"Not without a license in this county," said Ruth. "And we'll do very well. I _hope_ nothing has happened to these children." "Of course nothing has," he said comfortingly. "That is, nothing that a little soap and water and a spanking won't cure." "No. Dot has never been punished in that way." "But Sammy has--oft and again," chuckled Luke. "And of course he is to blame for this escapade." "I'm not altogether sure of that," said the just Ruth, who knew Dot's temperament if anybody did. "It doesn't matter which is the most to blame. I want to find them." But this was a task not easy to perform, as they soon found out after reaching Meadow Street. Certainly Mrs. Kranz remembered all about the children coming to her store that morning--all but one thing. She stuck to it that Dot had said they were going on a picnic. The word "pirates" was strange to the ear of the German woman, so having misunderstood it the picnic idea was firmly fixed in her mind. Maria Maroni had been too busy to watch which way Dot and Sammy went; nor did her father remember this important point. After leaving the store the runaways seemed to have utterly disappeared. Ruth did not admit this woful fact until she had interviewed almost everybody she knew in the neighborhood. Sadie Goronofsky and her brothers and sisters scattered in all directions to find trace of Dot and Sammy. There was a mild panic when one child came shrieking into Mrs. Kranz's store that a little girl with a dog had been seen over by the blacksmith shop, and that she had been carried off on a canalboat. "Them canalboatmen would steal anything, you bet," said Sadie Goronofsky, with confidence. "They're awful pad men--sure!" Luke went down to the blacksmith shop and learned that the horseshoer knew exactly who the canalboatman in question was. And he knew about the little girl seen with him as well. "That's Cap'n Bill Quigg and Louise. She is his twelve year old gal--and as smart as Bill is lazy. The dog belongs to them. Ornery hound. Wasn't anybody with them, and the old _Nancy Hanks_, their barge, has gone on toward Durginville. Went along about the time it showered." The thunderstorm that had passed lightly over the edge of Milton had occurred before Ruth and Luke left the Corner House. This news which the young man brought back from the blacksmith shop seemed not to help the matter in the least. He and Ruth went over to the canal and asked people whom they met. Many had seen the canalboat going toward Durginville; but nobody had spied Sammy and Dot. Where else could they go with any reasonable hope of finding trace of the runaways? Sammy and Dot, going directly across the open fields to the moored canalboat, and getting aboard that craft and into the hold, their small figures had not been spied by those living or working in the neighborhood.