Grace Brooks Hill

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Howbridge, as the motor craft passed out of sight beyond a tree-fringed point.
“I think I am,” said Ruth. “If they are not guilty why do they always hurry away when they see us?”
“Well, Minerva, that is a question I can not answer,” said her guardian, with a smile. “You are a better lawyer than I when it comes to that. Certainly it does look suspicious.”
“Oh, for a motor boat!” sighed Neale. “I’d like to chase those rascals!”
“Yes, it would be interesting to find out why they seem to fear us,” agreed Mr. Howbridge. “But it’s too late, now.”
“I wonder why they came to this island,” mused Ruth. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Uncle Rufus was hobbling toward the scene of the excitement as fast as his rheumatism would allow. Scattered on the ground at the foot of the steps was a collection of odds and ends—“trash” Uncle Rufus called it. The trash had come from an overturned barrel, and it was this barrel rolling down the steps and off the porch that had caused the noise.
“What happened?” demanded Ruth, breathing more easily when she saw that the casualty list was confined to the doll.
“It was Tess,” declared Dot. “She tipped the barrel over and it rolled on my Alice-doll and now look at her.” ”

“ 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?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ MacCall, who looked after matters in general, Linda, who helped with the baking, Uncle Rufus, who was cleaning the lawn, down to Dot and Tess, who had been sent for flowers.
And then had come the bribing of Dot and Tess to go to the store and, following that, the crash.
“What can it be?” murmured Ruth, as she and Agnes hastened on. “Some one surely must be hurt.”
“I hope not,” half whispered Agnes.
From the side porch came the sound of childish anguish.
“She’s all flatted out, that’s what she is! She’s all flatted out, my Alice-doll is, and it’s all your fault, Tess Kenway! ”

“ Look!” cried Ruth, pointing at them. “They’re the same ones!”
“The men we saw at the lock?” asked Neale.
“Yes, and the men who robbed us—I am almost positive of that!” cried the oldest Corner House girl.
“The rascals!” exclaimed the lawyer. “They’re going to escape us again! Fate seems to be with them! Every time we come upon them they manage to distance us!”
This was what was happening now. The tramps—such they seemed to be, though the possession of a motor boat took them out of the ordinary class—with never a look behind, speeded away.
“How provoking!” cried Agnes. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ MacCall. “What those English law makers do—I wouldna’ put it past them!” and, shaking her head, she retired into the deep pantry again.
“Well, you’re going to have enough of sweets, I should say;” observed Agnes, “even as fond as Mr. Howbridge is of them. For the land’s sake, aren’t you going to stop?” she demanded, as Ruth poured into a dish the cake batter she had begun to stir as soon as the pie was completed.
“This is the last. You don’t need to stay and help me any longer if you don’t want to, dear. Run out and play,” urged Ruth sweetly.
“Run out and play! As if I were Dot or Tess! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Sailing craft are more at the mercy of the wind and water than are power boats, but when these last have lost their ability to progress they are in worse plight than the other craft, being less substantial in build.
But the Bluebird was not exactly of either of these types. In fact the craft on which the Corner House girls were voyaging was merely a big scow with a broad, flat bottom and a superstructure made into the semblance of a house on shore—with limitations, of course. ”

“ He just arrived at the lower lock with a grain boat, and I hurried to tell you.”
“Yes, that was right, Neale,” said Mr. Howbridge. “Excuse me, Miss Ruth,” he went on, turning to the girl, “but I happen to be this young man’s legal adviser, and while I planned this for a pleasure trip, it seems that business can not be kept out of it.”
“Oh, we don’t mind!” exclaimed Ruth, with a smile at Neale. “Of course we know about this, and we’d be so glad if you could help find Mr. O’Neil.”
“All right then, if the young ladies have no objection,” said the lawyer, “we’ll combine business with pleasure. ”