"Sure as ever was," gulped Louise. "Come on, Pap! John and Jerry will be burnt to a cinder, so they will." "Tell me, child," Luke said, lifting the girl into his lap as he sat in front with Neale, and crowding over to give the lanky Cap'n Quigg room to sit. "Tell me, are there others aboard the boat?" "John and Jerry," sobbed Louise. "Well, well!" Luke soothed. "Don't cry. They can open the door of the cabin and walk out, can't they?" "Nop. They're chained to stanchions." "_Chained?_" gasped the excitable Agnes from the rear. "How awful! Have you got children--" "Aw, who said anything about children?" demanded Louise snappily. "Only John and Jerry." "Well?" "Them's mules," said the child, as Neale drove the car on at increasing speed. "Tell us," Ruth begged, quite as anxious now as her sister, "have you seen two children--a boy and a girl--this afternoon?" "Lots of 'em," replied Louise, succinctly. Here Cap'n Bill put in a word. "If there's anything to see, children, or what not, Lowise seen 'em. She's got the brightest eyes!" "We are looking for a little girl with a doll in her arms and a boy about ten years old. They were carrying a big paper bag and a basket of fruit, and maybe were near the canal at Milton--right there at the blacksmith shop where you had your mules shod to-day." This was Luke's speech, and despite the jarring and bouncing of the car he made his earnest words audible to the captain of the canalboat and to his daughter. "Did they come aboard your boat? Or did you see them?" he added. "Ain't been nobody aboard our boat but our ownselfs and Beauty," declared Louise. "And you did not see two children--" "Holt on!" cried the girl. "I guess I seen 'em when we was waitin' to get the mules shod. They went by." "Which way were they going?" "Toward the canal--they was. And our boat was in sight. But I didn't see 'em after." "Oh, my dear!" cried Ruth, from the tonneau, "they could not possibly be shut up anywhere on your boat?" "Why, they wasn't in the cabin, of course--nor the mules' stable," drawled the captain. "Warn't nowhere else." The automobile roared down toward the burning canalboat. The crowd from the circus field lined up along the other bank; but the towpath was deserted where the _Nancy Hanks_ lay. The flames were rapidly destroying the boat amidships. CHAPTER XVII SCALAWAG GETS A NEW HOME A dog barking aroused Sammy. He must, after all, have fallen into a light doze. With Dot sleeping contentedly on the bag of potatoes and his coat, and the only nearby sounds the rustling noise that he had finally become scornful of, the boy could not be greatly blamed for losing himself in sleep. But he thought the dog barking must be either his Buster or old Tom Jonah, the Corner House girls' dog. Were they coming to search for him and Dot? "Oh, wake up, Dot! Wake up!" cried Sammy, shaking the little girl. "There's something doing."