ded Agnes,
filled with a new fear.

"He's not a brigand I should hope," Cecile Shepard cried.

"Can't tell what he is till we see him," Neale grumbled. "If this old
canalboat hasn't been wrecked or sunk, we'll find it and interview Cap'n
Quigg before we go back."

"Meanwhile," Ruth said, with more than a little doubt, "the children may
be wandering in quite an opposite direction."

"Why, of course, our guess may be wrong, Ruth," Luke said thoughtfully,
turning around the better to speak with the oldest Corner House girl.
"However, we are traveling so fast that it will not delay us much."

"Pshaw, no!" exclaimed Neale. "We'll be in Durginville in a few
minutes."

But they did not get that far. Crossing the canal by a liftbridge they
swept along the other side and suddenly coming out of the woods saw
before them a tented city.

"Why!" cried Cecile, "it's a circus!"

"I saw the pictures on the billboards," her brother admitted. "If we
only had the children with us, and everything was all right, we might
go."

"Sure we would," responded Neale, smiling.

"Oh, Neale!" cried Agnes, "is it Uncle Bill's?"

"Yes. I have a letter in my pocket now from him that I've had no chance
to read."

"You don't suppose Mr. Sorber knows anything about the children?" said
Ruth, a little weakly for her.

"How could he?" gasped Agnes. "But we ought to stop and ask."

"And see about the calico pony," chuckled Neale. "Tess and Dot have been
hounding me to death about that."

"You don't suppose Dot could have started out to hunt for the circus to
get that pony, do you?" suggested Ruth, almost at her wits' end to
imagine what had happened to her little sister and her friend.

"We'll know about that shortly," Neale declared.

Suddenly Luke Shepard exclaimed:

"Hullo, what's afire, Neale? See yonder?"

"At the canal," cried his sister, seeing the smoke too.

"Is it a house?" asked Agnes.

"A straw stack!" cried Neale. "Must be. Some farmer is losing the
winter's bedding for his cattle."

"It is on the canal," Luke put in. "Don't you see? There's one of those
old barges there--and the smoke is coming from it."

"There are the flames. The fire's burst out," Agnes cried.

Suddenly Ruth startled them all by demanding:

"How do we know it isn't the _Nancy Hanks_?"

"Crickey! We don't," acknowledged Neale, and immediately touched the
accelerator. The car leaped ahead. They went roaring on toward the
circus grounds and the