nd on the hatch with his fists and yell at the top of his
voice:

"Lemme out! Lemme out!"

"Oh, Sammy," came the aggrieved voice of Dot from below. "Ask 'em to let
us both out. I don't want to be left here alone."

"Aw, who's leavin' you here alone?" growled the boy.

In fact, there seemed little likelihood of either of them getting out.
There was not a sound from outside, save a faint shout now and then of
the shrill-voiced girl driving the mules.

The man had gone aft and was smoking his pipe as he sat easily on the
broad tiller-arm. Sammy and Dot had descended into the canalboat hold by
the forward hatchway and only the hollow echoes of their voices drummed
through the hold of the old barge, disturbing the man not at all, while
the girl was too far ahead on the towpath, spattering through the mud at
the mules' heels, to notice anything so weak as the cries of the
youthful stowaways.

Exhausted, and with scratched fists, Sammy tumbled down the ladder
again. There was just enough light around the hatch to make the gloom
where the boy and girl stood a sort of murky brown instead of the
oppressive blackness of the hold all about them.

Dot shuddered as she tried to pierce the surrounding darkness. There
might be most anything in that hold--creeping, crawling, biting things!
She was beginning to lose her confidence in Sammy's ability, pirate or
no pirate, to get them out of this difficult place.

"Oh, Sammy!" she gulped. "I--I guess I don't want to be pirates any
longer. I--I want to go home."

"Aw, hush, Dot! Crying won't help," growled the boy.

"But--but we can't stay here all night!" she wailed. "It's lots wusser'n
it was when Tess and I was losted and we slept out under a tree till
morning, and that old owl hollered 'Who? Who-o?' all night--only I went
to sleep and didn't hear him. But I couldn't sleep here."

"Aw, there ain't no owl here," said Sammy, with some dim idea of
comforting his comrade.

"But mebbe there's--there's rats!" whispered the little girl, voicing
the fear that had already clutched at her very soul.

"Wow!" ejaculated Sammy. But his scornful tone failed to ring true.
There really might be rats in this old hulk of a barge. Were not rats
supposed to infest the holds of all ships? Afloat with a cargo of rats
in the hold of a ship on the tossing canal was nothing to laugh at.

"I--I believe there are rats here," sobbed Dot again. "And--and we can't
get out. If--if they come and--and n