ove in her heart for Dot than the others, for
had she not had the principal care of Dot since babyhood?--could not be
convinced now that all they could do was to wait.

"There must be some way of tracing them," she declared. "If they were
over on Meadow Street somebody must have seen them after they left Mrs.
Kranz's store."

"That is the place to take up their trail, Ruth," Luke said. "Tell me
how to find the store and I'll go down there and make enquiries."

"I will go with you," the eldest Corner House girl said quickly. "I know
the people there and you don't."

"I'll go, too!" cried Agnes, wiping her eyes.

"No," said her sister decisively. "No use in more going. You remain at
home with Tess and Cecile. I am much obliged to you, Luke. We'll start
at once."

"And without your lunch?" cried Mrs. MacCall.

Ruth had no thought for lunch, and Luke denied all desire for the midday
meal. "Come on!" he prophesied boldly, "we'll find those kids before we
eat."

"Oh!" sighed Agnes, "I wish Neale O'Neil had not gone fishing. Then he
could have chased around in the automobile and found those naughty
children in a hurry."

"He would not know where to look for them any more than we do," her
sister said. "All ready, Luke."

They set off briskly for the other side of town. Luke said:

"Wish I knew how to run an auto myself. That's going to be my very next
addition to the sum of my knowledge. I could have taken you out in your
car myself."

"Not without a license in this county," said Ruth. "And we'll do very
well. I _hope_ nothing has happened to these children."

"Of course nothing has," he said comfortingly. "That is, nothing that a
little soap and water and a spanking won't cure."

"No. Dot has never been punished in that way."

"But Sammy has--oft and again," chuckled Luke. "And of course he is to
blame for this escapade."

"I'm not altogether sure of that," said the just Ruth, who knew Dot's
temperament if anybody did. "It doesn't matter which is the most to
blame. I want to find them."

But this was a task not easy to perform, as they soon found out after
reaching Meadow Street. Certainly Mrs. Kranz remembered all about the
children coming to her store that morning--all but one thing. She stuck
to it that Dot had said they were going on a picnic. The word "pirates"
was strange to the ear of the German woman, so having misunderstood it
the picnic idea was firmly fixed in her mind.

Maria Maroni had been