"Mrs. Kranz says Dottie and that little boy were going on a picnic. Sure they were! I sold them crackers and cheese and a lot of things. And my father sent you a basket of fruit like he always does. We thought you and Miss Agnes would be going, too." Ruth reported this to the others; but the puzzle of the children's absence seemed not at all explained. Nobody whom Ruth and Agnes asked seemed to know any picnic slated for this day. "They must have made it up themselves--all their own selves," Agnes declared. "They have gone off alone to picnic." "Where would they be likely to go?" asked Luke Shepard, wishing to be helpful. "Is there a park over that way--or some regular picnicking grounds?" "There's the canal bank," Ruth said quickly. "It's open fields along there. Sometimes the children have gone there with us." "I just _know_ Sammy has fallen in and been drowned," declared Mrs. Pinkney, accepting the supposition as a fact on the instant. "What will I ever say to Sam'l to-night when he comes home?" "Well," said Tess, encouragingly, "I guess he won't spank Sammy for doing that. At least, I shouldn't think he would." The older folk did not pay much attention to her philosophy. They were all more or less worried, including Mrs. MacCall and Aunt Sarah. The latter displayed more trouble over Dot's absence than one might have expected, knowing the maiden lady's usual unattached manner of looking at all domestic matters. Ruth, feeling more responsibility after all than anybody else--and perhaps with more anxious love in her heart for Dot than the others, for had she not had the principal care of Dot since babyhood?--could not be convinced now that all they could do was to wait. "There must be some way of tracing them," she declared. "If they were over on Meadow Street somebody must have seen them after they left Mrs. Kranz's store." "That is the place to take up their trail, Ruth," Luke said. "Tell me how to find the store and I'll go down there and make enquiries." "I will go with you," the eldest Corner House girl said quickly. "I know the people there and you don't." "I'll go, too!" cried Agnes, wiping her eyes. "No," said her sister decisively. "No use in more going. You remain at home with Tess and Cecile. I am much obliged to you, Luke. We'll start at once." "And without your lunch?" cried Mrs. MacCall. Ruth had no thought for lunch, and Luke denied all desire for the midday meal. "Come on!" he prophesied boldly, "we'll find those kids before we eat." "Oh!" sighed Agnes, "I wish Neale O'Neil had not gone fishing. Then he could have chased around in the automobile and found those naughty children in a hurry." "He would not know where to look for them any more than we do," her sister said. "All ready, Luke." They set off briskly for the other side of town. Luke said: "Wish I knew how to run an auto myself. That's going to be my very next addition to the sum of my knowledge. I could have taken you out in your car myself."