The Corner House Girls on a Houseboat

by Grace Brooks Hill

  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 thefirst meal on the craft. Neale and Mr. Howbridge ran from the motorcompartment in the lower hold of the boat. Mrs. MacCall raised her handsand began to murmur in her broadest Scotch so that no one knew what shewas saying. And from the upper deck of the boat, where they had beenleft sitting on camp stools under the green striped awning, came thechorused 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 downthe towpath. Hank Dayton was, indeed, having trouble with the mules. AndTess had not exaggerated when she said that one of the animals wastrying to kick the driver into the canal.

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

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

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

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

  Neale, born in a circus, knew a good deal about animals, and it did nottake him and Hank Dayton long to subdue the fractious Arabella. Aftershe had kicked up her heels a few more times, just to show her contemptfor the authority of the whiffle-tree and the traces, she quieted down.The other mule, a more sedate animal, looked at his companion in whatmight have been disgust mingled with distrust.

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

  "Oh, yes. Hank can manage 'em all right. He just had to let Arabellahave her kick out. She's all right now. Isn't this fun, though?" andNeale 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, andeverything was fresh and green. They had reached the outskirts of Miltonby this time, and were approaching the open country through which thecanal meandered before joining the river. On either side of the towpathwere farms and gardens, with a house set here and there amid the greenfields or orchards.

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

  "I think it's just the loveliest way to spend a vacation that ever couldbe 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. "Ifonly--"

  "You are thinking of your jewelry," interrupted her guardian. "Pleasedon'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, Ifear, 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. "Didyou say Klondikers?" and it was plain to be seen that he was thinking ofhis father.

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

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

  "So do I," said Mr. Howbridge. "I have hardly yet had a chance to tellyou, 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 yourfather's last known address. But it may be possible for you to meet youruncle during this trip."

  "How?" asked Neale.

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

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

  "He didn't say," remarked the lawyer. "But I thought you'd be glad toknow 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 CornerHouse 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'tkeep hair pins and--er--whatever else you young ladies need," and hesmiled 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 isbusy 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 delightfulmeal. Dot and Tess could hardly be induced to come down off the upperdeck long enough to eat, so fascinated were they with the things theysaw along the canal.

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

  "Oh, yes. Mrs. MacCall will see that he gets what he needs, and Hank, asyou call him, will feed the mules," said Mr. Howbridge.

  "Do you think we ought to call him Hank?" asked Tess. "It seems sofamiliar."

  "He's used to it," answered Neale. "Everybody along the canal calls himthat. 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 Tesshurried from the table. "Perhaps I ought to question Hank about the twoKlondikers 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 ofhousekeeper, 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 thelawyer. "The mules will be tethered on the towpath. It is warm now, andthey 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 hadbeen arranged to satisfy even the critical taste of Ruth, and Mrs.MacCall was beginning to put her mind on the preparation of supper whenDot, who had come below to get a new dress for her "Alice-doll," ranfrom 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-roomtable.

  "In there!" and Dot pointed toward the storeroom, which was at the sternof 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 belongsto us. It's somebody else! He's in the storeroom, and he sneezed andmade a noise like a goat."

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

  "You probably heard one of Hank's mules hee-hawing," said Ruth, gettingup 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 ledher 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 bleatlike a goat and it smells like a goat, too. Smell it!" she cried,vigorously sniffing the air as she paused on the threshold of thestoreroom. "Don't you smell it?"

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