Chapter VIII: The Robbery

Dot Kenway stood in the middle of the room, dancing up and down, fluttering her hands and crying over and over again:

"She's in! She's in! And it isn't holding her up! Oh, come quick!"

With a bound Ruth was at her sister's side. She grasped Dot by the arm and held her still.

"Be quiet, honey, and tell me what the matter is," Ruth demanded.

"Oh, she's in! She's in! And it isn't holding her up!" Dot repeated.

"We'd better go and see what it is," suggested Agnes. "Tess may merely have fallen out of bed."

"Fallen out of bed--this time of day?" cried Ruth. "Impossible!"

But she let go of Dot and sped up the stairs whence floated down a series of startled cries. Agnes followed, while Dot called after them:

"Look in the bathroom! She's in! It isn't holding her up!"

To the bathroom rushed Ruth and Agnes, there to behold a sight which first made them gasp and then, instantly, started them into energetic action. For Tess was floundering about in the tub, full of water, with part of her bathing suit on and something bulky tied around her waist. She was clinging to the edge of the tub with both hands and trying to get to her feet. The tub was filled with water, and much of it was splashing over the side. Fortunately the floor of the bathroom was tiled.

"Oh, Tess! what are you doing?" cried Agnes, as she and Ruth pulled the small girl to her feet. Tess was gasping for breath, and had evidently swallowed some water.

"I--I--er--gug--I--was--" That was all Tess could say for a while.

"You poor child!" exclaimed Ruth, reaching for a towel, to dry the dripping face. "Did you fall in? And what possessed you to put on your bathing suit?"

"And what _have_ you got around your waist?" cried Agnes.

"That--that--that's my--my _life preserver_!" exploded Tess. "If--if you'll take the towel out of my moo-oo-oo-uth I'll t-t-tell--you!" she stammered.

"Yes, do let's let her tell, for mercy's sake!" exclaimed Ruth. "Did your head go under, Tessie, dear?"

Tess nodded. It was easier than speaking, especially as she had not yet quite got her breath back.

The two older sisters dried her partly on the towel, the little girl raising her hands to keep her sisters from stuffing any more of the Turkish towel into her mouth, and then Dot came up the stairs.

"Is she--is she drowned?" was the awed whisper.

"No, but she might have been," answered Ruth.

"What were you two doing? This is worse than the clothes basket elevator. What were you doing?"

"I was making a life preserver," volunteered Tess, when she had been helped out of the bathtub and was standing on a big mat that absorbed the little rivulets of water streaming from her.

"A life preserver?" questioned Agnes.

"Yes," Tess nodded. "I thought maybe I might fall off the houseboat and I didn't see any life preservers on it, so I made one."

"Out of the hot water bag," put in Dot. "She tied it around her waist and she wanted me to tie one on me and make believe we fell into the bathtub. But I wouldn't, and she got in, and it didn't hold her up."

"I should say it didn't!" cried Agnes. "How could you expect a rubber bag full of water to hold you up? It couldn't hold itself up."

"It wasn't full of water. I blew it up full of air just as Sammy Pinkney blows up his football," said Tess. "And that floats in water, 'cause I saw it."

"A hot water bag is different," returned Ruth. "Yes, she has one on," she added, as she and Agnes unwrapped from their sister some folds of cloth by which the partly inflated hot-water bag had been fastened around Tess's waist.

"Don't you ever do anything like that again!" scolded Dot, as Tess was sent to her room to dress while Linda came up to mop the floor.

"Well, what am I to do if I fall overboard off the _Bluebird_, I'm asking you?" called Tess, turning back, and holding her bath robe around her slim form. "There aren't any life preservers on it!"

"We will provide some if they are needed," said Ruth, laughing.

Just then Aunt Sarah Maltby came in and heard the story from Agnes.

"Just think, Dot and Tess, one of you might have been drowned," she said severely. "If that bag had got around your feet, and the winding strips had tangled, your feet might have been held up and your head down. You might easily have been drowned in the bathtub."

"Not me--I wouldn't!" declared Dot.

"Why not?" Agnes wanted to know.

"'Cause I wouldn't get in it! I told Tess maybe it was dangerous."

"Well, it wouldn't have been if I'd had more air in the bag," called Tess from the half-open door of her room. "That was the matter."

Mrs. MacCall shook her head when she heard what had happened.

"I ha me doots about them on the boat," she said. "If they cut up such didoes here, what'll they do then?"

"Oh, I think we shall manage somehow," said Ruth with cheerful philosophy. "We're used to mishaps."

By dint of hard work the final preparations for the houseboat trip were made. The _Bluebird_ was got in shape for the first part of the trip through the canal. Hank Dayton had been "slicked up," and had his two sturdy mules in readiness. Neale had tested the motor again. A supply of food had been put on board, together with gasoline to use as soon as the transition from the canal to the river should have taken place.

Mr. Howbridge had arranged his plans so as to start with the girls, and Mrs. MacCall had her small trunk packed and in readiness. All that was possible had been done to get into communication with Neale's father, and all that could be done was to await word from him, or from Mr. Sorber, who might be the first to hear, that the missing Klondike explorer had returned.

And at last the morning of the start arrived.

"Oh, it's going to rain!" cried Tess as she arose early and ran to the window to look out.

"I don't care. We can take umbrellas, and the boat has a roof on it," said Dot. "My Alice-doll has been wet before."

"But Almira doesn't like rain, and her kittens might get cold," objected Tess.

"We can't take Almira!" said Ruth in a voice that Tess knew it was useless to appeal from. "The poor cat wouldn't have a good time, Tessie, and she'd be in the way with her kittens."

"She could catch mice," suggested Tess, as a sort of last hope.

"There are mice on canal boats. I heard Hank Dayton say so," put in Dot, seeking to strengthen Tess's position.

"We'll get a cat later if we need it," compromised Ruth. "Don't think of bringing Almira."

"All right!" assented Dot, and then Tess called:

"There's Sammy, and he's got Billy Bumps. Let's go down and tell them good-by!"

"Can't Sammy come with us?" asked Dot, turning to Ruth.

"No indeed, nor the goat either! So don't ask him and make him feel bad when I have to refuse him."

"All right," sighed Dot.

Then she and Tess finished dressing and went out to greet Sammy, who was paying one of his early morning calls.

"Want me to do any errands for you, Ruth?" he politely asked when he had refused an invitation to breakfast, saying he had already eaten.

"No, thank you, Sammy," was the answer.

"I could go quick--hitch Billy to the wagon and get anything you wanted from the village," he went on.

Ruth shook her head, and then had to hurry away to see about one of the many last-minute details.

"Well, good-by, then," said Sammy to the other sisters, as he prepared to depart. "I wish I was going! We could take Billy Bumps."

"But if they wouldn't let me take a cat on the boat I don't suppose they'd want a goat," put in Tess.

"I don't guess so," said Sammy, more meekly than he usually spoke. "Well, good-by!" And down the street he went, taking Billy Bumps, who belonged to Tess and Dot, with him.

"It does look like rain," said Agnes, when it was almost time for Mr. Howbridge to call for them in his machine to take them and their baggage to the houseboat.

"It may hold off until we get on board," said Ruth. She gave a sudden start. "Oh, Agnes! Our jewelry! We forgot to take it to the bank!"

"That's so! I knew we'd forget something! Well, haven't we time to run down with it now before Mr. Howbridge comes?"

Ruth looked at her wrist watch.

"Just about," was her decision. "Come on. You and I can take the package down and then hurry back."

"You'd best take an umbrella, ma dearies!" cautioned Mrs. MacCall. "'Tis showery goin' to be this day!"

"We'll take one," assented Ruth.

She and Agnes had planned to leave their jewelry and some other articles of value in their safe deposit box, but had forgotten it until now.

The two older girls sallied forth with a large umbrella, which Agnes carried, while Ruth had the package of jewelry.

They were half way to the bank, no great distance from home, when suddenly a downpour began with the usual quickness of a summer shower.

"Hurry! Raise the umbrella!" cried Ruth. "I'm getting drenched!"

"Isn't it terrible!" gasped Agnes.

She and her sister stepped into the shelter of the nearest doorway for a moment. Something was wrong with the catch of the umbrella. Ruth was just going to help her sister raise it when suddenly two rough-looking men rushed from the hall back of the doorway in which the girls had taken shelter.

One of the men rudely brushed past Ruth, and, as he did so, he made a grab for the packet of jewelry, snatching it from her.

"Oh!" screamed the girl. "Stop! Oh! Oh, Agnes!"

The other man turned and pushed Agnes back as she leaned forward to help Ruth.

Then, as the rain came down harder than ever, the men sped up the street, leaving the two horror-stricken girls breathless in the doorway.