ellers on board the _Smiling Jane_.

The bargeman himself now took the tiller. The boy had stolen back to his
story, so the newcomers drew somewhat apart, where they sat talking to
each other in subdued, earnest tones of the small voyagers then sleeping
so serenely in the dirty bunker below--the pretty pair whom they had of
set purpose shadowed along the canal, watched aboard the boat, and
determinedly followed.

"We've trapped them sure enough this time, Moll, my beauty," said the
man, indicating the cabin and the little creatures therein by a side nod
of his great red head.

"Ay, surely," answered Moll, with a slow smile. "I expec' the pretty
dears is sleepin' sweet as angels down in that dirty hole. But, Joe, now
as we have got 'em, do you think it'll be safe to keep 'em? Won't their
folks make a row, an' sen' the beaks after us?"

"Folks!" echoed Mr. Harris in mockery. "My, you are a green un, though
you're sich a black beauty! Do you suppose if they had any folks
belongin' to 'em worth speakin' o' that they'd be let go galavantin'
round as we've seed them--here, there, an' everywhere? No, no; they'd be
walkin' about hand in hand as prim as peonies, wi' a starched-up nurse
girl at their heels."

"They're out on a lark, you bet; that's what it is," said Moll, nodding
her head sagaciously. "Kids like they is allus up to somethin'. Maybe
they've runned away. More'n likely."

"Humbug!" snapped Joe shortly. "Didn't you notice their clo'es? They're
nothin' but washed-out rags an' far-worn clouts!" he declared, as if his
opinion should settle the question beyond further doubt.

"Rags an' clouts if you like," agreed Moll cheerily, "but they wasn't
allus that. They're the remains o' real nice good things. Mind, Joe, I
knows, an' you don't; men never does about sich matters."

"Stuff an' nonsense," he growled. "Clo'es or rags, it don't matter a
button, for they're only common brats, I tell you. There'll be a bit o'
an outcry after them for a day or two; then it'll die down as quick as
it rose. Poor folks haven't time to indulge their feelin's. Besides,
once we've got clear off they'll never find us. We've covered our tracks
purty cleverly, I'm thinkin', an' so has the kids," he added, with a
smothered chuckle.

"Hum! Well, maybe you're right, my man," said Moll, after a moment's
silence, during which she sat twirling the fringes of her old red shawl.
"I'm willin' to stand by you in this business, as I've done in oth