It is his motor boat that is to tow our houseboat and take us on our new adventures. He is a splendid fellow and I know you will like him. I am sure you will get along nicely with him."

"I'll do the best I can to be worth my keep. You won't be sorry you told your friend Mr. Curtis to take me along," he said huskily.

"It may not be easy for you all the time," added Madge, feeling that she ought to give David some good advice. "There will be four or five young men on board the motor boat, and they may all ask you to wait on them.

But I must not preach. I am dreadfully afraid I shall never be able to get on with your cousin, Miss Taylor. You must tell me how to manage her; because, if she and I were to quarrel, it would spoil the whole houseboat trip. I have a very bad temper. I must go back to the house now. Phil and Miss Betsey will wonder what has become of me. But where are those children?" Madge sprang to her feet. The twins had been before her eyes only a few seconds before. Now they had completely disappeared!

David ran toward the barn. Madge searched the yard frantically. The children had not returned to the house.

CHAPTER IV

THE SEARCH

"Where can they be, David?" asked Madge anxiously. "Do you suppose they have run away?"

"Nothing can possibly have happened to the children in such a few moments. We will find them. They are probably hiding somewhere to tease you."

But though he made a systematic hunt about the yard, he did not find them.

"Dot! Daisy!" called Madge, "it's time to go home. If you'll only come here, I will tell you the nicest fairy story you ever heard."

Madge did not go into the house at once to tell Phil and Miss Betsey of the disappearance of the children. She would surely discover them and it was not worth while to worry Phil. But although she argued within herself that nothing serious could have happened to the babies, she had a premonition of disaster. Only a moment before they had been chasing b.u.t.terflies. It would seem as though a wicked hobgoblin had come up out of the ground and carried them off.

Next to Miss Taylor's back yard there was another field enclosed by a low stone wall. It would have been easy work for Dot and Daisy to crawl over it, and Madge knew their propensity for getting into mischief.

David and Madge clambered hastily over the wall into the field. It was an open one, covered with low, waving gra.s.s, where the presence of even little four-year-old girls could be seen at a glance.

The conviction that the children had been mysteriously kidnapped began to grow upon Madge. Yet Miss Betsey Taylor's home was a quarter of a mile distant from any other house, and neither David nor Madge had seen any sign of a tramp. The little captain made up her mind that she _must_ tell Phil. It was no longer fair to keep her chum in the dark. Phil must a.s.sist in the search for her sisters.

"Don't be frightened," consoled David, interpreting the look of fear in Madge's eyes. "I promise to find the children for you."

Madge went into the house with slow, dragging steps. She tried to hide her fright, but her face betrayed her. She was utterly wretched. She had come, uninvited, to visit her best friend, and Phil's father and mother had treated her as though she were another grown-up daughter. Now, as a reward, she had lost their beloved babies. For, if Madge had not been talking with David, Dot and Daisy would never have run away from her and disappeared.

Phyllis sprang to her feet when she caught sight of Madge. She had been wondering why her chum had not come in. One look at Madge's white face was enough to convince her that something serious had happened.

"Don't worry so, Madge," comforted Phil, when the girl had stammered out her story, "I'll find those children. n.o.body has run off with them.

Don't you know that getting themselves lost and frightening people nearly out of their wits is the thing that Dot and Daisy love best in the world?"

Phyllis and Madge ran out of the parlor together, followed more slowly by Miss Betsey, who was not at all sure that she relished so much excitement. Phyllis Alden did not realize how thoroughly Madge and David had looked for the lost babies before her friend had brought the news to her. If she had, Phil would have been more alarmed.

David determined to discover the missing children before Madge returned to the yard. But where else should he seek for them? With a swift feeling of horror, the boy thought of one more possible place. If his surmise should prove true! Poor Madge! David thought of her with a sudden flood of sympathy. Instinctively he realized, after his short acquaintance with her, that she was the type of person who would never recover from such a sorrow as the loss of these children would be.

While David thought he ran. He hoped to make his investigation before Madge and Phil could come into the yard.

Several rods back of the barn in Miss Taylor's back garden there was a disused well which had been closed for several years. A few days before Miss Betsey had sent for a man to have this well reopened. The man had not finished his work. He had gone away, leaving the well open with only a plank across it.

But David was not allowed to inspect the place undiscovered. Madge and Phyllis were not long in finding him. "Look in the barn, won't you?"

David called back to the girls. "The children may be hiding under the hay."

Phyllis slipped inside the barn door. But Madge had ransacked the barn too thoroughly to believe that there was a chance of finding the babies there. Besides, she had seen David Brewster's face. He was pale through his sunburn, so she left the barn to Phil and followed at his heels.

"You've an idea what has happened to the children. Please tell me what you think," she pleaded.

The boy shook his head resolutely. "Don't ask questions, I've no time to talk," he answered rudely. Yet David did not mean to be unkind. He only knew that he could not face the look in Madge's eyes should his suspicion prove true. Besides, there was no time to waste. Already they must have waited too long to save the children if the little ones had fallen down the old well.

Instantly David knew. The plank that had lain across the well had fallen over on one side. The children must have stepped on this plank and gone down. David dropped flat on his stomach and peered over into the hole.

"Look out!" he cried sharply to Madge, she was so near him.

Madge felt herself reel. The air turned black about her and the earth seemed slanting at her feet, miles and miles away. A feeling of deathly nausea crept over her. Then she pulled herself together. There might yet be hope, and there was surely work to be done. She dropped on the ground beside David.

As they knelt side by side on the edge of the well they heard a little, weak, moaning cry, and straining their eyes distinguished faintly the tops of two curly heads. Madge uttered a cry of relief. As nearly as she could judge, the babies were standing upright in the well with their arms about each other. They were nearly dead with fright and suffocation, but the wonderful instinct of self-preservation had made them continue to keep on their feet. There was not more than a foot of water in the bottom of the well, and Madge believed that the fall had not seriously hurt them.

"Dot! Daisy!" called Madge, trying to speak in natural tones.

Daisy turned a pair of big black eyes to the little light that shone above her. Hanging over the edge of the well she spied her Madge and stretched both tiny arms upward.

"You tumbled into a big hole, didn't you, dears?" soothed Madge cheerfully, although she was trembling. "Stand up just a moment longer, won't you, darlings? Madge is right here and she will not go away. We will have you out of that dark place in a minute."

David had disappeared after his first glance at the children. Madge felt absolutely sure that he would be able to get the babies out of the well within the next few moments. She did not know how and she didn't think.

It was her part to keep up the children's courage. Somehow she knew that this strange boy, of whom everybody spoke ill, would justify the curious confidence she had placed in him from their first meeting.

When David returned he brought with him Phil, Miss Betsey, and Jane, the cook. He carried a small clothes basket in his hand with handles at either end and a great coil of heavy rope.

Turning to Madge he said, "One of us must go down in the well. Shall I go, or will it be better for me to draw up the basket? I am the strongest."

For answer Madge took hold of the rope. "Let me go," she begged.

"It is my place," demurred Phyllis, with a white face.

"Phil!" Madge's eyes said all she could not speak. It was her fault that Dot and Daisy had fallen into the well. Could she not be allowed to risk herself to save them?

Phyllis stepped back. During this brief exchange of words David had not been idle. He had knotted his rope securely about Madge's waist.

Over the side of the old well he had seen many loose bricks and open places. With him above to steady her, a plucky girl could manage to climb down the side of the well with small danger to herself.

Madge slipped the rope around one arm. If she fell, she might, with David's a.s.sistance, be able to drop down sailor fashion.

She dared not glance down as she began the descent, finding open s.p.a.ces for her feet and hands along the brick wall. "Steady, steady!" she could hear David's voice cheering her, as foot by foot he let out more of his rope.

David had not trusted to his own strength alone. The rope he guided was in Phil's hands and also those of Jane, the cook.

When Madge was within two feet of the bottom of the well she jumped and gathered little Dot, who had toppled over, in her arms. Daisy was still standing, although she tottered and clung to her rescuer's skirts.

"Let down the basket quickly!" cried Madge. Like a flash the basket swung down. The little captain made haste to lift poor Dot into it. The basket had a rope tied on the handle at each end. Madge could see that David had replaced a heavy plank across the mouth of the well, and that he sat astride it, so as to be able to draw up the basket without striking it against the sides of the well.

Madge took little Daisy in her arms and cuddled her head on her shoulder, so she should not see what was taking place. "Shut your eyes, baby," she pleaded. "We'll soon be out of this dark old place."