“Minnie’s loose!” cried Neale to Mr. Howbridge after the flight of the circus men. “Minnie is one of the worst elephants in captivity! She’s always making trouble, and breaking loose. I imagine she’s the one that wrecked the farmer’s barn Uncle Bill was telling about. If she’s on the rampage in the animal tent it means mischief!”
“An elephant loose!” cried Mr. Howbridge. “And Ruth and the children in the tent! Come on, Neale!” he cried. “Hurry!”
But there was no need to urge Neale to action. He was off on the run, and Mr. Howbridge showed that he was not nearly so old and grave as he sometimes appeared, for he ran swiftly after his more youthful companion.
The shouting continued, and the trumpet calls of the angry or frightened elephant mingled with them. Then, as Neale and Mr. Howbridge came within view of the animal tent, they saw bursting from it a huge elephant, followed by several men holding to ropes attached to the “ponderous pachyderm,” as Minnie was called on the show bills. She was pulling a score of circus hands after her, as though they were so many stuffed straw men.
Mr. Bill Sorber at this time reached the scene, and with him were several men who had hurried after him when they heard the alarm. The ringmaster seemed to know just what to do. He caught an ankus, or elephant hook, from one of his helpers, and, taking a stand directly in the path of the onrushing Minnie, he raised the sharp instrument threateningly.
On thundered the elephant, but Mr. Sorber stood his ground. Men shouted a warning to him, and the screams and cries of women and children rose shrilly on the air. Minnie, which was the rather peaceful name for a very wild elephant, raised her trunk in the air, and from it came the peculiar trumpet blasts. The men she was pulling along were dragged over the ground helplessly.
“Can he stop her, Neale?” gasped Mr. Howbridge, as he ran beside the former circus boy.
“Well, I’ve seem him stop a wild lion that got out of its cage,” was the answer. “But an elephant—”
And then a strange thing happened. When within a few feet of the brave, resolute man who stood in her path, Minnie began to go more slowly. Her shrill cries were less insistent, and the men being dragged along after her began to hold back as they regained their feet.
Mr. Sorber raised the ankus on high. Its sharp, curved point gleamed in the sun. Minnie saw it, and she knew it could cruelly hurt her sensitive trunk. More than once she had felt it before, when on one of her rampages. She did not want to suffer again.
And so, when so close that she could have reached out and touched the ringmaster with her elongated nose, or, if so minded, she could have curled it around him and hurled him to death—when this close, the elephant stopped, and grew quiet.
“Minnie! Minnie!” said the man in a soothing voice. “Behave yourself, Minnie! Why are you acting in this way? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
And the elephant really seemed to be. She lowered her trunk, flapped her ears slowly to and fro, and then stood in her tracks and began swaying to and fro in the manner characteristic of the big beasts.
Mr. Sorber went up to her, tossing the ankus to one of his men, and began to pat the trunk which curled up as if in anticipation of a treat.
“Minnie, you’re a bad girl, and you oughtn’t to have any; but since you stopped when I told you to I’ll give you a few,” said the ringmaster, and, reaching into his pocket, he took out some peanuts which the big animal munched with every appearance of satisfaction.
“She’s all right now,” said Neale’s uncle, as the regular elephant men came up to take charge of the creature. “She was just a little excited, that’s all. How did it happen?”
“Oh, the same as usual,” replied Minnie’s keeper. “All at once she gave a trumpet, yanked her stakes loose, and set off out of the animal tent. I had some ropes on her ready to have her pull one of the wagons, and we grabbed these—as many of us as could—but we couldn’t hold her.”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to get rid of Minnie, she’s too uncertain. Doesn’t seem to know her own mind, like a lot of the women folks,” and Mr. Sorber smiled at Mr. Howbridge.
“You were very brave to stop her as you did,” observed the lawyer.
“Oh, well, it’s my business,” said the animal man. “It wasn’t such a risk as it seemed. I was all ready to jump to one side if she hadn’t stopped.”
“I wonder if any one in the animal tent was hurt,” went on the lawyer. “We must go and see, Neale. Ruth and the others—”
“I hope none of your folks were injured,” broke in Mr. Sorber. “Minnie has done damage in the past, but I guess she only just ran away this time.”
With anxious hearts Neale and Mr. Howbridge hastened to the animal tent, but their fears were groundless. Minnie had carefully avoided every one in her rush, and, as a matter of fact, Ruth, Agnes, Dot and Tess were in the main tent when the elephant ran out. They heard the excitement, but Ruth quieted her sisters.
“Well, now we’ll go on with the show,” said Mr. Sorber, when matters had settled to their normal level. “I’ll see you afterward, Neale, and you too, Mr. Howbridge, and those delightful little ladies from the old Corner House.”
“Oh, Uncle Bill, I almost forgot!” cried the boy. “Have you that trick mule yet—Uncle Josh? The one I taught to play dead?”
“Uncle Josh? No, I haven’t got him, but I wish I had,” said the circus owner. “One of the stablemen took him away—stole him in fact—and I’d give a hundred dollars to get him back!”
Neale held out his hand, smiling.
“What do you mean?” asked his uncle.
“Pay me the hundred dollars,” was the answer. “I have Uncle Josh!”
“No! Really, have you?”
“I have! I thought you hadn’t sold him!” exclaimed the boy, and he told the story of the man on the towpath.
“Well, that is good news!” exclaimed Mr. Sorber. “I’ll send for Uncle Josh right away. I sure am glad to have him back. He was always good for a lot of laughs. He’s almost as funny as Sully, the clown.”
A few minutes later Neale and Mr. Howbridge joined Ruth and the others in the main tent.
Tess and Dot especially enjoyed the performance very much. They took in everything from the “grand entry” to the races and concert at the end. They were guests of the show, in fact, Neale having procured complimentary tickets.
When the performance was over, they visited “Uncle Bill” in his own private tent, and the Corner House girls had a glimpse of circus life “behind the scenes,” as it were, Tess’s first experience of the sort.
Neale met many of his old friends and they all expressed the hope that he would soon find his father. Uncle Josh, the trick mule, was brought to the grounds by Hank, and the animal seemed glad to be again among his companions.
“Will you be back again this evening?” asked Neale’s uncle, when the time came for the party to go back to the houseboat for supper.
“I think not,” was Neale’s answer.
He said good-by to his uncle, arranging to write to him and hear from him as often as needful. And then they left the circus lot where the night performance would soon be given.
“Well, I have real news of father at last,” said Neale to Agnes, as he went back toward the canal with his friends. “I would like to know, though, if he got rich out in the Klondike.”
“If he wants any money he can have half mine!” offered Dot. “I have eighty-seven cents in my bank, and I was going to save up to buy my Alice-doll a new carriage. But you can have my money for your father, Neale.”
“Thank you,” replied Neale, without a smile at Dot’s offer. “Maybe I shan’t need it, but it’s very kind of you.”
Mrs. MacCall had supper ready soon after they arrived at the boat, and then, as the smaller girls were tired from their day at the circus, they went to bed early, while Ruth and Mr. Howbridge, Agnes and Neale sat out on the deck and talked. As they were not to go on again until morning, Hank was allowed to go back to the circus again. He said seeing it twice in one day was not too much for him.
“I do hope you will find your father, Neale,” said Agnes softly, as, just before eleven o’clock, they all went to bed.
But Ruth, at least, did not go to sleep at once. In her bosom she carried the letter she had received from Luke, and this she now read carefully, twice.
Luke was doing well at the summer hotel. The proprietor was sick, so he and the head clerk and a night man had their hands full. He was earning good money, and part of this he was going to spend on his education and the rest he intended to save. He was sorry he could not be with the houseboat party and hoped they would all have a good time. Then he added a page or more intended only for Ruth’s eyes. The letter made the oldest Corner House girl very happy.
Soon after breakfast the next morning they were under way again. The circus had left town in the night, and Neale did not know when he would see his uncle again. But the lad’s heart beat high with hope that he might soon find his father.
The weather was propitious, and hours of sunshine were making the Corner House girls as brown as Indians. Mr. Howbridge, too, took on a coat of tan. As for Neale, his light hair looked lighter than ever against his tanned skin. And Hank, from walking along the towpath, became almost as dark as a negro.
One morning, Ruth, coming down to the kitchen to help Mrs. MacCall with the dinner, saw two fat, chubby legs sticking out of a barrel in one corner of the cabin.
The legs were vigorously kicking, and from the depths of the barrel came muffled cries of:
“Let me out! Help me out! Pull me up!”
Ruth lost no time in doing the latter, and, after an effort, succeeded in pulling right side up her sister Tess.
“What in the world were you doing?” demanded Ruth.
“I was scraping down in the bottom of the barrel to get a little flour that was left,” Tess explained, very red in the face. “But I leaned over too far and I couldn’t get up. And I couldn’t call at first.”
“What did you want of flour?” asked Ruth. “Goodness, you have enough on your dress, anyhow.”
“I wanted some to rub on my face to make me look pale,” went on Tess.
“To make you look pale! Gracious, Tess! what for?”
“We’re playing doctor and nurse, Dot and I,” Tess explained. “I have to be sick, and sick people are always pale. But I’m so tanned Dot said I didn’t look sick at all, so I tried to scrape some flour off the bottom of the barrel to rub on my face.”
“Well, you have enough now if you brush off what’s on your clothes,” laughed Ruth.
“And be careful about leaning over barrels,” put in Mrs. MacCall. “You might have been hurt.”
“Yes,” agreed Tess, “I might be but I wasn’t. Only my head felt funny and my legs felt queer, too, when I wiggled them.”
They were approaching the end of the stretch of the canal through which they must travel to reach Gentory River. The boat would be “locked” from the canal to the larger stream, and then Neale could have his wish of operating the motor come true.
Toward evening they arrived at the last lock of their trip. Just beyond lay the river, and they would proceed up that to Lake Macopic.
As the Bluebird emerged from the lock and slowly floated on the little basin into which just there the Gentory broadened, the attention of Ruth and Agnes was directed to a small motor boat which was just leaving the vicinity.
Ruth, who stood nearest the rail, grasped her sister by the arm, and cried an alarm.
“Look! Those men! In the boat!” exclaimed Ruth.
“What about them?” asked Agnes, while Mr. Howbridge glanced at the two sisters.
“They’re the same men who robbed us!” exclaimed Ruth. “The men who took our jewelry box in the rain! Oh, stop them!”
Neale O’Neil, who had been steering the houseboat during the operation of locking it from the canal into the river, sprang away from the tiller toward the side of the craft at Ruth’s cries. There was no immediate need of guiding the Bluebird for the moment, as she was floating idly with the momentum gained when she was slowly pulled from the lock basin.
“Are those the men?” asked Neale, pointing to two roughly dressed characters in a small motor boat.
“I’m sure they are!” asserted Ruth. “That one steering is the man who grabbed the box from me. Look, Agnes, don’t you remember them?”
Mr. Howbridge, who heard what was said, acted promptly. On the towpath, near the point where the river entered the canal through the lock, was Hank Dayton with the two mules, the services of which would no longer be needed.
“Hank! Hank! Stop those men!” cried the lawyer.
The driver dropped his reins, and sprang to the edge of the bank. Near him was a rowboat, empty at the time, and with the oars in the locks. It was the work of but a moment for Hank to spring in and shove off, and then he began rowing hard.
But of course he stood no chance against a motor boat. The two men in the gasoline craft turned on more power. The explosions came more rapidly and drowned the shouts of those on the houseboat. Hank soon gave up his useless effort, and turned back to shore, while Ruth and Agnes, leaning over the side of the rail, gazed at the fast-disappearing men.
“There must be some way of stopping them!” cried Mr. Howbridge, who was quite excited. “Isn’t there a motor boat around here—a police boat or something? Neale, can’t you get up steam and take after them?”
“The Bluebird could never catch that small boat,” answered the boy. “And there doesn’t seem to be anything else around here now, except rowboats and canalers.”
This was true, and those on board the Bluebird had to suffer the disappointment of seeing the men fade away in the distance.
“But something must be done!” insisted the lawyer. “An alarm must be given. The police must be notified. Where’s the keeper of the lock? He may know these ruffians, and where they are staying. We must do something!”
“Well, they’re getting away for the time being,” murmured Neale, as he gazed up the river on which the motor boat was now hardly discernible as it was turning a bend. “But we’re going the same way, and we may come across them. Are you sure, Ruth, that these are the same men who robbed you?”
“Positive!” declared the girl. “Aren’t you, Agnes?”
“No, I can’t be sure,” answered her sister with a shake of her head. “The men looked just as rough—and just as ugly—as the two who attacked us. But it was raining so hard, and we were in the doorway, and the umbrella was giving such trouble—no, Ruth,” she added, “I couldn’t be sure.”
“But I am!” declared the oldest Kenway girl. “I had a good look at the face of at least one of the men in the boat, and I know it was he who took my box! Oh, if I could only get it back I wouldn’t care what became of the men!”
“It ought to be an easy matter to trace them,” said the lawyer. “Their motor boat must be registered and licensed, as ours must be. We can trace them through that, I think. Neale, would you know the men if you saw them again?”
“I might,” answered the boy. “I didn’t have a very good look at them, though. They both had their backs toward me, and their hats were pulled down over their faces. As Ruth says, however, they looked rough and desperate.”
“We must take some action,” declared the lawyer, with his characteristic energy. “The authorities must be notified and that motor boat traced. We shall have to stop here to register our own craft and get a license, and it will give us an opportunity to make some inquiries.”
“Meanwhile those men will get away!” exclaimed Ruth. “And we’ll never get our jewelry back. If we could get mother’s ring,” she added, “it wouldn’t be so bad.”
“They can’t get very far away if they stick to the river,” said Mr. Howbridge. “The river flows into Lake Macopic and there is no outlet from that. If we have to pursue the men all the way to the lake we’ll do it.”
“Well, then let’s get busy,” suggested Neale. “The sooner we have our boat registered and licensed, the sooner we can start after those men. Of course we can’t catch them, for their boat goes so much faster than ours. But we can trace them.”
“I hope we can,” murmured Ruth, gazing up the river, on which there was now no trace of the boat containing the rough men. “We have two quests, now,” she added. “Looking for our jewelry box, and your father, Neale. And I hope we find your father, whether I get back my things or not—anything but the ring.”
“Let us hope we get both,” said the boy.
Then followed a busy hour. Certain formalities had to be gone through with, in order to enable the Bluebird to make the voyage on the river and lake. Her motor was inspected and passed. Neale had seen to it that the machinery was in good shape.
Mr. Howbridge came back from the boat registry office with the necessary permit and license, and Ruth asked him:
“Did you find out anything about the men?”
“No one here knows them,” he said. “They were never here before, and they came only to get some supplies. It appears they are camping on one of the islands in Lake Macopic.”
“Was their boat registered?” asked Neale.
“Yes. At least it is presumed so. But as we did not see the number on it we can give the authorities no clue. Motor boats up here don’t have to carry their number plates in such large size as autos do. That craft was not registered at this office, but it was, very likely, granted a permit at the office at the other end of the river or on the lake. So we can only keep on and hope either to overtake the men or to get a trace of them in some other way.”
“We can never overtake them if they keep going as fast as they did when they left here,” said Agnes.
“They won’t keep that speed up,” declared Neale. “But we had better get started. We’ll be under our own power now, and can travel whenever we like, night or day.”
“Are we going to take the mules with us—and Mr. Hank!” asked Dot, hugging her “Alice-doll.”
“Hank is going to accompany us,” said Mr. Howbridge. “But we’ll leave the mules behind, having no place for them on the Bluebird. I think I will dispose of them, for I probably shall not go on a vacation along the canal again.”
“But it was a delightful and novel one,” said Ruth.
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” her guardian remarked. “It would have been little pleasure to me—this trip—if you young folks had not enjoyed it.”
“I just love it! And the best part is yet to come!” cried Agnes, with sparkling eyes. “I want to see the islands in the lake.”
“And I want to get to Trumbull and see if my father is there,” added Neale. “I think I’ll send him a letter. I’ll mail it here. It won’t take but a moment.”
“You don’t know his address,” said Agnes.
“I’ll send it just to Trumbull,” said the boy. “Post-office people are sharks at finding people.”
He wrote the note while the final preparations were being made for leaving on the trip up the river. Mrs. MacCall had attended to the buying of food, which was all that was needed.
And then, after Neale had sent his letter to the post-office, he went down in the engine room of the Bluebird.
“Are we all ready!” he called up to Mr. Howbridge, who was going to steer until Neale could come up on deck after the motor had been started.
“All ready!” answered Ruth.
Neale turned the flywheel over, there was a cough and a splutter, and then a steady chug-chugging.
“Oh, we’re going! We’re going!” gayly cried Tess and Dot. Almost anything satisfied them as long as they were in motion.
“Yes, we’re on our way,” said Mr. Howbridge, giving the wheel a turn and sending the houseboat out into the stream.
The trip up the Gentory River was no less delightful than the voyage on the canal had been, if one may call journeying on such a quiet stream a voyage. It was faster travel, of course, with the motor sending the Bluebird along.
“The only thing is, though,” said Hank, who sat near the wheel with Neale, “I haven’t anything to do. I miss the mules.”
“Oh, I guess there’ll be enough to do. Especially when we get up on the lake. You’ll have to help manage the boat,” remarked Neale. “I hear they have pretty good storms on Macopic.”
“They do,” confirmed Hank.
They motored along until dusk that evening, and then, as their way led for a time through a part of the stream where many craft navigate, it was decided to tie up for the night. It passed without incident, and they were on their way again the next morning.
It was calculated that the trip on the river would take three days, but an accident to the motor the second day delayed them, and they were more likely to be five than three days. However, they did not mind the wait.
The break occurred on a lonely part of the stream, and after stopping the craft and tying up, Neale announced, after an examination, that he and Hank could make the needful repairs.
“We’ll start in the morning,” said the boy.
“Then we’ll just go ashore and walk about a little,” suggested Ruth, and soon she and her sisters and Mr. Howbridge were on the bank of the beautiful stream.
The twilight lingered long that night, and it was light enough to see some distance ahead as Ruth and the others strolled on. The river bank turned and, following it beneath the trees, the party suddenly heard voices seemingly coming from a secluded cove where the stream formed an eddy.
“Must be fishermen in there,” said Mr. Howbridge. “We had better not disturb them.”
As they were turning away the voices became louder, and then on the still night air there came an exclamation.
“I don’t care what you think!” a man’s voice shouted. “Just because you’ve been in the Klondike doesn’t give you the right to boss me! You’ll give me an even half of the swag or—”
And then it sounded as though a hand had been clapped suddenly over the speaker’s mouth.
Mr. Howbridge and Ruth quickly looked at one another. The same thought and suspicion came in each of their minds at the same time.
“Who’s that?” Dot asked, she and Tess having lingered behind the others to pick some flowers from the bank of the stream.
“Hush, children,” cautioned Ruth in a whisper. “We must not disturb the—fishermen.”
She added the last word after a look at her guardian. No further sound came from the cove where the voice had been uttering a protest and had been so suddenly hushed.
“Oh, look at those big red flowers! I’m going to get some of those!” cried Dot, darting off to one side. “My Alice-doll loves red flowers,” she added.
“I’ll get some, too,” said Agnes. “Mrs. MacCall also loves red flowers, though she says there’s nothing prettier than ‘Heeland hither’ as she calls it.”
“Oh, yes, we’ll get her some, and she’ll have a bouquet for the table,” assented Dot. “And then maybe she’ll let us have a little play party for Alice-doll to-morrow, and we can have things to eat.”
“Oh, you’re always thinking of your old Alice-doll!” complained Tess. “You’d think all the play parties and all this trip were just for her, and the things to eat, too.”
“We can eat the things Mrs. MacCall gives us—if she gives us any,” corrected Dot. “Come on, help me get the flowers.”
“Oh, all right, I will,” said Tess. “But you know, Dot Kenway, that Ruthie will give us anything we want for a party.”
As the two little girls darted toward the clump of gay blossoms Ruth called:
“Be careful. It may he swampy around here.”
“I’ll look after them,” offered Agnes, “and you and Mr. Howbridge can go see if those men—”
She did not finish her sentence, which she had begun in a whisper, but nodded in the direction of the clump of trees, around the eddy of the river. It was from there the stifled exclamation had come.
“Yes, I think it would be a good plan to take a look there,” said Mr. Howbridge to Ruth in a low voice. “Especially if the children are out of the way. I don’t suppose it could by any chance be the same men, but—”
“Look!” suddenly exclaimed Ruth, pointing to something moving behind a screen of bushes that hung over the river near the eddy. As she spoke the bushes parted and a motor boat shoved her bow out into the stream. In another instant the boat came fully into view, and there was revealed as occupants two roughly dressed men. They gave one quick glance along the bank toward Ruth and Mr. Howbridge, and then while one attended to the wheel the other sprang to the engine to increase the speed.
There was a nervous spluttering from the motor, and the boat shot out into the river, the two men in her crouching down as though they feared being fired at.
“There they are!” cried Ruth, clasping Mr. Howbridge’s arm in her excitement. “The same two men!”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Well, they’re the same two we saw down near the canal lock, in the boat,” Ruth went on. “I’m sure it’s the same boat, and I’m as positive as I ever was that they are the ones who robbed us.”
“It is the same boat we saw the other day,” agreed the lawyer. “And I think the same men. Whether they are the thieves is, of course, open to question. But I should very much like to question them,” he added. “Hold on there!” he called to the men. “I want to see you!”
But the boat did not stop, rather she increased her speed, and it seemed that one of the men laughed. They did not look back.
“I wish there was some way of taking after them!” exclaimed Ruth’s guardian. “But, as it is, it’s out of the question.”
They were on a lonely part of the river. No houses were near and there was no other boat in sight, not even a leaky skiff, though some farmer boy might have one hidden along the shore under the bushes. But a rowing craft would not have been effective against the speedy motor boat, and finding another craft to match the one containing the two rough men was out of the question.
Farther and farther away the men were speeding now. Agnes and the two younger girls, having heard the shouts of Mr. Howbridge, turned back from their flower-gathering trip.
“Is anything the matter?” asked Agnes.
“Oh, no, nothing much. Mr. Howbridge saw two men in that boat,” answered Ruth, with a meaning look at her sister. “But they did not stop.” And when she had a chance, after Dot and Tess had moved out of hearing distance, Ruth added: “They’re the same men, Agnes!”
“You mean the ones who robbed us?”
“I’m pretty sure; yes!”
“Oh dear!” voiced Agnes, and she looked around the now darkening woods. “I wish we hadn’t stopped in such a lonely place,” she murmured.
“Nonsense!” laughed Mr. Howbridge. “I shall begin to think you doubt my ability as guardian. My physical, not my mental,” he added.
“Oh, no, it isn’t that,” Agnes made haste to say. “Only—”
“And we have Neale, and Hank, too,” broke in Ruth. “While Mrs. MacCall is a tower of strength herself, even if she is getting old.”
“Oh, yes, I know,” murmured Agnes. “But—well, don’t let’s talk about it,” she finished.
“And I think we’d better be going back. It will soon be quite dark.”
“Yes,” agreed the lawyer. “We had better go back.”
He looked up the river. The boat containing the two rough men was no longer in sight, but finally there drifted down on the night wind the soft put-put of the motor.
“We thought you had deserted us,” said Neale when he saw, from the deck of the Bluebird, the lawyer and the girls returning.
“We went farther than we intended,” answered Ruth.
“How’s the motor?” asked the lawyer.
“Hank and I will have it fixed in the morning.”
“Where is Hank now?” Agnes wanted to know, and it seemed as though she had begun to rely on the rugged and rough strength of the man who had driven the mules.
“Oh, he went off for a walk, and he said maybe he’d fish a while,” Neale said. “He’s a bug on fishing.”
Then, while Mrs. MacCall took charge of Tess and Dot, giving exclamations of delight at the flowers, even while comparing them with her Highland heather, Agnes and Ruth told Neale what had happened—the swift-departure of the motor boat and its two occupants.
“They were evidently having a dispute when we came along,” said Ruth. “We heard one of them say something about the Klondike.”
“The Klondike!” exclaimed Neale, and there was a queer note in his voice.
“Yes, they certainly said that,” agreed Agnes. “Oh, I do wish we were away from here.” And from the deck of the boat she looked at the wooded shores of the river extending on either side of the moored craft. The Gentory was not very wide at this point, but the other shore was just as lonely and deserted as that where the voyagers had come to rest for the night.
“Don’t be so nervous and fussy,” said Ruth to Agnes. “Mr. Howbridge won’t like it. He will think we don’t care for the trip, and—”
“Oh, I like the trip all right,” broke in Agnes. “It’s just the idea of staying all night in this lonely place.”
“We have plenty of protectors,” asserted Ruth. “There’s Neale and—”
“What’s that?” asked the boy, hearing his name spoken.
“Agnes was saying she was timid,” went on Ruth, for Mr. Howbridge had gone to the dining-room for a glass of milk Mrs. MacCall had suggested he take before going to bed. “I tell her with you and Mr. Howbridge and Hank to protect us—”
“Aggie timid! Oh, yes, we’ll look after you!” he promised with a laugh. “At the same time—Oh, well, I guess Hank won’t stay late,” and he looked at his watch.
“You seem worried,” said Agnes to her friend when they were alone for a moment. “Do you think these men—those Klondikers—are likely to make trouble?”
“No, not exactly that,” Neale answered. “To tell you the truth I was thinking of Hank. I may as well tell you,” he went on. “I didn’t see any connection between the two happenings before, but since you mentioned those men there may be.”
“What are you driving at?” asked Agnes, in surprise.
“Just this—” answered Neale. “But let’s call Ruth.” Ruth came and then Neale continued: “Hank suddenly dropped his tools when we were working over the motor and said he was going for a walk. He also mentioned fishing. I didn’t think much of it at the time, for he may be odd that way when it comes to a steady job. But now I begin to think he may have gone off to meet those men.”
“But he didn’t meet them,” Ruth said. “We saw them speed away in motor boat alone.”
“They may have met Hank later,” the boy said.
“But what makes you suspicious of him?” Ruth asked.
“I’ll tell you.” And Neale related the episode of the gold ring.
“Oh, do you think it could be one of ours that the men took? Do you think Hank is in with them, and wants his share of the ‘swag’ as one man called it?” questioned Agnes eagerly.
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” answered Neale. “But he certainly had a ring. It rolled to the deck and he picked it up quickly enough.”
“Say, Ruthie!” exclaimed Agnes impulsively, “now’s a good chance while he’s away. We could look through the place where he keeps what few things he has—in that curtained off corner by his cot.”
Ruth shook her head.
“I’d rather not,” she remarked. “I couldn’t bear to do that. I’d much rather accuse him openly. But we won’t even do that now. We’ll just watch and wait, and we won’t even tell Mr. Howbridge until we are more sure of our ground.”
“All right,” agreed Neale and Agnes after they had talked it over at some length.
It was agreed that they should all three keep their eyes on Hank, and note whether there were any further suspicious happenings.
“Of course you want to be careful of one thing,” remarked Neale, as the three talked it over.
“What is that?” questioned Agnes quickly.
“You don’t want that mule driver to suspect that you are watching him. If he did suspect it he’d be more careful to hide his doings than ever.”
“We won’t let him suspect us, Neale,” declared Ruth.
“Of course he may be as innocent as they make ’em, and on the other hand he may be as deep as——”
“The deep blue sea,” finished Agnes.
“Exactly.”
“He certainly doesn’t appear very deep,” remarked Ruth. “He looks rather simple minded.”
“But sometimes those simple looking customers are the deepest,” declared the youth. “I know we had that sort join the circus sometimes. You had to watch ’em every minute.” And there the talk came to an end.
The mule driver came along some time later. He had a goodly string of fish. Agnes was asleep, but Ruth heard him putting them in the ice box. She heard Neale speak to the man, and then, gradually, the Bluebird became quiet.
“Well, he got fish, at any rate,” Ruth reasoned as she turned over to go to sleep. “I hope he has no connection with those robbers. And yet, why should he hide a ring? Oh, I wonder if we shall ever see our things and mother’s wedding ring again.”
Ruth was too much of a philosopher to let this keep her awake. There was a slight feeling of timidity, as was natural, but she made herself conquer this.
Finally Ruth dozed off.
How long she slept she did not know, but she was suddenly awakened by hearing a scream. It was the high-pitched voice of a child, and after her first start Ruth knew it came from Tess.
“Oh, don’t let him get me! Don’t let him get me!” cried the little girl.
Instantly Ruth was out of bed, and while she slipped on her bath robe and while her bare feet sought her slippers under the edge of her bunk, she cried:
“What is it, Tessie? Ruth is coming! Sister is coming!”
At once the interior of the Bluebird seemed to pulsate with life. In the corridor which ran the length of the craft, and on either side of which the sleeping apartments were laid off, a night light burned. Opening her door Ruth saw Mrs. MacCall peering forth, a flaring candle in her hand.
“What is it, lass?” asked the sturdy Scotch woman. “I thought I heard a wee cry in the night.”
“You did!” exclaimed Ruth. “It was Tess!”
In quick succession, with kimonas or robes over their sleeping garments, Neale, Mr. Howbridge and Agnes came from their rooms. But from the apartments of Tess and Dot no one came, and ominous quiet reigned.
“What was it?” asked Mr. Howbridge. “One of you girls screamed. Who was it?”
Something gleamed in his hand, and Ruth knew it to be a weapon.
“It was Tess who cried out!” Ruth answered. “All I could hear was something about her being afraid some one would catch her.”
And then again from the room of Tess came a low cry of:
“Ruthie! Ruthie! Come here!”
“Yes, dear, I am coming,” was the soothing reply. “What is it? Oh, my dear, what has happened?”
When she opened the door she saw her sister sitting up in bed, a look of fear on her face but unharmed. And a quick look in the adjoining apartment showed Dot to be peacefully slumbering, her “Alice-doll” close clasped in her arms.
“What was it, Tessie?” asked Ruth in a whisper, carefully closing Dot’s door so as not to awaken her. “What did you see?”
“I—I don’t just remember,” was the answer. “I was dreaming that I was riding on that funny Uncle Josh mule that knows Neale, and then a clown chased me and I fell off and the elephant came after me. I called to you, and—”
“Was it all only a dream, dear?” asked Ruth with a smile.
“No, it wasn’t all a dream,” said Tess slowly. “A man looked in the window at me.”
“What window?” asked Agnes.
Tess pointed to one of the two small casements in her small apartment. They opened on the bank of the river, and it would have been easy for any one passing along the bank of the stream to have looked into Tess’s windows, or, for that matter, into any of the openings on that side of the craft. But the windows, though open on account of the warm night, were protected by heavy screens to keep out mosquitoes and other insects.
“Do you really mean some one opened your window in the night, or did you just dream that, too?” asked Ruth. “You have very vivid dreams sometimes.”
“I didn’t dream about the man,” insisted Tess. “He really opened the screen and looked in. See, it’s loose now!”
The screens swung outward on hinges, and there, plainly enough, the screen of one of the casements in Tess’s room was partly open.
“Perhaps the wind blew it,” suggested Agnes, wishing she could believe this.
Neale stepped over and tested the screen.
“It seems too stiff to have been blown open by the wind,” was the comment.
“But of course,” Mr. Howbridge suggested, “the screen may not have been tightly closed when Theresa went to bed.”
“Oh, yes it was, sir!” exclaimed Mrs. MacCall positively. “I looked at them myself. I didn’t want any of the mosquitoes to be eatin’ ma pretties. The screens were tight closed!”
“Oh dear, I don’t like it here!” said Tess, on the verge of tears. “I don’t want tramps looking in my room, and this man was just like a tramp.”
The noise of some one moving around on the upper deck of the craft attracted the attention of all.
“That’s Hank!” exclaimed Neale. “I’ll go and see if he heard anything unusual or saw any one. It may be that some fellow was passing along the river road and was impudent enough to pull open a screen and look in, thinking he might pick up something off a shelf.”
But Hank, who in his curtained-off place had been awakened by the confusion below him, declared he had seen or heard nothing.
“I’m a sound sleeper,” he said. “Once I get to bed I don’t do much else but sleep.”
So nothing was to be got out of him.
And it was difficult to tell whether or not Tess had dreamed about the man, as she had said she dreamed about the elephant and the mule. Neale volunteered to look on the bank underneath the window for a sign of footprints. He did look, using his flashlight, but discovered nothing.
“I guess it was all a dream,” said Ruth. “Go to sleep, Tess dear. You’ll be all right now.”
“I’m not going to sleep alone,” insisted the little girl, her lips beginning to quiver.
“I’ll stay with you,” offered Ruth, and so it was arranged.
“It’s an awful queer happening,” remarked Agnes.
“Lots of things seem queer on this trip,” put in Tess. “Maybe we better give up the houseboat trip.”
“You won’t say that in the morning,” laughed Neale.
“How do you know that?”
“Oh, I know,” the boy laughed.
They all went back to their beds, but it was some time before several of them resumed their interrupted slumbers. Tess, the innocent cause of it all, fell off to dreamland with Ruth’s arm around her in the rather cramped quarters, for the bunks were not intended to accommodate two. But once Tess was breathing deeply and regularly, Ruth slipped back to her own apartment, pausing to whisper to Agnes that Tess seemed all right now.
Ruth remained awake for some time, her mind busy with many things, and mingled with her confused thoughts were visions of the mule driver, Hank Dayton, signaling to some tramp confederates in the woods the fact that all on board the Bluebird were deep in slumber, so that robbery might be easily committed.
“Oh, but I’m foolish to think such things,” the Corner House girl told herself. “Absolutely foolish!”
And at last she convinced herself of that and went to sleep.
The next morning Neale and Mr. Howbridge, with Hank to help, made a careful examination of the soft earth on the river bank under Tess’s window. They saw many footprints, and the stub of a cigarette.
But the footprints might have been made by themselves when they had moored the boat the evening before. As for the cigarette stub, though Hank smoked, he said he never used cigarettes. A pipe was his favorite, and neither Mr. Howbridge nor Neale smoked.
“Some one passing in the daytime before we arrived may have flung the stub away,” said the lawyer. “I think all we can do is to ascribe the alarm to a dream Tess had.”
The little girl had forgotten much of the occurrence of the night when questioned about it next morning. She hardly recalled her dream, but she did insist that a man had looked in her window.
“Well, next time we tie up over night we’ll do it in or near some city or village, and not in such a lonely place,” decided Mr. Howbridge.
Neale and Hank made good their promise to repair the motor, and shortly after breakfast the craft was in shape to travel on.
The weather continued fine, and if it had not been for the alarm of the night before, and the shadow of the robbery hanging over Ruth and Agnes, and Neale’s anxiety about his father, the travelers would have been in a most happy mood. The trip was certainly affording them many new experiences.
“It’s almost as exciting as when we were snowbound,” declared Agnes.
“But I’m glad we don’t have to look for two little runaways or lost ones,” put in Ruth, with a glance at Tess and Dot as they went out to play on the upper deck.
It was just before noon, when Ruth was helping Mrs. MacCall prepare the dinner, that the oldest Kenway girl heard a distressing cry from the upper deck where Tess and Dot had been playing all the morning.
“Tess, stop!” Ruth heard Dot exclaim. “I’m going to tell Ruthie on you! You’ll drown her! Oh, Tess!”
“She can’t drown! Haven’t I got a string on her?” demanded Tess. “This is a new way of giving her a bath. She likes it.”
“Give her to me! Ruthie! Ruthie! Make Tess stop!” pleaded Dot.
“I wonder what the matter is,” said Ruth, as she set down the dish she was holding and hastened to the upper deck.
There she saw Dot and Tess both leaning over the rail, at rather a dangerous angle, and evidently struggling, one to get possession of and the other to retain, some object Ruth could not see.
“Be careful! You’ll fall in!” Ruth cried.
At the sound of her voice her sisters turned toward her, and Ruth saw they each had hold of a cord.
“What are you doing; fishing?” Ruth asked. “Don’t you know Hank said you couldn’t catch fish when the boat was moving unless you trolled with what he called a spoon?”
“We’re not fishing!” said Dot.
“I’m just giving the Alice-doll a bath,” explained Tess. “I tied her on the end of a string and I’m letting her swim in the water. She likes it!”
“She does not! And you must stop! And you must give her to me! Oh, Ruthie!” cried Dot, trying to pull the cord away from Tess. In an instant there was a struggle between the two little girls.
“Children! Children!” admonished Ruth, in perfect amazement at such behavior on the part of the gentle and considerate Tess. “I’m surprised at you! Tess, dear, give Dot her doll. You shouldn’t have put her in water unless Dot allowed you to.”
“Well, but she needed a bath!” insisted Tess. “She was dirty!”
“I know it, and I was going to give her a bath; but she has a cold and I was waiting till she got over it!” explained Dot. “Tess, give me that string, and I’ll pull my Alice-doll up!” she demanded.
The struggle was renewed, and Ruth was hastening across the deck to stop it by the force of more authority than mere words, when Neale, who was steering the craft, called out.
“There’s the big water! We’re at Lake Macopic now!”
Hardly had the echo of his words died away than Dot cried:
“There! Now look what you did! You let go the string and my Alice-doll is gone!”
Dot burst into tears, and Tess, startled by the sudden tragic outcome of her prank, leaned so far over the edge of the boat to see what happened to the doll that Ruth cried:
“Be careful! You’ll fall! Don’t you go into the lake, as well as the doll!”
Tess bounced back on deck. She looked ashamed when she saw Dot crying.
“You can have one of my dolls when we get back home,” Tess offered. “Or you can have my half of Almira the cat, and all her kittens. I’ll give you my share.”
“I don’t want ’em! I want my Alice-doll!” wailed Dot.
“I’ll have Hank get her for you!” called Neale, as he swung the boat around. “The string will float, even if your doll won’t, and Hank can fish it back aboard.”
Neale signaled to Hank by means of a bell running from the upper deck near the steering wheel to the motor room below, where the former mule driver looked after the gasoline engine. It was arranged with a clutch, so it could be thrown out of gear, thus stopping or reversing the power, if need be.
“What’s the matter?” called Hank, coming out on the lower deck and looking up at Neale. “Going to make a landing?”
“No. But Dot lost her Alice-doll overboard,” Neale explained. “Tess had a string to it and—”
“Oh, is that what the string was?” exclaimed Hank. “I saw a cord drop down at the stern past the motor-room window and I made a grab for it. I thought it was somebody’s fish line. Wait, I’ll give it a haul and see what I can get on deck.”
Leaving the wheel, which needed no attention since power was not now propelling the craft, Neale hastened to the lower deck, followed by Ruth, Tess and Agnes. They saw Hank pulling in, hand over hand, the long, white cord. Presently there came something slapping its way up the side of the Bluebird, and a moment later there slumped down on the deck a very wet, and much bedraggled doll.
“Oh, it’s my Alice! It’s Alice!” cried Dot. “I’ve got her back once more.”
“There won’t be much left of her if she gets in the water again,” prophesied Neale. “This is the second time this trip.”
“She is rather forlorn looking,” agreed Ruth, trying not to smile and hurt her little sister’s feelings, for Dot was very sensitive about her dolls, especially her “Alice” one. “I shall have to get you a new one, Dot.”
“I don’t want anybody but my Alice-doll! Will you hang her up in the sun for me so she’ll dry?” begged Dot of Neale, holding out to him the really wretched doll.
“Of course, Dottie. And when we get back to Milton we can take her to the hospital again and have her done over as we did after she was buried with the dried apples. Poor Alice-doll! She has had a hard life.”
Tess had gone off by herself, thoroughly ashamed of her behavior. Dot now went to her own little room, to grieve over the fate of the Alice-doll.
“Aggie,” said Neale, “I think our Tess must have surely gone insane. I never knew her to do a deliberately unkind thing before.”
“It certainly is curious. There, Neale, Mr. Howbridge is beckoning to you.”
“Yes,” Neale replied. “He wants us to start, and he’s right. Start her up again, Hank,” he added. “We’re on Lake Macopic now, and we’ll have to watch our step. There’s more navigation here than there was on the river.”
“Is this really the lake?” asked Ruth, “Are we really on Macopic at last?”
“This is where the river broadens out into the lake,” said Neale, indicating the sweep of waters about them. “It is really a part of the lake, though the larger and main part lies around that point,” and he indicated the point of land he meant.
Lake Macopic was a large body of water, and on its shores were many towns, villages and one or two places large enough to be dignified by the appellation “cities.” Quite a trade was done between some of the places, for the presence of so much water gave opportunity for power to be obtained from it, and around the lake were many mills and factories. There were a number of islands in the lake, some of them large enough for summer hotels, while others were merely clumps of trees. On some, campers spent their vacations, and on one or two, owned by fishermen, cabins were built.
“Yes, we are really here at last,” said Neale. “I must find out where we are to head for. Where do you have to deliver this boat, Mr. Howbridge?” he asked the lawyer.
“At the upper end of the lake,” was the answer. “But there is no hurry about it. I intend that we shall all have a nice cruise on Lake Macopic before I let my client have possession of this boat. He is in no special need, and the summer is not nearly enough over to make me want to end our vacation yet. That is, unless you feel you must get back to the Corner House, Martha?” and he smiled at his oldest ward.
“Oh, no,” Ruth made haste to reply. “It is too lovely here to wish to leave. I’m sure we shall find it most delightful.”
“Can we go in swimming?” asked Tess, who liked the water.
“Yes, there are bathing beaches—several of them in fact,” answered the lawyer. “We will stop at one and let you children paddle around.”
“I can swim!” boasted Tess.
“I can too,” added Dot, not to be outdone by her sister.
Lake Macopic was beautiful, reflecting the sunlight, the blue sky, and the white, fleecy clouds. The houseboat once more began slowly navigating it as Hank threw the clutch in and Neale kept the wheel steady. They passed several other boats, and then, as their supplies were running low, it was decided to put in at the nearest town.
“We’ll get some cake and maybe a pie or two,” said Ruth, after consulting Mrs. MacCall. “And of course, some fresh vegetables.”
“Can’t we get some strawberries?” questioned Dot.
“Too late I’m afraid, Dot. But maybe we can get huckleberries.”
“Oh, I know what I would like,” cried Tess.
“I know too,” declared Agnes. “An ice-cream cone.”
“Yep. Strawberry.”
“I want chocolate,” came promptly from Dot.
“And oh, can’t we have some lollypops too?” went on Tess.
“Sure—if the stores keep them,” answered Mr. Howbridge promptly. “Yes, I see a sign, ‘Ice Cream and Confectionery.’ I guess we can get what we want over there—when we reach the place.”
“Oh, goody,” cried Dot; and Tess patted her stomach in satisfaction.
It was early evening when they tied up at a wharf, which was operated in conjunction with a store, and while Mrs. MacCall and the girls were buying such things as were needed, Neale and Mr. Howbridge made some inquiries regarding the rules for navigating the lake. They found there would be no trouble in getting the Bluebird from place to place.
“Have you seen a small motor boat run by two men around here lately?” asked the lawyer of the dock keeper, after some unimportant talk.
“What sort of men?”
“Roughly dressed.”
“That isn’t much of a description,” was the retort. “A lot of the fishermen dress roughly, but they’re all right. But we do have some fellows up here who aren’t what I’d call first-class.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mr. Howbridge.
“Well, I mean there’s a bunch camping on one of the islands here. Somebody said they were returned miners from the Klondike, but I don’t know that I believe that.”
“Why, those may be the very men we mean!” cried the lawyer. “One of them claims, or is said to have been, in the Alaskan gold regions. In fact this young man’s father is, or was, a Klondike miner,” went on Mr. Howbridge, indicating Neale. “Maybe these men could tell us something about him. Did you ever hear any of them mention a Mr. O’Neil?” he asked.
The dock tender shook his head.
“Can’t say I did,” he answered. “I don’t have much to do with those men. They’re too rough for me. They may be the ones you mean, and they may not.”
Further questioning elicited no more information, and Neale and Mr. Howbridge had to be content with this.
“But we’ll pay a visit to that island,” decided the lawyer, when its location had been established. “We may get some news of your father in that way.”
“I hope so,” sighed Neale.
Rather than tie up at the dock that night, which would bring them too near the not very pleasant sights and sounds of a waterfront neighborhood, it was decided to anchor the Bluebird out some distance in the lake.
Accordingly, at dusk, when supper was over and a little stroll on shore had gotten the “kinks” out of their “sea legs,” the Bluebird was headed into the lake again and moored, with riding lights to warn other craft away.
In the middle of the night Neale felt the need of a drink, as he had eaten some buttered popcorn the evening before and he was now thirsty. As he arose to get a glass of water from a shelf in his apartment he became aware of a strange movement. At the same time he could hear the sighing of the wind.
“Sounds as if a storm were coming up,” mused the boy. And then, as he reached out his hand for the glass, he felt the Bluebird rise, fall and sway beneath him.
“Why, we’re moving! We’re drifting!” exclaimed Neale. “The anchor must be dragging or the cables have been cut. We’re drifting fast, and may be in danger!”
Neale O’Neil was a lad to whom, young as he was, emergencies came as a sort of second nature. His life in the circus had prepared him for quick and unusual action. Many times, while traveling with the tented shows, accidents had happened. Sometimes one of the animals would get loose, perhaps one of the “hay feeders,” by which is meant the elephants, horses or camels. Or, worse than this, one of the big “cats,” or the meat eaters—including lions, tigers and leopards—would break from a cage. Then consternation would reign.
But Neale had seen how the circus men had met these emergencies, always working for the safety of others.
And now, as he seemed to be alone in the semi-darkness and silence of the houseboat at midnight, Neale felt that the time had come for him to act.
“We must have pulled our anchor, or else some one has cut us adrift,” decided the lad. “And if any one has cut us loose it must be those men from the motor boat—the tramps—the thieves!”
He visualized their evil countenances and thought of how they had behaved toward Ruth and Agnes—that is, if these were the two men in question.
“And I wonder if Hank stands in with them,” mused Neale. “I must find out. But first I’ve got to do something about the boat. If we’re adrift, as we surely are, we may run into some other craft, or one may run into us, or—”
Neale paused as he felt a grating beneath the broad, flat bottom of the boat and the craft careened slightly.
“We may go aground or be blown on an island,” was his completed thought. “But we’re safe so far,” he mentally added, as he felt the Bluebird slip off some under-water rock or reef of mud over which she progressed.
Then Neale galvanized himself into action. He forgot all about the drink he had been going to get, and, slipping on shoes and a rubber coat that hung in his room, he stepped out into the corridor which ran the length of the boat between the two rows of sleeping rooms.
Neale was going up on deck to look around and, if possible, find out what had caused the boat to break away from her moorings.
As Neale passed Ruth’s door it opened and she came out, wrapped in a heavy robe.
“What is it, Neale?” asked the oldest Corner House girl. “Has anything happened?”
“Nothing much yet. But it may,” was the answer. “We’re adrift, and it’s coming on to blow. I’m going to see what the matter is.”
“I’ll come with you,” Ruth offered. Neale was like a brother to the Kenway girls. “Shall I call Mr. Howbridge and Mrs. Mac?” she asked.
“Not yet,” he answered in a low voice. “It may be that the cable has only slipped, but I don’t see how it could. In that case I’ll only have to take a few turns around a cleat and we’ll be all right. No use calling any one unless we have to.”
“I’ll come and help,” Ruth offered, and Neale knew she could be of excellent service.
Together they ascended the stairs in the half darkness, illuminated by the glow from a night oil lamp in the hall. But no sooner had they emerged on the open deck than they became aware of the gravity of the situation. They were almost blinded by an intense glare of lightning. This was followed by a menacing rumble of thunder, and then Ruth gasped for breath as a strong wind smote her in the face, and Neale, just ahead of her, turned to grasp her lest she be blown against a railing and hurt.
“Great guns!” exclaimed Neale, “it’s going to be a fierce storm.”
“Are we really adrift?” exclaimed Ruth, raising her voice to be heard above the howl of the wind.
“I should say we are!” cried Neale in answer. “But the boat is so big and solid she isn’t going as fast as an ordinary craft would. But we’re drifting all right, and it’s going to be a whole lot worse before it’s better. Do you want to stay here?” he asked.
“Of course I do! I’m going to help!” declared Ruth. But at that moment came another bright flash of lightning and a terrific peal of thunder. And then, as if this had split open the clouds, down came a deluge of rain.
“Go below and get on your waterproof and then tell the others to get up and dress,” advised Neale. “We may come out of it all right, and again we may not. It’s best to be prepared.”
“Are we—are we far from shore?” panted Ruth, the wind almost taking the words from her mouth. “Are we apt to be dashed against it, do you think?”
“We can’t be wrecked,” Neale answered her. “This is a well built boat. But we may have to go ashore in the rain, and it’s best for the children to be dressed.”
“I’ll tell them!” cried Ruth, and she descended, glad to be in out of the storm that was increasing in violence every moment. That little time she was exposed to it almost drenched her. Neale’s rubber coat was a great protection to him.
The boy gave one quick look around. The wind was blowing about over the deck a number of camp stools that had been left out, but he reasoned that they would be caught and held by the rope network about the deck. Neale’s chief anxiety was about the anchor.
The cable to which this was bent was made fast to a cleat on the lower deck, and as the lad made his way there by an outside stairway he heard some one walking on the deck he had just quitted.
“I guess that’s Hank,” Neale reasoned.
The boy was pulling at the anchor rope when he heard Hank’s voice near him asking:
“What’s the matter, Neale?”
“We’re either dragging our anchor or the cable’s cut,” answered the lad. And then, as the rope came dripping through his hands, offering no resistance to the pull, he realized what had happened. The anchor was gone! It had slipped the cable or been cut loose. Just which did not so much matter now, as did the fact that there was nothing to hold the Bluebird against the fury of the gale.
Realizing this, Neale did not pull the cable up to the end. He had found out what he wanted to know—that the anchor was off it and somewhere on the bottom of the lake. He next turned his attention to the boat.
“We’re drifting!” he cried to Hank. “We’ve got to start the motor, and see if we can head up into the wind. You go to that and I’ll take the wheel!”
“All right,” agreed the mule driver. “This is some storm!” he added, bending his head to the blast of the wind and the drive of the rain.
It was growing worse every moment, Neale realized. Buttoned as his rubber coat was, the lower part blew open every now and then, drenching his bare legs.
As the boy hurried to the upper deck again to take command of the steering wheel, he heard from within the Bluebird sounds which told him the Corner House girls, their guardian, and Mrs. MacCall were getting up. The voices of Tess and Dot could be heard, excited and somewhat frightened.
“The only real danger,” thought Neale to himself, “is that we may hit a rock or something, and stave a hole in us. In that case we’d sink, I guess, and this lake is deep.”
But he had not told Ruth that danger. He grasped the spokes of the wheel firmly, and waited for the vibration that would tell him Hank had started the motor. And as he waited he had to face the wind and rain, and listen to the vibrating thunder, the while he was almost blinded by the vivid lightning. It was one of those fierce summer storms, and the temperature took a sudden drop so that Neale was chilled through.
“Why doesn’t Hank start that motor?” impatiently thought the lad. “We’re drifting fast and that big island must be somewhere in this neighborhood. I wonder how close it is? If we hit that going like this—good-night!”
A vivid flash of light split the darkness like a dagger of flame and revealed the heaving tumultuous lake all about, the waters whipped and lashed into foam by the sudden wind. Storms came up quickly on Lake Macopic, due to the exposed situation of the body of water, and there were often fatalities caused by boats being caught unprepared.
Just as Neale was going to take a chance and hurry below to see what was delaying Hank, there came the vibration of the craft which told that the motor had been started.
“Now we’ll get somewhere,” cried Neale aloud. “I think I’d better head into the wind and try to make shore. If I can get her under the shelter of that bluff we passed this afternoon, it will be the best for all of us.”
He swung the wheel around, noting that the Bluebird answered to the helm, and then he dashed the water from his face with a motion of his head, shaking back his hair. As the craft gathered speed a figure came up the stairs and emerged on deck. It fought its way across the deck to the wheel and a voice asked:
“Are we making progress, Neale?”