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 nibble me, Sammy Pinkney, I'll ne-never forgive you for taking me away off to be pirates." "Oh, goodness, Dot Kenway! Who wanted you to come! I'm sure I didn't. I knew girls couldn't be pirates." "I'm just as good a one as you are--so now!" she snapped, recovering herself somewhat. Sammy found something just then in his pocket that he thought might aid matters. It was a bag of "gumballs." "Oh, say, Dot! have a ball?" he asked thrusting out the bag in the dark. "Oh, Sammy! Thanks!" She found one of the confections and immediately had such a sticky and difficult mouthful that it was impossible for her either to cry or talk for some time. This certainly was a relief to Sammy! He could give his mind now to thinking. And no small boy ever had a more difficult problem to solve. Two youngsters in the hold of this huge old, empty canalboat, the deck planks of which seemed so thick that nobody outside could hear their cries, and unable to lift the cover. Query: How to obtain their release?