Chapter X: A Stowaway

Ruth dropped some of the garments she was unpacking from her trunk. Agnes came from the dining room, where she was setting the table for the first meal on the craft. Neale and Mr. Howbridge ran from the motor compartment in the lower hold of the boat. Mrs. MacCall raised her hands and began to murmur in her broadest Scotch so that no one knew what she was saying. And from the upper deck of the boat, where they had been left sitting on camp stools under the green striped awning, came the chorused cries of Tess and Dot:

"Oh, come on up! Come on up!"

"Something must have happened!" exclaimed Ruth.

"But the girls are all right, thank goodness!" added Agnes.

Together all four of them, with Mrs. MacCall bringing up the rear, ascended to the upper deck. There they saw Dot and Tess pointing down the towpath. Hank Dayton was, indeed, having trouble with the mules. And Tess had not exaggerated when she said that one of the animals was trying to kick the driver into the canal.

"Oh! Oh!" screamed Ruth and Agnes, as the flying heels barely missed the man's head.

"I'll go and give him a hand!" exclaimed Neale, and before any one knew what his intention was he ran down the stairs, out to the lower forward deck of the craft, and leaped across the intervening water to the towpath, an easy feat for a lad as agile as Neale O'Neil.

"What's the matter, Hank?" those on the _Bluebird_ could hear Neale ask the driver.

"Oh, Arabella is feeling rather frisky, I guess," was the answer. "She hasn't had much work to do lately, and she's showing off!" Arabella was the name of one of the mules.

Neale, born in a circus, knew a good deal about animals, and it did not take him and Hank Dayton long to subdue the fractious Arabella. After she had kicked up her heels a few more times, just to show her contempt for the authority of the whiffle-tree and the traces, she quieted down. The other mule, a more sedate animal, looked at his companion in what might have been disgust mingled with distrust.

"Are they all right now?" asked Ruth, as Neale leaped aboard the boat again.

"Oh, yes. Hank can manage 'em all right. He just had to let Arabella have her kick out. She's all right now. Isn't this fun, though?" and Neale breathed in deeply of the fresh air.

"Oh, Neale, it's glorious!" and Agnes' eyes sparkled.

The day had turned out a lovely one after the hard shower, and everything was fresh and green. They had reached the outskirts of Milton by this time, and were approaching the open country through which the canal meandered before joining the river. On either side of the towpath were farms and gardens, with a house set here and there amid the green fields or orchards.

Now and then other boats were passed. At such times one of the craft would have to slow up to let the tow-rope sink into the canal, so the other boat might pass over it. The mules hee-hawed to each other as they met, and Hank exchanged salutations with the other drivers.

"I think it's just the loveliest way to spend a vacation that ever could be thought of," said Agnes to Mr. Howbridge.

"I hope you all like it," he remarked.

"Oh, yes, it's going to be perfect," said the older Kenway girl. "If only--"

"You are thinking of your jewelry," interrupted her guardian. "Please don't! It will be recovered by the police."

"I don't believe so," said Ruth. "I don't care so much about our things. We can buy more. But mother's wedding ring can never be replaced nor, I fear, found. I believe those Klondikers will dispose of it in some way. They'll never be caught."

"Klondikers!" cried Neale, coming into the main cabin just then. "Did you say Klondikers?" and it was plain to be seen that he was thinking of his father.

"Yes. There is a suspicion that the men who robbed Ruth were two men who the day before looked at the Stetson flat," explained Agnes. "They said they were Klondike miners."

"Klondike miners!" murmured Neale. "I wonder if they knew my father or if he knew them. I don't mean the robbers," he added quickly. "I mean the men who came to rent the flat. I wish I had a chance to speak to them."

"So do I," said Mr. Howbridge. "I have hardly yet had a chance to tell you, Neale, but I have a letter from your Uncle Bill."

"Does he know about father?" asked the boy quickly.

"No. This letter was written before he received mine asking for your father's last known address. But it may be possible for you to meet your uncle during this trip."

"How?" asked Neale.

"He tells me in his letter the names of the places where the circus will show in the next month. And one place is not far from a town we pass on the canal."

"Then I'm going to see him!" cried Neale joyfully. "I'll be glad to meet him again. He may know something of my father. I wonder if they have any new animals since last summer. They ought to have a pony to take Scalawag's place.

"He didn't say," remarked the lawyer. "But I thought you'd be glad to know that your uncle was in this vicinity."

"I am," said the boy. "This trip is going to be better than I thought. Now, if he only has word of my father!"

"We'll find him, sooner or later," declared the guardian of the Corner House girls. "But now, since the mules seem to be doing their duty, suppose we take account of stock and see if we need anything. If we do, we ought to stop and get it at one of the places through which we pass, because we may tie up at night near some small village where they don't keep hair pins and--er--whatever else you young ladies need," and he smiled quizzically at Ruth.

"Thank you! We brought all the hairpins we need!" Agnes informed him.

"And I think we have enough to eat," added Ruth. "At least Mrs. Mac is busy in the kitchen, and something smells mighty good."

Indeed appetizing odors were permeating the interior of the _Bluebird_, and a little later the company were sitting down to a most delightful meal. Dot and Tess could hardly be induced to come down off the upper deck long enough to eat, so fascinated were they with the things they saw along the canal.

"Isn't Hank going to eat, and the mules, too?" asked Dot, as she finished and took her "Alice-doll" up, ready to resume her station under the awning.

"Oh, yes. 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. Well, it will do to-night after we have tied up."

"Where is Hank going to sleep?" asked Ruth, who, filling the role of housekeeper, thought she must carry out her duties even on the _Bluebird_.

"He will sleep on the upper deck. I have a cot for him," said the lawyer. "The mules will be tethered on the towpath. It is warm now, and they won't need shelter. They are even used to being out in the rain."

The afternoon was drawing to a close, matters aboard the houseboat had been arranged to satisfy even the critical taste of Ruth, and Mrs. MacCall was beginning to put her mind on the preparation of supper when Dot, who had come below to get a new dress for her "Alice-doll," ran from the storeroom where the trunks and valises had been put.

"Oh! Oh, Ruth!" gasped the little girl. "Somebody's in there!"

"In where?" asked Ruth, who was writing a letter at the living-room table.

"In there!" and Dot pointed toward the storeroom, which was at the stern of the boat under the stairs that led up on deck.

"Some one in there?" repeated Ruth. "Well, that's very possible. Mrs. Mac may be there, or Neale or--"

"No, it isn't any of them!" insisted Dot. "I saw everybody that belongs to us. It's somebody else! He's in the storeroom, and he sneezed and made a noise like a goat."

"You ridiculous child! what do you mean?" exclaimed Agnes, who was just passing through the room and heard what Dot said.

"You probably heard one of Hank's mules hee-hawing," said Ruth, getting up from her chair.

"Mules don't sneeze!" declared Dot with conviction.

Ruth had to admit the truth of this.

"You come and see!" urged Dot, and, clasping her sister's hand, she led her into the storeroom, Agnes following.

"What's up?" asked Mr. Howbridge, coming along just then.

"Oh, Dot imagines she heard some unusual noise," explained Ruth.

"I did hear it!" insisted the younger girl. "It was a sneeze and a bleat like a goat and it smells like a goat, too. Smell it!" she cried, vigorously sniffing the air as she paused on the threshold of the storeroom. "Don't you smell it?"

Just then the silence was shattered by a vigorous sneeze, followed by the unmistakable bleating of a goat, and out of a closet came fairly tumbling--a stowaway!