Pinkney's
best friends say he will never be drowned, although some of them
intimate that there is hemp growing for him. No, Sammy and Dot would not
fall into the canal. But, crickey, Shepard! they might have fallen into
a canalboat."

"What do you mean? Have been carried off in one? Kidnapped--actually
kidnapped?"

"Sh! No. Perhaps not. But you never can tell what will happen to kids
like them--nor what they will do. Whew! there's an idea. Sammy was
always threatening to run away and be a pirate."

"The funny kid!" laughed Luke. "But Dot did not desire such a romantic
career, I am sure."

"Did you ever find out yet what was in a girl's head?" asked Neale, with
an assumption of worldly wisdom very funny in one of his age and
experience. "You don't know what the smallest of them have in their
noddles. Maybe if Sammy expressed an intention of being a pirate she
wasn't going to be left behind."

He laughed. But he had hit the fact very nearly. And it seemed
reasonable to Luke the more he thought of it.

"But on a canalboat?" he said, with lingering doubts.

"Well, it floats on the water, and it's a boat," urged Neale. "Put
yourself in the kid's place. If the idea struck you suddenly to be a
pirate where would you look around here for a pirate ship and water to
sail it!"

"Great Peter!" murmured Luke. "The boundless canal!"

"Quite so," rejoined Neale O'Neil, his conviction growing. "Now, on that
basis, let's ask about the barges that have gone east out from Milton
to-day."

"Why not both ways?" queried Luke, quickly.

"Because most of the canalboats coming west go no farther than the
Milton docks; and if the kids had got a ride on one into town, they
would long since have been home. But it is a long journey to the other
end of the canal. Why, it's fifteen or eighteen miles to Durginville."

"How are you going to find out about these boats?"

Neale had a well defined idea by this time. He sent Luke back to the car
to pacify the girls as best he could, but without taking time to explain
to the collegian his intention in full. Then the boy got to work.

Within half an hour he interviewed the blacksmith and half a dozen other
people who lived or worked in sight of the canal. He discovered that,
although two barges had gone along to the Milton Lock at the river side
since before noon, only the old _Nancy Hanks_ had gone in the other
direction.

He came back to the car and the waiting party in some eagerness.