"Not to my mind. Bet the kids were on there with this little girl he speaks of," muttered Neale. "Oh, do you believe it, Neale?" gasped Agnes, leaning over the back of the seat. "I am sure we are much obliged to you, sir," Ruth said, sweetly, as the engine began to roar again. "What's up, anyway?" asked the crabbed lock-keeper. "You got something on that Bill Quigg?" "Can't tell, Mister," Neale said seriously. "You ask him about it when he comes back." "Now, Neale, you've started something," declared Ruth, as the automobile sped away. "You just see if you haven't." CHAPTER XVI THE RINGMASTER "Just the same, that old fellow didn't even know whether there was somebody aboard the canalboat with Quigg and his daughter or not," Neale O'Neil said, as they turned back into the Durginville road. "Oh!" cried Cecile. "Are you going on?" "We are--just," said her brother. "Until we solve the mystery of the _Nancy Hanks_." "Do you suppose that canal boatman is bad enough to have shut the children up on his boat and will keep them for ransom?" demanded Agnes, filled with a new fear. "He's not a brigand I should hope," Cecile Shepard cried. "Can't tell what he is till we see him," Neale grumbled. "If this old canalboat hasn't been wrecked or sunk, we'll find it and interview Cap'n Quigg before we go back." "Meanwhile," Ruth said, with more than a little doubt, "the children may be wandering in quite an opposite direction." "Why, of course, our guess may be wrong, Ruth," Luke said thoughtfully, turning around the better to speak with the oldest Corner House girl. "However, we are traveling so fast that it will not delay us much." "Pshaw, no!" exclaimed Neale. "We'll be in Durginville in a few minutes." But they did not get that far. Crossing the canal by a liftbridge they swept along the other side and suddenly coming out of the woods saw before them a tented city. "Why!" cried Cecile, "it's a circus!" "I saw the pictures on the billboards," her brother admitted. "If we only had the children with us, and everything was all right, we might go." "Sure we would," responded Neale, smiling. "Oh, Neale!" cried Agnes, "is it Uncle Bill's?" "Yes. I have a letter in my pocket now from him that I've had no chance to read." "You don't suppose Mr. Sorber knows anything about the children?" said Ruth, a little weakly for her. "How could he?" gasped Agnes. "But we ought to stop and ask." "And see about the calico pony," chuckled Neale. "Tess and Dot have been hounding me to death about that." "You don't suppose Dot could have started out to hunt for the circus to get that pony, do you?" suggested Ruth, almost at her wits' end to imagine what had happened to her little sister and her friend. "We'll know about that shortly," Neale declared. Suddenly Luke Shepard exclaimed: "Hullo, what's afire, Neale? See yonder?" "At the canal," cried his sister, seeing the smoke too. "Is it a house?" asked Agnes.