too busy to watch which way Dot and Sammy went;
nor did her father remember this important point. After leaving the
store the runaways seemed to have utterly disappeared.

Ruth did not admit this woful fact until she had interviewed almost
everybody she knew in the neighborhood. Sadie Goronofsky and her
brothers and sisters scattered in all directions to find trace of Dot
and Sammy. There was a mild panic when one child came shrieking into
Mrs. Kranz's store that a little girl with a dog had been seen over by
the blacksmith shop, and that she had been carried off on a canalboat.

"Them canalboatmen would steal anything, you bet," said Sadie
Goronofsky, with confidence. "They're awful pad men--sure!"

Luke went down to the blacksmith shop and learned that the horseshoer
knew exactly who the canalboatman in question was. And he knew about the
little girl seen with him as well.

"That's Cap'n Bill Quigg and Louise. She is his twelve year old gal--and
as smart as Bill is lazy. The dog belongs to them. Ornery hound. Wasn't
anybody with them, and the old _Nancy Hanks_, their barge, has gone on
toward Durginville. Went along about the time it showered."

The thunderstorm that had passed lightly over the edge of Milton had
occurred before Ruth and Luke left the Corner House. This news which the
young man brought back from the blacksmith shop seemed not to help the
matter in the least. He and Ruth went over to the canal and asked people
whom they met. Many had seen the canalboat going toward Durginville; but
nobody had spied Sammy and Dot.

Where else could they go with any reasonable hope of finding trace of
the runaways? Sammy and Dot, going directly across the open fields to
the moored canalboat, and getting aboard that craft and into the hold,
their small figures had not been spied by those living or working in the
neighborhood.

The searchers went home, Ruth almost in tears and Luke vastly perturbed
because he could not really aid her. Besides, he was getting very much
worried now. It did seem as though something serious must have happened
to Sammy Pinkney and Dot Kenway.

CHAPTER XIV

AN UNEXPECTED DELIGHT

Sammy and Dot, held prisoners in the hold of the _Nancy Hanks_, made one
painful discovery at least. They learned that without light the time
passed with great slowness.

It seemed as though they had been in the dark many hours longer than was
actually the case. They sat down side by side and serio