tor boat, and they may all ask you to wait on them.
But I must not preach. I am dreadfully afraid I shall never be able to
get on with your cousin, Miss Taylor. You must tell me how to manage
her; because, if she and I were to quarrel, it would spoil the whole
houseboat trip. I have a very bad temper. I must go back to the house
now. Phil and Miss Betsey will wonder what has become of me. But where
are those children?" Madge sprang to her feet. The twins had been before
her eyes only a few seconds before. Now they had completely disappeared!

David ran toward the barn. Madge searched the yard frantically. The
children had not returned to the house.

CHAPTER IV

THE SEARCH

"Where can they be, David?" asked Madge anxiously. "Do you suppose they
have run away?"

"Nothing can possibly have happened to the children in such a few
moments. We will find them. They are probably hiding somewhere to tease
you."

But though he made a systematic hunt about the yard, he did not find
them.

"Dot! Daisy!" called Madge, "it's time to go home. If you'll only come
here, I will tell you the nicest fairy story you ever heard."

Madge did not go into the house at once to tell Phil and Miss Betsey of
the disappearance of the children. She would surely discover them and it
was not worth while to worry Phil. But although she argued within
herself that nothing serious could have happened to the babies, she had
a premonition of disaster. Only a moment before they had been chasing
butterflies. It would seem as though a wicked hobgoblin had come up out
of the ground and carried them off.

Next to Miss Taylor's back yard there was another field enclosed by a
low stone wall. It would have been easy work for Dot and Daisy to crawl
over it, and Madge knew their propensity for getting into mischief.
David and Madge clambered hastily over the wall into the field. It was
an open one, covered with low, waving grass, where the presence of even
little four-year-old girls could be seen at a glance.

The conviction that the children had been mysteriously kidnapped began
to grow upon Madge. Yet Miss Betsey Taylor's home was a quarter of a
mile distant from any other house, and neither David nor Madge had seen
any sign of a tramp. The little captain made up her mind that she _must_
tell Phil. It was no longer fair to keep her chum in the dark. Phil must
assist in the search for her sisters.

"Don't be frightened," consoled David, interpret