The Corner House Girls Growing Up

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE RINGMASTER

  "Just the same, that old fellow didn't even know whether there wassomebody aboard the canalboat with Quigg and his daughter or not," NealeO'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 thechildren 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 oldcanalboat hasn't been wrecked or sunk, we'll find it and interview Cap'nQuigg before we go back."

  "Meanwhile," Ruth said, with more than a little doubt, "the children maybe 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 fewminutes."

  But they did not get that far. Crossing the canal by a liftbridge theyswept along the other side and suddenly coming out of the woods sawbefore them a tented city.

  "Why!" cried Cecile, "it's a circus!"

  "I saw the pictures on the billboards," her brother admitted. "If weonly had the children with us, and everything was all right, we mightgo."

  "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 chanceto read."

  "You don't suppose Mr. Sorber knows anything about the children?" saidRuth, 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 beenhounding me to death about that."

  "You don't suppose Dot could have started out to hunt for the circus toget that pony, do you?" suggested Ruth, almost at her wits' end toimagine 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.

  "A straw stack!" cried Neale. "Must be. Some farmer is losing thewinter's bedding for his cattle."

  "It is on the canal," Luke put in. "Don't you see? There's one of thoseold barges there--and the smoke is coming from it."

  "There are the flames. The fire's burst out," Agnes cried.

  Suddenly Ruth startled them all by demanding:

  "How do we know it isn't the _Nancy Hanks_?"

  "Crickey! We don't," acknowledged Neale, and immediately touched theaccelerator. The car leaped ahead. They went roaring on toward thecircus grounds and the canal, and people on the road stepped hastilyaside at the "Honk! Honk!" of the automobile horn.

  Fortunately there were not many vehicles in the road, for most of thefarmers' wagons had already reached the grounds, and their mules andhorses were hitched beside the right of way. But there was quite a crowdupon the tented field. This crowd had not, however, as Louise Quiggfeared "seen everything all up" before the canalboat girl and her fatherreached the tents.

  Louise wanted to see everything to be seen outside before paying overtheir good money to get into the big show. So they wandered among thetents for some time, without a thought of the old canalboat. Indeed,they were out of sight of it when the mule kicked over the stove on the_Nancy Hanks_ and that pirate craft (according to the first hopes ofSammy Pinkney) caught fire.

  Indeed, nobody on the circus grounds was looking canalward. Torches werebeginning to flare up here and there in the darkening field. There wereall kinds of sideshows and "penny pops"--lifting machines,hammer-throws, a shooting gallery, a baseball alley with a grinningblack man dodging the ball at the end--"certainly should like to try tohit that nigger," Pap declared--taffy booths, popcorn machines, softdrink booths, and a dozen other interesting things.

  Of course, Louise and her father could only look. They had no money tospend on side issues--or sideshows. But they looked their fill. For onceCap'n Bill appeared to be awake. He was as interested in what there wasto be seen as the child clinging to his hairy hand.

  They went back of the big tent and there was one with the canvas raisedso that they could see the horses and ponies stabled within. Some of thefattest and sleekest horses were being harnessed and trimmed for the"grand entrance," and such a shaking of heads to hear the tiny bellsring, and stamping of oiled hoofs as there was--all the airs of a vaingirl before her looking-glass!

  Louise was stricken dumb before a pony, all patches of brown and creamcolor, and with pink like a seashell inside its ears and on its muzzle.The pony's mane was all "crinkly" and its bang was parted and braidedwith blue ribbons.

  "Oh, Pap!" gasped the little girl, breathlessly, "isn't he a _dear_? Inever did see so harnsome a pony."

  A short, stout man, with a very red face and a long-lashed whip in hishand who was standing by, heard the canalboat girl and smiled kindlyupon her. He was dressed for the ring--shiny top hat, varnished boots,and all, and Louise thought him a most wonderful looking man indeed. Ifanybody had told her Mr. Bill Sorber was the president of the UnitedStates she would have believed it.

  "So you like that pony, do you?" asked the ringmaster. "He's some pony.I reckon the little girls he belongs to will like him, too."

  "Oh, isn't he a circus pony?" asked Louise, wide-eyed.

  "He was. But I'm just going to send him to Milton to live with somelittle girls I know, and I bet Scalawag will have a lazy time of it forthe rest of his natural life. And he'll like that," chuckled Mr. Sorber,deep in his chest, "for Scalawag's the laziest pony I ever tried tohandle."

  "Oh," murmured Louise, "he seems too nice a horse to be called by such abad name."

  "Bless you! he don't mind it at all," declared the ringmaster. "And itfits him right down to the ground! He's as full of tricks as an egg isof meat--yes ma'am! Ain't you, Scalawag?"

  He touched the pony lightly with his whip upon his round rump and thepony flung out his pretty heels and whinnied. Then at a touch under hisbelly Scalawag stood up on his hind legs and pawed the air to keep hisbalance.

  "Oh!" gasped Louise Quigg, with clasped hands.

  "Just as graceful as a barrel, Scalawag," chuckled Mr. Sorber. "He's toofat. But I just can't help feedin' critters well. I like to feed wellmyself. And I know where he's going to live in Milton he'll be welltended. Hullo! what's going on?"

  For suddenly a shout was heard beyond the main tent. Somebody cried,"Fire! Fire!" and there was a roaring of an automobile approaching thecircus grounds at a rapid rate.

  "What's goin' on?" repeated Mr. Sorber, and started upon an elephantinetrot for the canal side of the field.

  "Come on, Pap! We don't want to miss nothin'," gasped Louise, seizingthe gaping Quigg's hand. She left the calico pony, however, with abackward glance of longing.

  The crowd broke for the canal bank. When the captain and his daughtercame in sight of the fire the flames were shooting ten feet high out ofthe cabin roof.

  The boat was moored across the canal. Neale, driving down to the bank,saw that the water was between them and the fire, so he halted the car.A heavy man, bearing two empty pails in each hand, and followed closelyby another man and a little girl likewise bearing buckets, camegaspingly to the automobile.

  "Hi, Mister!" puffed Mr. Bill Sorber, "ast your party to git out andtake us over the bridge in that there machine of yours, will you? Thatcanalboat belongs to this here man and his little gal--why, Neale!"

  "Hullo, Uncle Bill! Hop in--you and your friends," cried Neale.

  "Come
in--hurry, Mr. Sorber!" Ruth added her plea. "Oh!" she said toLouise, "is that the _Nancy Hanks_?"

  "Sure as ever was," gulped Louise. "Come on, Pap! John and Jerry will beburnt to a cinder, so they will."

  "Tell me, child," Luke said, lifting the girl into his lap as he sat infront with Neale, and crowding over to give the lanky Cap'n Quigg roomto 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 thecabin and walk out, can't they?"

  "Nop. They're chained to stanchions."

  "_Chained?_" gasped the excitable Agnes from the rear. "How awful! Haveyou got children--"

  "Aw, who said anything about children?" demanded Louise snappily. "OnlyJohn and Jerry."

  "Well?"

  "Them's mules," said the child, as Neale drove the car on at increasingspeed.

  "Tell us," Ruth begged, quite as anxious now as her sister, "have youseen 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, orwhat 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 boyabout ten years old. They were carrying a big paper bag and a basket offruit, and maybe were near the canal at Milton--right there at theblacksmith shop where you had your mules shod to-day."

  This was Luke's speech, and despite the jarring and bouncing of the carhe made his earnest words audible to the captain of the canalboat and tohis 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' toget 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 beshut 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 fromthe circus field lined up along the other bank; but the towpath wasdeserted where the _Nancy Hanks_ lay. The flames were rapidly destroyingthe boat amidships.