"He will sleep on the upper deck. I have a cot for him," said the lawyer. "The mules will be tethered on the towpath. It is warm now, and they won't need shelter. They are even used to being out in the rain."

The afternoon was drawing to a close, matters aboard the houseboat had been arranged to satisfy even the critical taste of Ruth, and Mrs.

MacCall was beginning to put her mind on the preparation of supper when Dot, who had come below to get a new dress for her "Alice-doll," ran from the storeroom where the trunks and valises had been put.

"Oh! Oh, Ruth!" gasped the little girl. "Somebody's in there!"

"In where?" asked Ruth, who was writing a letter at the living-room table.

"In there!" and Dot pointed toward the storeroom, which was at the stern of the boat under the stairs that led up on deck.

"Some one in there?" repeated Ruth. "Well, that's very possible. Mrs.

Mac may be there, or Neale or--"

"No, it isn't any of them!" insisted Dot. "I saw everybody that belongs to us. It's somebody else! He's in the storeroom, and he sneezed and made a noise like a goat."

"You ridiculous child! what do you mean?" exclaimed Agnes, who was just pa.s.sing through the room and heard what Dot said.

"You probably heard one of Hank's mules hee-hawing," said Ruth, getting up from her chair.

"Mules don't sneeze!" declared Dot with conviction.

Ruth had to admit the truth of this.

"You come and see!" urged Dot, and, clasping her sister's hand, she led her into the storeroom, Agnes following.

"What's up?" asked Mr. Howbridge, coming along just then.

"Oh, Dot imagines she heard some unusual noise," explained Ruth.

"I did hear it!" insisted the younger girl. "It was a sneeze and a bleat like a goat and it smells like a goat, too. Smell it!" she cried, vigorously sniffing the air as she paused on the threshold of the storeroom. "Don't you smell it?"

Just then the silence was shattered by a vigorous sneeze, followed by the unmistakable bleating of a goat, and out of a closet came fairly tumbling--a stowaway!

CHAPTER XI

OVERBOARD

"There! What did I tell you!" cried Dot, pointing a finger at the strange sight. "I heard a noise, and then it was a sneeze and then it was a bleat and then I _smelled_ a goat. I knew it was a goat, and it is, and it's Sammy Pinkney, too!"

And, surely enough, it was. Tousled and disheveled, dirty and with his clothes awry, there stood the urchin who was, it seemed, continually getting into mischief at or around the Corner House.

But if Sammy was mussed up because of having been hidden in a small closet, the goat did not appear to be any the worse for his misadventure. Billy b.u.mps was as fresh as a daisy, and suddenly he lowered his head and made a dive for Mr. Howbridge.

"Oh!" cried Ruth. "Look out!"

"Hold him!" yelled Agnes.

Neale, who had joined the wondering throng now gazing at the stowaway, caught the goat by the animal's collar just in time, and held him back from b.u.t.ting the lawyer.

"He--he's just a little excited like," Sammy explained.

"Well, I should think he would be!" declared Ruth, taking command of the situation, as she often had to do where Sammy was concerned. "And now what do you mean, hiding yourself and Billy b.u.mps on the boat?" she demanded. "Why did you do it? And why, above all things, bring the goat?"

"'Cause I knew you wouldn't let me come any other way," Sammy answered.

"I wanted to go houseboating awful bad, but I didn't think you'd take me and Billy. So this morning, when you was packing up, me and him came down here and we got on board. I hid us in a closet, and we was going to stay there until night and then maybe you'd be so far away you couldn't send us back. But something tickled my nose and I sneezed, and I guess Billy thought I was sneezing at him, for he bleated and then he b.u.t.ted his head against the door and it came open and--and--"

But Sammy really had to stop--he was out of breath.

"Well, of all things!" cried Agnes.

"It is rather remarkable," agreed Mr. Howbridge. "I don't know that I ever before had to deal with a stowaway. The question that's puzzling me is, what shall we do with him?"

"Can't me and Billy stay?" asked Sammy, catching drift of an objection to his presence on board.

"Of course not!" voiced Ruth. "What would your mother and father say?"

"Oh, they wouldn't care," Sammy said, easily enough and brightening visibly at the question. "They let me stay when I went with you on our auto tour."

"They surely did," remarked Agnes dryly.

"And Billy's strong, too!" went on Sammy eagerly. "If one of the mules got sick he could help pull the boat."

"The idea!" exclaimed Agnes.

"Oh, h.e.l.lo, Sammy!" called Tess, who had just heard of the discovery of the stowaway.

"h.e.l.lo," Sammy returned. "I'm here!"

They all laughed.

"Well," said Mr. Howbridge at length, as the houseboat was slowly pulled along the ca.n.a.l by the mules driven by Hank, "we must get Sammy home somehow, though how is puzzling me."

"Oh, please can't I stay?" begged the boy. "You can send Billy home, of course. I don't know why I brought him. But let me stay. I'm going to be a ca.n.a.l mule driver when I grow up, and I could begin now if you wanted me to."

"Aren't you going to be a pirate?" asked Agnes, for such had been Sammy's desire for years.

"Yes, of course. But I'm going to be a ca.n.a.l mule driver first."

"It's out of the question," said Ruth firmly. "It was very wrong of you to hide away on board, Sammy. Very wrong indeed! And it is going to be a great bother for us to send you and Billy b.u.mps back home, as we must do. Twice for the same trick is too often."

"Aw, say, Ruthie, you might turn Billy b.u.mps loose here on the bank and let me stay," pleaded Sammy. "Billy can take care of himself well enough."

"Sammy Pinkney!" exclaimed Tess, her eyes blazing. "Turn our goat loose just because you brought him along when you know you had no business to do that! Sammy Pinkney, you are the very worst boy I ever heard of!"