! He’s in the storeroom, and he sneezed and made a noise like a goat.”
“You ridiculous child! what do you mean?” exclaimed Agnes, who was just passing through the room and heard what Dot said.
“You probably heard one of Hank’s mules hee-hawing,” said Ruth, getting up from her chair.
“Mules don’t sneeze!” declared Dot with conviction.
Ruth had to admit the truth of this.
“You come and see!” urged Dot, and, clasping her sister’s hand, she led her into the storeroom, Agnes following.
“What’s up?” asked Mr. Howbridge, coming along just then.
“Oh, Dot imagines she heard some unusual noise,” explained Ruth.
“I did hear it!” insisted the younger girl. “It was a sneeze and a bleat like a goat and it smells like a goat, too. Smell it!” she cried, vigorously sniffing the air as she paused on the threshold of the storeroom. “Don’t you smell it?”
Just then the silence was shattered by a vigorous sneeze, followed by the unmistakable bleating of a goat, and out of a closet came fairly tumbling—a stowaway!
“There! What did I tell you!” cried Dot, pointing a finger at the strange sight. “I heard a noise, and then it was a sneeze and then it was a bleat and then I smelled a goat. I knew it was a goat, and it is, and it’s Sammy Pinkney, too!”
And, surely enough, it was. Tousled and disheveled, dirty and with his clothes awry, there stood the urchin who was, it seemed, continually getting into mischief at or around the Corner House.
But if Sammy was mussed up because of having been hidden in a small closet, the goat did not appear to be any the worse for his misadventure. Billy Bumps was as fresh as a daisy, and suddenly he lowered his head and made a dive for Mr. Howbridge.
“Oh!” cried Ruth. “Look out!”
“Hold him!” yelled Agnes.
Neale, who had joined the wondering throng now gazing at the stowaway, caught the goat by the animal’s collar just in time, and held him back from butting the lawyer.
“He—he’s just a little excited like,” Sammy explained.
“Well, I should think he would be!” declared Ruth, taking command of the situation, as she often had to do where Sammy was concerned. “And now what do you mean, hiding yourself and Billy Bumps on the boat?” she demanded. “Why did you do it? And why, above all things, bring the goat?”
“’Cause I knew you wouldn’t let me come any other way,” Sammy answered. “I wanted to go houseboating awful bad, but I didn’t think you’d take me and Billy. So this morning, when you was packing up, me and him came down here and we got on board. I hid us in a closet, and we was going to stay there until night and then maybe you’d be so far away you couldn’t send us back. But something tickled my nose and I sneezed, and I guess Billy thought I was sneezing at him, for he bleated and then he butted his head against the door and it came open and—and—”
But Sammy really had to stop—he was out of breath.
“Well, of all things!” cried Agnes.
“It is rather remarkable,” agreed Mr. Howbridge. “I don’t know that I ever before had to deal with a stowaway. The question that’s puzzling me is, what shall we do with him?”
“Can’t me and Billy stay?” asked Sammy, catching drift of an objection to his presence on board.
“Of course not!” voiced Ruth. “What would your mother and father say?”
“Oh, they wouldn’t care,” Sammy said, easily enough and brightening visibly at the question. “They let me stay when I went with you on our auto tour.”
“They surely did,” remarked Agnes dryly.
“And Billy’s strong, too!” went on Sammy eagerly. “If one of the mules got sick he could help pull the boat.”
“The idea!” exclaimed Agnes.
“Oh, hello, Sammy!” called Tess, who had just heard of the discovery of the stowaway.
“Hello,” Sammy returned. “I’m here!”
They all laughed.
“Well,” said Mr. Howbridge at length, as the houseboat was slowly pulled along the canal by the mules driven by Hank, “we must get Sammy home somehow, though how is puzzling me.”
“Oh, please can’t I stay?” begged the boy. “You can send Billy home, of course. I don’t know why I brought him. But let me stay. I’m going to be a canal mule driver when I grow up, and I could begin now if you wanted me to.”
“Aren’t you going to be a pirate?” asked Agnes, for such had been Sammy’s desire for years.
“Yes, of course. But I’m going to be a canal mule driver first.”
“It’s out of the question,” said Ruth firmly. “It was very wrong of you to hide away on board, Sammy. Very wrong indeed! And it is going to be a great bother for us to send you and Billy Bumps back home, as we must do. Twice for the same trick is too often.”
“Aw, say, Ruthie, you might turn Billy Bumps loose here on the bank and let me stay,” pleaded Sammy. “Billy can take care of himself well enough.”
“Sammy Pinkney!” exclaimed Tess, her eyes blazing. “Turn our goat loose just because you brought him along when you know you had no business to do that! Sammy Pinkney, you are the very worst boy I ever heard of!”
Sammy looked rather frightened for the first time since being found on the boat, for, after all, he had an immense respect for the usually gentle Tess, and cared more for her good opinion than he did for that of her elders.
“I didn’t mean to be bad,” he whined. “I wanted to go along, that’s all.”
“But you wasn’t asked,” Tess insisted, pouting.
“But I wasn’t asked on that auto tour,” went on Sammy hopefully.
“Well, that was—was different,” stammered Tess. “Anyway, you had no right to talk about turning our goat loose. Why, somebody might steal him!”
“What shall we do?” Ruth appealed to Mr. Howbridge. “Can a boat turn around in the canal?”
“Not wide enough here,” volunteered Neale, looking from a window. “But we can when we get to the big waters, about five miles farther along.”
“It will not be necessary to turn about and go back,” said the lawyer. “I’ll have to make arrangements for some one either to take charge of our stowaway at the next large town, and keep him there until his father can come for him, or else I may see some one going back to Milton by whom we can return our interesting specimens,” and he included boy and goat in his glances.
“Well, I was afraid you’d send us back,” said Sammy with a sigh. “But could I stay to supper?” he asked, as he sniffed the appetizing odors that now seemed more completely to fill the interior of the Bluebird.
“Of course you may stay to supper, Sammy,” conceded Ruth. “And then we’ll see what’s to be done. Oh, what a boy you are!” and she had to laugh, though she did not want to.
“I was hoping Sammy could come,” murmured Dot, as she hugged her “Alice-doll.”
“And Billy Bumps is fun,” added Tess.
“We have no room here for goats, whether they are funny or not,” declared Agnes. “Take him out in front, on the lower deck, Sammy. Tie him there, and then wash yourself for supper. I should think you would have smothered in that closet.”
“I did, almost,” confessed the boy. “And Billy didn’t like it, either. But we wanted to come.”
“Too bad—young ambition nipped in the bud,” murmured Mr. Howbridge. “Take Billy outside, Sammy.”
The goat was rather frisky, and it required Neale and Sammy to tie him to the forward rail on the lower deck. Then Mrs. MacCall, in the kindness of her Scotch heart, sent the “beastie,” as she called him, some odds and ends of food, including beet tops from the kitchen, and Billy, at least, was happy.
“Low bridge!” suddenly came the call from Hank, up ahead with the two mules.
“What’s he saying?” asked Ruth to Mr. Howbridge.
“He’s giving warning that we are approaching a low bridge, and that if we stay on deck and hold our heads too high we may get bumped. Yes, there’s the bridge just ahead. I wonder if we can pass beneath it. Our houseboat is higher than a canal boat.”
The stream curved then, and gave a view of a white bridge spanning it. Hank had had the first glimpse of it. It was necessary for the occupants of the upper deck either to desert it, or to crouch down below the railing, and they did the former.
There was just room for the Bluebird to squeeze through under the bridge, and beyond it lay a good-sized town.
“I think I can get some one there to take Sammy home, together with Billy Bumps,” said Mr. Howbridge. “We’ll try after supper, and then we must see about tying up for the night.”
The houseboat attracted considerable attention as it was slowly drawn along the canal, which passed through the middle of the town. A stop was made while Mr. Howbridge instituted inquiries as to the possibility of sending Sammy back to Milton, and arrangements were made with a farmer who agreed to hitch up after supper and deliver the goat and the boy where they belonged.
“Well, anyhow, I’m glad I’m going to stay to supper,” said Sammy, extracting what joy he could from the situation that had turned against him.
The Bluebird came to rest at a pleasant place in the canal just outside the town, and there supper was served by Mrs. MacCall. A bountiful one it was, too, and after Hank had had his, apart from the others, he confided to Neale, as he went back to the mules:
“She’s the beatenist cook I ever see!”
“Good, you mean?” asked Neale, smiling.
“The best ever! I haven’t eaten victuals like ’em since I had a home and a mother, and that’s years and years back. I’m glad I struck this job.”
In the early evening the farmer came for Sammy and the goat, a small crate, that once had held a sheep, being put in the back of the wagon for Billy’s accommodation.
“Well, maybe you’ll take me next time, when I’ve growed bigger,” suggested the boy, as he waved rather a sad farewell to his friends.
“Maybe,” said Ruth, but under her breath she added: “Not if I know it.”
“Good-by, Sammy!” called Dot.
But Tess, still indignant over Sammy’s suggestion to turn the goat—her goat—loose to shift for himself, called merely:
“Good-by, Billy Bumps!”
Mr. Howbridge went into the town and telephoned to Milton to let Sammy’s father know the boy was safe and on his way back, and then matters became rather more quiet aboard the Bluebird.
The houseboat was towed to a good place in which to spend the night. Lines were carried ashore and the craft moored to trees along the towpath.
The mules were given their suppers and tethered, and Hank announced that he was going to do some fishing before he “turned in.”
“Oh, could I fish, too?” cried Dot.
“And me! I want to!” added Tess.
“I think they might be allowed to,” said Mr. Howbridge. “There are really good fish in the canal, coming from Lake Macopic, and we could cook them for breakfast. They’d keep all right in the ice box—if any are caught.”
“Oh, I’ll catch some!” declared Hank. “I’ve fished in the canal before.”
“Oh, please let us!” begged the small girls.
“But you have no poles, lines or anything,” objected Ruth.
“I’ve got lines and hooks, and I can easy cut some poles,” offered Hank, and so it was arranged.
A little later, while Ruth, Agnes and Mrs. MacCall were busy with such housework as was necessary aboard the Bluebird, and while Neale and Mr. Howbridge were getting Hank’s cot in readiness on the deck, the mule driver and Dot and Tess sat on the stern of the craft with their lines in the water.
It was a still, quiet evening, restful and peaceful, and as Hank had told the girls that fish liked quietness, no one of the trio was speaking above a whisper.
“Have you got a bite?” suddenly asked Tess in a low voice of her sister.
“No, not yet. I’m going to set my Alice-doll up where she can watch me. She never saw anybody catch a fish—my Alice-doll didn’t.” And Dot propped her “child” up near her, on the deck of the craft.
Suddenly Hank pulled his pole up sharply.
“I got one!” he exclaimed.
“Oh, I wish I’d get one!” echoed Tess.
“Let me see!” fairly shouted Dot. “Let me see the fish, Hank!” She struggled to her feet, and the next moment a wild cry rang out.
“She’s fallen in! Oh, she’s fallen in! Oh, get her out!”
Dot’s startled cries roused all on board the Bluebird. Neale and Mr. Howbridge dropped the cot they were setting in place under the awning, and rushed to the railing of the deck. Inside the boat Ruth, Agnes and Mrs. MacCall hurried to windows where they could look out toward the stern where the fishing party had seated themselves.
“Man overboard!” sang out Neale, hardly thinking what he was doing.
But, to the surprise of all the startled ones, they saw at the stern of the boat, Hank, Dot and Tess, and from Hank’s line was dangling a wiggling fish.
But Dot was pointing to something in the water.
“Why!” exclaimed Ruth, “no one has fallen in. What can the child mean?”
“She said—” began Agnes, but she was interrupted by Dot who exclaimed:
“It’s my Alice-doll! She fell in when I got up to look at Hank’s fish! Oh, somebody please get my Alice-doll!”
“I will in jest a minute now, little lady!” cried the mule driver. “It’s bad luck to let your first fish git away. Jest a minute now, and I’ll save your Alice-doll!”
Neale and Mr. Howbridge hurried down to the lower deck from the top one in time to see Hank take his fish from the hook and toss it into a pail of water the mule driver had placed near by for just this purpose. Then as Hank took off his coat and seemed about to plunge overboard into the canal, to rescue the doll, Ruth said:
“Don’t let him, Mr. Howbridge. Dot’s doll isn’t worth having him risk his life for.”
“Risking my life, Miss Kenway! It wouldn’t be that,” said Hank, with a laugh. “I can swim, and I’d just like a bath.”
“Here’s a boat hook,” said Neale, offering one, and while Dot and Tess clung to one another Hank managed to fish up the “Alice-doll,” Dot’s special prize, which was, fortunately, floating alongside the houseboat.
While Dot and Tess clung to one another, Hank managed to fish up the “Alice-doll."
“There you are, little lady!” exclaimed the driver, and he began to squeeze some of the water from Alice.
“Oh, please don’t!” begged Dot.
“Don’t what?” asked Hank.
“Please don’t choke her that way. All her sawdust might come out. It did once. I’ll just hang her up to dry. Poor Alice-doll!” murmured the little girl, as she clasped her toy in her arms.
“Were you almost drowned?” and she cuddled her doll still closer in her arms.
“Don’t hold her so close to you, Dot,” cautioned Ruth. “She’ll get you soaking wet.”
“I don’t care!” muttered Dot. “I’ve got to put dry clothes on her so she won’t catch cold.”
“And that’s just what I don’t want to have to do for you—change your clothes again to-day,” went on Ruth. “You can love your doll even if you don’t hold her so close.”
“Well, anyhow I’m glad she didn’t drown,” said Dot.
“So’m I,” remarked Tess. “I’ll go and help you change her. I’m glad we didn’t bring Almira and her kittens along, for they look so terrible when they’re wet—cats do.”
“And I’m glad we didn’t have Sammy and Billy Bumps here to fall in!” laughed Agnes. “Goats are even worse in the water than cats.”
“Well, aren’t you going to help me fish any more?” asked Hank, as the two little girls walked away, deserting their poles and lines.
“I have to take care of my Alice-doll,” declared Dot.
“And I have to help her,” said Tess.
“I’ll take a hand at fishing, if you don’t mind,” said Neale.
“And I wouldn’t mind trying myself,” added the lawyer. And when Hank’s sleeping quarters had been arranged the three men, though perhaps Neale could hardly be called that, sat together at the stern of the boat, their lines in the water.
“Mr. Howbridge is almost like a boy himself on this trip, isn’t he?” said Agnes to Ruth as the two sisters helped Mrs. MacCall make up the berths for the night.
“Yes, he is, and I’m glad of it. I wouldn’t know what to do if some grave, tiresome old man had charge of our affairs.”
“Well now, who is going to have first luck?” questioned Mr. Howbridge, jokingly, as the three sat down to try their hands at fishing.
“I guess the luck will go to the first one who gets a catch,” returned Neale.
“Luck goes to the one who gits the biggest fish,” put in the mule driver.
After that there was silence for a few minutes. Then the lawyer gave a cry of satisfaction.
“Got a bite?” questioned Hank.
“I have and he’s a beauty,” was the reply, and Mr. Howbridge drew up a fair-sized fish.
A minute later Neale found something on his hook. It was so large he had to play his catch.
“You win!” cried the lawyer, when the fish was brought on board. And he was right, for it was the largest catch made by any of them.
The fishing party had good luck, and a large enough supply was caught for a meal the next day. Hank cleaned them and put them in the ice box, for a refrigerator was among the fittings on the Bluebird.
Then, as night came on, Dot and Tess were put to bed, Dot insisting on having her “Alice-doll” placed near her bunk to dry. Hank retired to his secluded cot on the upper deck, the mules had been tethered in a sheltered grove of trees just off the towpath, and everything was made snug for the night.
“How do you like the trip so far?” asked Mr. Howbridge of Ruth and Agnes, as he sat in the main cabin, talking with them and Neale.
“It’s just perfect!” exclaimed Agnes. “And I know we’re going to like it more and more each day.”
“Yes, it is a most novel way of spending the summer vacation,” agreed Ruth, but there was little animation in her voice.
“Are you still mourning the loss of your jewelry?” asked the lawyer, noting her rather serious face.
Ruth nodded. “Mother’s wedding ring was in that box,” she said softly.
“You must not let it spoil your trip,” her guardian continued. “I think there is a good chance of getting it back.”
“Do you mean you think the police will catch those rough men who robbed us?” asked Ruth.
“Yes,” answered the lawyer. “I told them they must spare no effort to locate the ruffians, and they have sent an alarm to all the neighboring towns and cities. Men of that type will not find it easy to dispose of the rings and pins, and they may have to carry them around with them for some time. I really believe you will get back your things.”
“Oh, I hope so!” exclaimed Ruth. “It has been an awful shock.”
“I would rather they had taken a much larger amount of jewelry than have harmed either you or Agnes,” went on the guardian. “They were ruffians of the worst type, and would not have stopped at injuring a person to get what they wanted. But don’t worry, we shall hear good news from the police, I am sure.”
“I believe that, too,” put in Neale. “I wish I was as sure of hearing good news of my father.”
“That is going to be a little harder problem,” said Mr. Howbridge. “However, we are doing all we can. I am hoping your Uncle Bill will have had definite news of your father and of where he has settled since he came back from the Klondike. Your father would be most likely to communicate with your uncle first.”
“I suppose so,” agreed Neale. “But when shall we see Uncle Bill?”
“As I told you,” went on the lawyer, “his circus will soon show at a town near which we shall pass in the boat. The younger children will probably want to go to the circus, and that will give me a good excuse for attending myself,” the lawyer went on with a laugh, in which Ruth joined.
The night passed quietly, though about twelve o’clock another boat came along and had to pass the Bluebird. As there is but one towpath along a canal, it is necessary when two boats meet, or when one passes the other, for the tow-line of one to go under or over the tow-line of the second boat.
As the Bluebird was tied to the shore it was needful, in this case, for the tow-line of the passing boat to be lifted up over it, and when this was being done it awakened Ruth and Agnes. At first the girls were startled, but they settled back when the nature of the disturbance was known.
Dot half awakened and murmured something about some one trying to take her “Alice-doll,” but Ruth soon quieted her.
Neale was awake early the next morning, and went on the upper deck for a breath of air before breakfast. He saw Hank emerge from the curtained-off place that had been arranged for the sleeping quarters of the mule driver.
“Well, do we start soon?” asked Hank, yawning and stretching.
“I think so,” Neale answered, and then he saw Hank make a sudden dart for something that had evidently slipped from a hole in his pocket. It was something that rolled across the deck, something round, and shining like gold.
The mule driver made a dive for the object and caught it before it could roll off the deck, and Neale had a chance to see that it was a gold ring.
Without a word Hank picked it up and put it back in his pocket. Then, without a glance at the boy, he turned aside, and, making his way to the towpath, he began carrying the mules their morning feed.
Neale stood staring after him, and at the memory of the ring he became possessed of strange thoughts and wonderings.
Neale O’Neil was wiser than most boys of his age. Perhaps having once lived in a circus had something to do with it. At any rate, among the things he had learned was to think first and speak afterward. And he decided to put this into practice now. He was doing a deal of thinking about the ring he had seen roll over the deck to be so quickly, almost secretively, picked up by Hank Dayton. But of it Neale said nothing to the mule driver nor to those aboard the Bluebird.
Walking about on the upper deck and looking down the towpath toward Hank, who was bringing the mules from their sylvan stable to feed them, Neale heard Ruth call:
“How’s the weather up there?”
“Glorious!” cried the boy. “It’s going to be a dandy day.”
“That’s great!” exclaimed Ruth. “Come on, children!” she called. “Everybody up! The mules are up and we must be up too,” she went on, paraphrasing a little verse in the school reader.
“Did any of the mules fall into the canal?” asked Dot, as she made haste to look at her “Alice-doll,” who had dried satisfactorily during the night.
“’Course not! Why should a mule fall into the canal?” asked Tess.
“Well, they might. My doll did,” went on the smallest Corner House girl. “But, anyhow, I’m glad they didn’t.”
“Yes, so am I,” remarked Mr. Howbridge, as they all gathered around the breakfast table, which Mrs. MacCall had set, singing the while some Scotch song containing many new and strange words.
“Well, shall we travel on?” asked the lawyer, when the meal was over and Hank was hitching the mules to the tow-rope, the animals and their driver having had a satisfying meal.
“Oh, yes, let’s go on!” urged Agnes. “I’m crazy to go through one of the locks.”
“Will there be any trouble about getting the houseboat through?” asked Ruth of her guardian. “She is a pretty big craft!”
“But not as long as many of the canal boats, though a trifle wider, or ‘of more beam,’ as a sailor would say,” he remarked. “No, the locks are large enough to let us through. But tell me, do you find this method of travel too slow?” he went on. “I know you young folks like rapid motion, and this may bore you,” and he glanced quickly at Ruth.
“Oh, not at all,” she hastened to say. “I love it. The mules are so calm and peaceful.”
Just then one of the animals let out a terrific hee-haw and Agnes, covering her ears with her hands, laughed at her sister.
“That’s just as good as a honk-honk horn on an auto!” exclaimed Tess.
“Calm and peaceful!” tittered Agnes. “How do you like that, Ruth?”
“I don’t mind it at all,” was the calm answer. “It blends in well with the environment, and it’s much better than the shriek of a locomotive whistle.”
“Bravo, Minerva!” cried Mr. Howbridge. “You should have been a lawyer. I shall call you Portia for a change.”
“Don’t, please!” she begged. “You have enough nicknames for me now.”
“Very well then, we’ll stick to the old ones. And, meanwhile, if you are all ready I’ll give the word to Hank to start his mules. There is no hurry on this trip, as the man to whom I am to deliver this boat has no special need for it. But we may as well travel on.”
“I’ll be glad when I can start the gasoline motor,” remarked Neale.
“Which will be as soon as we get off the canal and into the river,” said the lawyer. “I’d use the motor now, only the canal company won’t permit it on account of the wash of the propeller tearing away the banks.”
The tow-line tauted as the mules leaned forward in their collars, and once more the Bluebird was under way.
Life aboard the houseboat was simple and easy, as it was intended to be. There was little housework to do, and it was soon over, and all that remained was to sit on deck and watch the ever-changing scenery. The changes were not too rapid, either, for a boat towed on a canal does not progress very fast.
“It’s like a moving picture, isn’t it?” remarked Agnes. “It puts me in mind of some scenes in foreign countries—rural scenes, I mean.”
“Only the moving pictures move so much faster,” returned Ruth, with a smile. “They show you hundreds of miles in a few minutes.”
“Gracious, I wouldn’t want to ride as fast as that,” exclaimed Tess. “We’d fall off or blow away sure!”
It just suited the Corner House girls, though, and Neale extracted full enjoyment from it, though, truth to tell, he was rather worried in his mind. One matter was the finding of his father, and the other was a suspicion concerning Hank and the ring.
This was a suspicion which, as yet, Neale hardly admitted to himself very plainly. He wanted to watch the mule driver for a time yet.
“It may not have been one of Ruth’s rings, to begin with,” reasoned Neale. “And, if it is, I don’t believe Hank had anything to do with taking it, though he may know who did. I’ve got to keep on the watch!”
His meditations were interrupted, as he sat on the deck of the boat, by hearing Hank cry:
“Lock! Lock!”
That meant the boat was approaching one of the devices by which canal craft are taken over hills. A canal is, of course, a stream on a level. It does not run like a river. In fact, it is just like a big ditch.
But as a canal winds over the country it comes to hills, and to get up or down these, two methods are employed. One is what is called an inclined plane.
The canal comes to the foot of a hill and stops. There a sort of big cradle is let down into the water, the boat is floated into the cradle, and then boat, cradle and all are pulled up over the hill on a sort of railroad track, a turbine water wheel usually furnishing the power. Once over the brow of the hill the cradle and boat slide down into the water again and the journey is resumed.
The other means of getting a canal boat over a hill is by means of a lock. When the waterway is stopped in its level progress by reaching a hill, a square place is excavated and lined with rocks so as to form a water-tight basin, the open end being closed by big, wooden gates.
The Bluebird was now approaching one of these locks, where it was to be raised from a low to a higher level. While Hank managed the mules, Neale steered the boat into the stone-lined basin. Then the big gates were closed behind the craft, and the mules, being unhitched, were sent forward to begin towing again when the boat should have been lifted.
“Now we can watch!” said Dot as she and Tess took their places at the railing. Going through canal locks was a novelty for them, as there were no locks near Milton, though the canal ran through the town.
Once the Bluebird was locked within the small stone-lined basin, water was admitted to it through gates at the other and higher end. These gates kept the body of water on the higher level from pouring into the lower part of the canal. Faster and faster the water rushed in as the lock keeper opened more valves in the big gates. The water foamed and hissed all around the boat.
“Oh, we’re going up!” cried Dot. “Look, we’re rising!”
“Just like in an elevator!” added Tess.
And, indeed, that is just what it was like. The water lifted the Bluebird up higher and higher. As soon as the water had raised it to the upper level, the other gates were opened, and the Bluebird moved slowly out of the lock, having been raised about fifteen feet, from a lower to a higher level. Going from a higher to a lower is just the reverse of this. Sometimes a hill is so high that three sets of locks are necessary to get a boat up or down.
Once more the mules were hitched to the tow-line, and started off. As the boat left the lock another one came in, which was to be lowered. The children watched this as long as they could, and then turned their attention to new scenes.
It was toward the close of the afternoon, during which nothing exciting had happened, except that Tess nearly fell overboard while leaning too far across the rail to see something in the water, that Neale, looking forward toward the mules and their driver, saw a man leading a lone animal come out of a shanty along the towpath and begin to talk to Hank.
Hank halted his team, and the Bluebird slowly came to a stop. Mr. Howbridge, who was talking to Ruth and Agnes, looked up from a book of accounts he was going over with them and inquired:
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, Hank has met a friend, I imagine,” ventured Neale. “It’s a man with a lone mule.”
“Well, he shouldn’t stop just to have a friendly talk,” objected the lawyer. “We aren’t hiring him for that. Give him a call, Neale, and see what he means.”
But before this could be done Hank turned, and, making a megaphone of his hands, called:
“Say, do you folks want to buy a good mule cheap?”
“Buy a mule,” repeated the lawyer, somewhat puzzled.
“Yes. This man has one to sell, and it might be a good plan for us to have an extra one.”
“I never thought of that,” said the lawyer. “It might be a good plan. Let’s go up and see about it, Neale.”
“Let’s all go,” proposed Agnes. “It will rest us to walk along the towpath.”
The Bluebird was near shore and there was no difficulty in getting to the path. Then all save Mrs. MacCall, who preferred to remain on board, walked up toward the two men and the three mules.
The man who had stopped Hank was a rough-looking character, but many towpath men were that, and little was thought of it at the time.
“Do you folks want to buy a good mule?” he asked. “I’ll sell him cheap,” he went on. “I had a team, but the other died on me.”
“I’m not much of an authority on mules,” said Mr. Howbridge slowly. “What do you say, Neale? Would you advise purchasing this animal if he is a bargain?”
Neale did not answer. He was carefully looking at the mule, which stood near the other two.
“Where’d you get this mule?” asked Neale quickly, looking at the stranger.
“Oh, I’ve had him a good while. He’s one of a team, but I sold my boat and—”
“This mule never towed a boat!” said the boy quickly.
“What makes you say that?” demanded the man in an angry voice.
“Because I know,” went on Neale. “This is a trick mule, and, unless I’m greatly mistaken, he used to be in my uncle’s circus!”
All eyes were turned on Neale O’Neil as he said this, and it would be difficult to say who was the more astonished. As for the Corner House girls, they simply stared at their friend. Hank Dayton looked surprised, and then he glanced from the mule in question to the man who had offered to dispose of the animal. Mr. Howbridge looked very much interested. As for the strange tramp—for that is what he was—he seemed very angry.
“What do you mean?” he cried. “This mule isn’t any trick mule!”
“Oh, isn’t he?” asked Neale quietly. “And I suppose he never was in a circus, either?”
“Of course not!” declared the man. “Who are you, anyhow, and what do you mean by talking that way?”
“I advise you to be a little more respectful in tone,” said Mr. Howbridge in his suave, lawyer’s voice. “If we do any business at all it will be on this boy’s recommendation. He knows about mules. I do not. I shall hear what he and Hank have to say.”
“Well, it’s all foolish saying this mule was in a circus,” blustered the man. “I’ve had him over a year, and I want to sell him now because he hasn’t any mate. I can’t pull a canal boat with one mule.”
“Especially not a trick mule that never hauled a boat in his life,” put in Neale.
“Here! You quit that! What do you mean?” demanded the man in sullen tones.
“I mean just what I said,” declared Neale. “I believe this is a trick mule that used to be in my uncle Bill’s show—in Twomley and Sorber’s Herculean Circus and Menagerie, to be exact. Of course I may be mistaken, but if not I can easily prove what I say.”
“Huh! I’d like to see you do it!” sneered the man.
“All right, I will,” and Neale’s manner was confident. “I recognize this mule,” he went on to Mr. Howbridge, “by that mark on his off hind hoof,” and he pointed to a bulge on the mule’s foot. “But of course that may be on another mule, as well as on the one that was in my uncle’s circus. However, if I can make this mule do a trick I taught old Josh in the show, that ought to prove what I say, oughtn’t it?”
“I should think so,” agreed the lawyer.
“You can’t make this mule do any tricks,” sneered the tramp. “He’s a good mule for pulling canal boats, but he can’t do tricks.”
“Oh, can’t he?” remarked Neale. “Well, we’ll see. Come here, Josh!” he suddenly called.
The mule moved his big ears forward, as though to make sure of the voice, and then, looking at Neale, slowly approached him.
“Anybody could do that!” exclaimed the man disdainfully.
“Well, can anybody do this?” asked the boy. “Josh—dead mule!” he suddenly cried. And, to the surprise of all, the mule dropped to the towpath, stretched out his legs stiffly and lay on his side with every appearance of having departed this life.
“There!” exclaimed Neale. “That’s the trick I taught him in the show, before I left it.”
The other mules were sniffing at their prostrate companion.
“Oh, isn’t he funny!” cried Dot, as Josh opened one eye and looked straight at her.
“I’d rather have a mule than Billy Bumps for a pet!” declared Tess.
“Did you really make him do it, Neale?” asked Ruth.
“Yes, and I can do it again!” declared the lad. “Up, Josh!” he commanded, and the mule scrambled to his feet. “Dead mule—Josh!” cried Neale again, and down the animal went a second time.
“Well, what have you to say to that?” the boy turned to ask the tramp. But the man did not stay to answer. Off he ran, down the towpath, at top speed.
“Shall I get him?” cried Hank, throwing the reins on the back of one of his mules, while Josh, in response to a command from Neale, stood upright again.
“No, let him go,” advised Mr. Howbridge. “It is very evident that he had no legal claim to this mule, and he either took him away from the circus himself, or received him from some one who did. Neale, I congratulate you.”
“Thanks. I thought I recognized old Uncle Josh, but the trick proved it. He hasn’t forgotten that or me; have you, old fellow?” he asked as he rubbed the mule’s velvety nose. And the animal seemed glad to be near the boy.
“Pretty slick, I call that,” said Hank admiringly. “Guess you’ll have to teach my mules some trick, Neale.”
“It takes too long!” laughed the lad.
“Is this our mule now?” asked Dot, as she approached the new animal, which was quite gentle and allowed the children to pet him.
“Well, I don’t know just who does own him,” said Mr. Howbridge, not wanting to give a legal opinion which might be wrong. “But he certainly does not belong to that man,” and he looked after the retreating figure, now far down the towpath.
“’Cause if he’s our mule I’d like to give my Alice-doll a ride on his back,” went on Dot.
“I’d like a ride myself!” exclaimed Tess.
“Oh, don’t try that!” sighed Ruth.
“Josh wouldn’t mind,” put in Neale. “I used to ride him in the circus. Look!”
With a spring he reached the mule’s back, and then, at the word of command, Josh trotted up and down the towpath.
“Oh, do let me try!” begged Tess.
“Shall I put her on?” Neale asked, and, at a nod from Ruth, he lifted the little girl up on the mule’s back, and the delighted Tess was given a ride.
“Oh, it’s ever so much nicer’n Scalawag!” she cried as she was lifted down. “Try it, Dot!” Scalawag was the circus pony that Neale’s uncle had given to Tess and Dot.
“I will if I can hold my Alice-doll!” stipulated the youngest Kenway.
“Sure!” assented Neale, and the fun was continued.
“I wish I dared to do it!” exclaimed Agnes, with a look at Ruth. But Ruth shook her head, and Agnes, after a moment’s hesitation, yielded to Ruth’s sense of the fitness of things.
“Well, the question now arises,” said Mr. Howbridge, “what shall we do with this mule, which seems to have been stolen?”
“I say take him along with us,” answered Hank. “One of our critters might get hurt, and we’d have to lay up if we didn’t have an extra one.”
“I don’t believe Uncle Josh would pull in harness with another mule,” said Neale. “He has always been a trick mule, and has worked alone. He is quite valuable.”
“Do you suppose your uncle sold him?” asked the lawyer.
“I don’t believe so,” said the boy. “I believe he was stolen, and I know, in that case, that Uncle Bill would be glad to get him back.”
“Well, then let’s take him back,” suggested Hank. “I can drive him along with my mules for a spell until we come to the place where the circus is playing. He’ll drive, I guess, if he won’t pull a boat, and he’ll be company for my mules.” Hank was fond of animals, and treated them kindly.
“How does that plan appeal to you, Minerva?” asked Ruth’s guardian. “This is your trip, as well as mine. Do you want to be bothered with an extra mule?”
“Oh, I don’t see that he would be any bother,” she said. “If Hank looks after him, we shan’t have to. And if it’s Neale’s uncle’s mule he ought to be returned.”
“That settles it,” said Mr. Howbridge. “We’ll take the mule with us.”
“I’m sure Uncle Bill will be glad to get him back,” declared Neale. “And I’m pretty sure he never sold him.”
So it was arranged. Once more the Bluebird was under way, the two harnessed mules towing her and Uncle Josh, the trick animal, wandering along at his own sweet will.
For a time the Corner House girls, with Neale and Mr. Howbridge, walked along the towpath. Then they went back to the boat as Mrs. MacCall, blowing on a horn, announced meal time.
The trip along the canal continued in leisurely fashion. Now the Bluebird would be lifted up at some water-foaming lock, or lowered in the same fashion. Twice they were lifted over inclined planes, and the young folks, especially Dot and Tess, liked this very much.
The weather had been all that could be desired ever since they started, except the rain storm in which the girls were robbed. But now, about four days after leaving Milton, they awoke one morning to find a disagreeable drizzle. But Hank and the mules did not seem to mind it. In fact they rather liked splashing through the rain and mud.
Of course getting out and strolling along the towpath was out of the question for the voyagers, and they found amusements enough on board the houseboat.
It rained all day, but it needed more than this to take the joy out of life for the Corner House girls.
“Fair day to-morrow!” cried Neale, and so it proved.
They approached a small town early the next day, and as they tied up at a tow-barn station to get some supplies Dot cried:
“Oh, look at the elephant!”
“Where?” demanded Tess.
“I mean it’s a picture of it on that barn,” went on the mother of the “Alice-doll,” and she pointed.
“Oh, it’s a circus!” exclaimed Tess. “Look, Ruth—Agnes!”
And there, in many gay posters was the announcement that “Twomley & Sorber’s Herculean Circus and Menagerie” would show that day in Pompey, the town they had then reached.
“It’s Uncle Bill’s show!” cried Neale. “Maybe I’ll hear some news of my father.”
“And shall we have to give back Josh mule?” asked Tess, who had taken quite a liking to the animal.
“Well, we’ll see,” said Mr. Howbridge. “But I think we may as well, all of us, go to the circus,” he added.
And, that afternoon, the trick mule having been left in the towpath barn with Hank’s animals, almost the whole party, including the driver, went to the circus. Only Mrs. MacCall decided to stay on the houseboat.
On the way to the circus the party passed the post-office. Ruth remembered that this was a town she had mentioned in a letter to Luke Shepard and ran in to see if there was any mail.
“Ruth Kenway,” said the clerk, in answer to her question, and a moment later passed out a fine, fat letter, addressed in the hand she knew so well.
“I’ll read it to-night—I haven’t time now,” she told herself, and blushed happily. “Dear Luke—I hope everything is going well with him.”
“Oh, look at the toy balloons! Look, Alice-doll,” and Dot held her constant companion up in her arms.
Dot was in a state of great excitement, and kept repeating to Tess stories of her experiences of the summer previous when Dot, her older sisters and some friends, seated in a box of this very circus, Scalawag, the pony, had been publicly presented to the smaller Corner House girls—a scene, and a sensation, which is told of in a previous volume of this series and which, alas! Tess had missed.
“There’s pink lemonade!” cried Tess. “Oh, I want some of that! Please, Ruth, may I have two glasses?”
“Not of that pink lemonade, Tess,” answered the older girl. “It may be colored with hat dye, for all we know. We’ll see Neale’s Uncle Bill, who will take us to the best place to get something to drink.”
“Just see the fat lady!” went on Dot next.
“Fat lady! Where? I don’t see any!” exclaimed Tess. “Do you mean an elephant?” she asked.
“No. I mean over there!” and Dot pointed to a gayly painted canvas stretched along the front of the tent in which the side shows were showing.
“Oh, that! Only a painting!” and Tess showed in her voice the disappointment she felt.
“Well, the lady is real, and we can go inside and see her; can’t we, Ruth?” pursued Dot. “Oh, I just love a circus; don’t you, Alice?” and she hugged her doll in her arms.
“Yes, a circus is very nice,” was the answer. “But now listen to me,” went on Ruth. “Don’t run away and get lost in the crowd.”
“You couldn’t run very far in such a crowd,” answered Tess.
“No, but you could get lost very easily.”
“Oh, see the camels! They are going for a drink, I guess.”
“Well, they have to have water the same as the other animals.”
“Oh, what was that?” cried Dot, as a gigantic roar rent the air.
“That must have been a lion,” answered Ruth.
“Oh, do you think he’ll get loose?” exclaimed Tess, holding back a little.
“I guess not.”
“It’s the same old crowd,” remarked Neale, as he looked on the familiar scenes about the circus tent, while Mr. Howbridge walked along with Ruth. Agnes and Neale were together, and Dot and Tess had hold of hands. Hank, after the arrival at the grounds, said he would travel around by himself, as he saw some men he knew. He agreed to be back at the canal boat at five o’clock, after the show.
“Wait until I get you a ticket,” Neale said, as the mule driver was about to separate from them. Going to the red and gold wagon, Neale stepped to the window. The man inside was busy selling tickets and tossing the money taken in to an assistant, who sorted and counted it.
“How many?” asked the man in the ticket wagon, hardly looking up.
“Seven—two of ’em halves,” answered Neale quickly.
“Well, where’s the money—where’s the cash?” asked the cashier rather snappily, and then, for the first time, he looked up. A queer change came over his face as he recognized Neale.
“Well, for the love of alligators!” he exclaimed, thrusting forth his hand. “When’d you get on the lot?”
“Just arrived,” answered Neale with a smile. “Got some friends of mine here who want to see the show.”
“Surest thing you know!” cried the cashier. “How many’d you say? Seven—two halves? Here you are,” and he flipped the tickets down on the wooden shelf in front of him. “Are you coming back to join the outfit?” he went on. “We could bill ‘Master Jakeway’s’ act very nicely now, I imagine. Only,” and he chuckled, “we’d have to drop the ‘Master.’ You’ve got beyond that.”
“No, I’m not coming back,” answered Neale. “That isn’t saying I wouldn’t like to, perhaps. But I have other plans. I’ve heard that my father has returned from the Klondike, and I want to see my uncle to find if he has any news. Is he around—Uncle Bill, I mean?”
“Yes, he was talking to me a while ago. And I did hear him mention, some time back, that he had news of your father. Well, well! I am glad to see you again, Neale. Stop in and see me after the show.”
“I’ll try to,” was the answer.
Hank, being given his ticket, went away by himself, and, after greeting some more of his circus friends, Neale began a search for his uncle. It was not an easy matter to locate any of the circus men on the “lot” at an hour just before the performance was to begin. And Tess and Dot were eager to go in and see the animals, the side shows, the main performance and everything else.
“I’d better take them in,” Ruth said finally. “You can join us later, Neale, you and Mr. Howbridge.”
So this plan was agreed on, and then the two eager girls were led into the tents of childish mystery and delight, while Neale and the lawyer sought the proprietor of the show.
They found him talking to Sully Sorber, the clown, who was just going in to put on his makeup.
At first Uncle Bill just stared at Neale, as though hardly believing the evidence of his eyes. Then a welcoming smile spread over his face, and he held out his hand.
“Well! Well! This is a coincidence!” exclaimed the ringmaster. “I was just figuring with Sully here if we would get any nearer Milton than this, as I wanted to have a talk with you, and now here you are! How did it happen? Glad to see you, sir,” and he shook hands with Mr. Howbridge. “I’ve been going to answer your letters, but I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time. One of the elephants got loose and wrecked a farmer’s barn, and I’ve had a damage suit to settle. But I am glad to see you both.”
“Tell me!” exclaimed Neale eagerly. “Have you any news from father? Is he back from the Klondike? Where can I find him?”
“My! you’re as bad as ever for asking questions,” chuckled Mr. Bill Sorber. “But there! I know how it is! Yes, Neale, I have some real news, though there isn’t much of it. I never see such a man as your father for not sending word direct. But maybe he did, and it miscarried. Anyhow, I’ve been trying to get in touch with him ever since I got your letter, Mr. Howbridge,” he went on speaking to the lawyer.
“Yes, your father has come back from the Klondike,” he resumed to Neale. “He put in his time to good advantage there, I hear, and made some money. Then he set out for the States, and, in an indirect way, I learned that he is located in Trumbull.”
“Trumbull? Where’s that?” asked Neale eagerly.
“It’s a small town on Lake Macopic!” answered the circus man.
Neale and the lawyer looked at one another in surprise.
“Do you know the place?” went on the ringmaster. “I must confess I don’t. I tried to look it up to see if it was worth moving there with the show, but I couldn’t even find it on the map. So it must be pretty small.”
“I don’t know exactly where it is,” the lawyer said. “But the fact of the matter is that we are on our way to Lake Macopic in a houseboat, and it is quite a coincidence that Neale’s father should be there. Can you give us any further particulars?”
“Well, not many,” confessed Mr. Sorber. “Mr. O’Neil isn’t much more on letter writing than I am, and that isn’t saying much. But my information is to the effect that he had to go there to clear up some dispute he and his mining partner had. He was in with some men in the Klondike, and when it came to a settlement of the gold they had dug out there was a dispute, I believe. One of the men lived in Trumbull, and your father, Neale, had to go there to settle the matter. But I am glad to see you!” he went on to the former circus lad. “And after the show, which is about to begin, we can have a long talk, and then—”
At that moment a loud shouting arose from the neighborhood of the animal tent. Mingled with the cries of the men was a peculiar sound, like that of some queer whistle, or trumpet.
“There goes Minnie again!” cried Mr. Bill Sorber. “She’s broken loose!” and he ran off at top speed while other circus employees followed, the shouting and trumpeting increasing in volume.