h a creel of fish
until late afternoon. He was going to clean some of his fish and take
them as a present to the Corner House girls; but something the little
cobbler told him quite changed his plan.

"Here's a letter that's come to ye, me bye," said Con, looking up from
his tap, tap tapping on somebody's shoe, and gazing over the top of his
silver-bowed spectacles at Neale.

"Thanks," said Neale, taking the missive from the leather seat beside
Mr. Murphy. "Guess it's from Uncle Bill. He said he expected to show in
Durginville this week."

"And there's trouble at the Corner House," said the cobbler.

"What sort of trouble?"

"I don't rightly know, me bye; save wan of the little gals seems to be
lost."

"Lost!" gasped Neale anxiously. "Which one? Tess? Dot? Not _Agnes_?"

"Shure," said Con Murphy, "is that little beauty likely to be lost, I ax
ye? No! 'Tis the very littlest wan of all."

"Dot!"

"'Tis so. The other wan--Theresa--was here asking for her before
noon-time," the cobbler added.

Neale waited for nothing further--not even to read his letter, which he
slipped into his pocket; but hurried over the back fence into the rear
premises of the Corner House.

By this time the entire neighborhood was aroused. Luke had called up the
police station and given a description of Sammy and Dot. The telephone
had been busy most of the time after he and Ruth had returned from their
unsuccessful visit to the canal.

Agnes, red-eyed from weeping, ran at Neale when she saw him coming.

"Oh, Neale O'Neil! Why weren't you here! Get out the auto at once! Let
us go and find them. I _know_ they have been carried off--"

"Who's carried them, Aggie?" he demanded. "Brace up. Let's hear all the
particulars of this kidnapping."

"Oh, you can laugh. Don't you dare laugh!" expostulated Agnes, quite
beside herself, and scarcely knowing what she said. "But somebody must
certainly have stolen Dot."

"That might be," confessed Neale. "But who in the world would want to
steal Sammy? I can't imagine anybody wanting a youngster like him."

"Do be serious if you can, Neale," admonished Ruth, who had likewise
been weeping, but was critical of the ex-circus boy as usual.

"I am," declared Neale. "Only, let's get down to facts. Who saw them
last and where?"

He listened seriously to the story. His remark at the end might not have
been very illuminating, but it was sensible.

"Well, then, if Mrs. Kranz and Joe Maroni saw them last