"No-o. I s'pose not," admitted the smallest Corner House girl, who knew very well that she could not fight. She was willing to cook, wash and keep house for pirates; but Sammy must do the fighting. However, Sammy Pinkney was to learn something about the canalboat girl that would open his eyes. Just at this time something occurred that startled both runaways so greatly that they even forgot the thunder that rolled so threateningly. The canalboat began to move! "Oh, dear me! what can have happened?" gasped Dot as the boat rocked and swayed in being 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.