g poled out from the bank by the boatman, and the mules
started along the towpath.

"Je-ru-sa-lem!" murmured Sammy.

"Oh, Sammy!"

"We're going," said the boy, gulping down his first surprise.

"But where are we going, Sammy Pinkney? You know very well Ruthie will
be scared to death if I'm not back to supper. And your mother--"

"Huh!" exclaimed Sammy, with returning valor, "didn't I tell you if we
ran away to be pirates that we couldn't go home again?"

"Yes! but! you! didn't ever _mean_ it!" wailed Dot, with big gulps
between her words.

"Of course I meant it. Aw, shucks, Dot! What did I tell you? Girls can't
be pirates. They're always blubbering."

"Not blubbering!" snapped Dot, too angry to really cry after all.

"Well, you started in to."

"No, I never! Just the same I don't want to be shut up in this old
boat--not after it stops thundering and lightering," declared Dot, who,
as Tess was not present, felt free to misuse the English language just
as she pleased.

Certainly Sammy Pinkney had something more important to think of than
the little girl's language. Here he was, a pirate chief, on a
buccaneering expedition, and somebody had come along and coolly stolen
his piratical craft, himself, and his crew!

If anything would rouse the spirit of a pirate chief it was such an
emergency as this. He looked around for something with which to attack
the villains who had boarded the _Nancy Hanks_, but he found not a thing
more dangerous than his pocketknife and the fishhooks.

"And that's your fault, Dot Kenway," he declared, stricken by this
startling discovery. "How am I going to fight these--these pirates, if I
haven't anything to fight 'em with?"

"Oh, Sammy!" cried Dot, in amazement. "Are they pirates, just the same
as we are pirates?"

"They must be," frankly admitted Sammy. "Else they wouldn't have come
along and stolen this canalboat."

"Oo-ee!" gasped the little girl. "And do pirates _steal_?"

"Huh!" ejaculated the boy in vast disgust. "What did you suppose they
was pirates for? Of course they steal! And they murder folks, and loot
towns, and then bury their money and kill folks so's their ghosts will
hang around the buryin' place and watch the treasure."

Horror stricken at the details of such a wicked state of things, Dot
could not for the moment reply. They heard faintly a shrill
voice--evidently of the "Lowise" formerly addressed by the canalboatman.

"Look out, Pap! Low bridge! Goin' t