puffed Mr. Bill Sorber, "ast your party to git out and
take us over the bridge in that there machine of yours, will you? That
canalboat belongs to this here man and his little gal--why, Neale!"

"Hullo, Uncle Bill! Hop in--you and your friends," cried Neale.

"Come in--hurry, Mr. Sorber!" Ruth added her plea. "Oh!" she said to
Louise, "is that the _Nancy Hanks_?"

"Sure as ever was," gulped Louise. "Come on, Pap! John and Jerry will be
burnt to a cinder, so they will."

"Tell me, child," Luke said, lifting the girl into his lap as he sat in
front with Neale, and crowding over to give the lanky Cap'n Quigg room
to sit. "Tell me, are there others aboard the boat?"

"John and Jerry," sobbed Louise.

"Well, well!" Luke soothed. "Don't cry. They can open the door of the
cabin and walk out, can't they?"

"Nop. They're chained to stanchions."

"_Chained?_" gasped the excitable Agnes from the rear. "How awful! Have
you got children--"

"Aw, who said anything about children?" demanded Louise snappily. "Only
John and Jerry."

"Well?"

"Them's mules," said the child, as Neale drove the car on at increasing
speed.

"Tell us," Ruth begged, quite as anxious now as her sister, "have you
seen two children--a boy and a girl--this afternoon?"

"Lots of 'em," replied Louise, succinctly.

Here Cap'n Bill put in a word. "If there's anything to see, children, or
what not, Lowise seen 'em. She's got the brightest eyes!"

"We are looking for a little girl with a doll in her arms and a boy
about ten years old. They were carrying a big paper bag and a basket of
fruit, and maybe were near the canal at Milton--right there at the
blacksmith shop where you had your mules shod to-day."

This was Luke's speech, and despite the jarring and bouncing of the car
he made his earnest words audible to the captain of the canalboat and to
his daughter.

"Did they come aboard your boat? Or did you see them?" he added.

"Ain't been nobody aboard our boat but our ownselfs and Beauty,"
declared Louise.

"And you did not see two children--"

"Holt on!" cried the girl. "I guess I seen 'em when we was waitin' to
get the mules shod. They went by."

"Which way were they going?"

"Toward the canal--they was. And our boat was in sight. But I didn't see
'em after."

"Oh, my dear!" cried Ruth, from the tonneau, "they could not possibly be
shut up anywhere on your boat?"

"Why, they wasn't in the cabin, of course--nor the mules' stable,"
dr