"Well, the question now arises," said Mr. Howbridge, "what shall we do with this mule, which seems to have been stolen?"

"I say take him along with us," answered Hank. "One of our critters might get hurt, and we'd have to lay up if we didn't have an extra one."

"I don't believe Uncle Josh would pull in harness with another mule,"

said Neale. "He has always been a trick mule, and has worked alone. He is quite valuable."

"Do you suppose your uncle sold him?" asked the lawyer.

"I don't believe so," said the boy. "I believe he was stolen, and I know, in that case, that Uncle Bill would be glad to get him back."

"Well, then let's take him back," suggested Hank. "I can drive him along with my mules for a spell until we come to the place where the circus is playing. He'll drive, I guess, if he won't pull a boat, and he'll be company for my mules." Hank was fond of animals, and treated them kindly.

"How does that plan appeal to you, Minerva?" asked Ruth's guardian.

"This is your trip, as well as mine. Do you want to be bothered with an extra mule?"

"Oh, I don't see that he would be any bother," she said. "If Hank looks after him, we shan't have to. And if it's Neale's uncle's mule he ought to be returned."

"That settles it," said Mr. Howbridge. "We'll take the mule with us."

"I'm sure Uncle Bill will be glad to get him back," declared Neale. "And I'm pretty sure he never sold him."

So it was arranged. Once more the _Bluebird_ was under way, the two harnessed mules towing her and Uncle Josh, the trick animal, wandering along at his own sweet will.

For a time the Corner House girls, with Neale and Mr. Howbridge, walked along the towpath. Then they went back to the boat as Mrs. MacCall, blowing on a horn, announced meal time.

The trip along the ca.n.a.l continued in leisurely fashion. Now the _Bluebird_ would be lifted up at some water-foaming lock, or lowered in the same fashion. Twice they were lifted over inclined planes, and the young folks, especially Dot and Tess, liked this very much.

The weather had been all that could be desired ever since they started, except the rain storm in which the girls were robbed. But now, about four days after leaving Milton, they awoke one morning to find a disagreeable drizzle. But Hank and the mules did not seem to mind it. In fact they rather liked splashing through the rain and mud.

Of course getting out and strolling along the towpath was out of the question for the voyagers, and they found amus.e.m.e.nts enough on board the houseboat.

It rained all day, but it needed more than this to take the joy out of life for the Corner House girls.

"Fair day to-morrow!" cried Neale, and so it proved.

They approached a small town early the next day, and as they tied up at a tow-barn station to get some supplies Dot cried:

"Oh, look at the elephant!"

"Where?" demanded Tess.

"I mean it's a picture of it on that barn," went on the mother of the "Alice-doll," and she pointed.

"Oh, it's a circus!" exclaimed Tess. "Look, Ruth--Agnes!"

And there, in many gay posters was the announcement that "Twomley & Sorber's Herculean Circus and Menagerie" would show that day in Pompey, the town they had then reached.

"It's Uncle Bill's show!" cried Neale. "Maybe I'll hear some news of my father."

"And shall we have to give back Josh mule?" asked Tess, who had taken quite a liking to the animal.

"Well, we'll see," said Mr. Howbridge. "But I think we may as well, all of us, go to the circus," he added.

And, that afternoon, the trick mule having been left in the towpath barn with Hank's animals, almost the whole party, including the driver, went to the circus. Only Mrs. MacCall decided to stay on the houseboat.

On the way to the circus the party pa.s.sed the post-office. Ruth remembered that this was a town she had mentioned in a letter to Luke Shepard and ran in to see if there was any mail.

"Ruth Kenway," said the clerk, in answer to her question, and a moment later pa.s.sed out a fine, fat letter, addressed in the hand she knew so well.

"I'll read it to-night--I haven't time now," she told herself, and blushed happily. "Dear Luke--I hope everything is going well with him."

CHAPTER XV

REAL NEWS AT LAST

"Oh, look at the toy balloons! Look, Alice-doll," and Dot held her constant companion up in her arms.

Dot was in a state of great excitement, and kept repeating to Tess stories of her experiences of the summer previous when Dot, her older sisters and some friends, seated in a box of this very circus, Scalawag, the pony, had been publicly presented to the smaller Corner House girls--a scene, and a sensation, which is told of in a previous volume of this series and which, alas! Tess had missed.

"There's pink lemonade!" cried Tess. "Oh, I want some of that! Please, Ruth, may I have two gla.s.ses?"

"Not of that pink lemonade, Tess," answered the older girl. "It may be colored with hat dye, for all we know. We'll see Neale's Uncle Bill, who will take us to the best place to get something to drink."

"Just see the fat lady!" went on Dot next.

"Fat lady! Where? I don't see any!" exclaimed Tess. "Do you mean an elephant?" she asked.

"No. I mean over there!" and Dot pointed to a gayly painted canvas stretched along the front of the tent in which the side shows were showing.

"Oh, that! Only a painting!" and Tess showed in her voice the disappointment she felt.

"Well, the lady is real, and we can go inside and see her; can't we, Ruth?" pursued Dot. "Oh, I just love a circus; don't you, Alice?" and she hugged her doll in her arms.

"Yes, a circus is very nice," was the answer. "But now listen to me,"

went on Ruth. "Don't run away and get lost in the crowd."

"You couldn't run very far in such a crowd," answered Tess.

"No, but you could get lost very easily."

"Oh, see the camels! They are going for a drink, I guess."

"Well, they have to have water the same as the other animals."

"Oh, what was that?" cried Dot, as a gigantic roar rent the air.