"With a lot of gold?" asked Ruth, her eyes gleaming with hope for Neale.

"This the man didn't know. All he knew was that there was a rumor that my father had struck it fairly rich and had started back toward civilization. But even that news makes me feel good. I'm going to see if I can find him. I always had an idea, and so did Uncle Bill, that it was to Alaska father had gone, and this proves it."

"But who is this man who gave you the news, and why doesn't he know where your father can be found?" asked Ruth. "Also is there anything we can do to help you, Neale?"

"What a lot of questions!" exclaimed Agnes.

"I think I can answer them," Neale said. He was calmer now, but his face still shone and his eyes sparkled under the stress of the happy excitement. "The man, as I said, is a tramp. He asked me for some money.

He was driving a team of mules on the ca.n.a.l towpath, and I happened to look at one of the animals. It reminded me of one we had in the circus--a trick mule--but it took only a look to show me it wasn't the same sort of kicker. I got to talking to the man, and he said he was broke--only had just taken the job and the boss wouldn't advance him a cent until the end of the week. I gave him a quarter, and we got to talking. Then he told me he knew men who had been in the Klondike, and, naturally, I asked him if he had ever heard of a man named O'Neil. He said he had, and then the story came out."

"But how can you be sure it was your father?" asked Ruth, wisely not wanting false hopes to be raised.

"That was easily proved when I mentioned circus," said Neale. "This tramp, Hank Dayton, he said his name was, remembered the men speaking of my father talking about circuses, and saying that he had left me in one."

"That does seem to establish an ident.i.ty," Ruth conceded. "Where is this man Dayton now, Neale?"

"He had to go on with the ca.n.a.l boat. But I learned from him all I could. It seems sure that my father is either back here, after some years spent in Alaska, or that he will come here soon. He must have been writing to Uncle Bill, and so have learned that I came here to live.

Uncle Bill knows where I am, but I don't know where he is at this moment, though I could get in touch with him. But I'll be glad to see my father again. Oh, if I could only find him!"

Neale seemed to gaze afar off, over the fields and woods, as if he visualized his long-lost father coming toward him. His eyes had a dreamy look.

"Can't we do something to help you?" asked Ruth.

"That's what I came over about as soon as I had learned all the mule driver could tell me," went on the boy. "I thought maybe we could ask Mr. Howbridge, your guardian, how to go about finding lost persons.

There are ways of advertising for people who have disappeared."

"There is," said Agnes. "I've often seen in the paper advertis.e.m.e.nts for missing persons who are wanted to enable an estate to be cleared up, and the last time I was in Mr. Howbridge's office I heard him telling one of the clerks to have such an advertis.e.m.e.nt prepared."

"Then that's what I've got to have done!" declared Neale. "I've got some money, and I can get more from Uncle Bill if I can get in touch with him. I'm going to see Mr. Howbridge and start something!"

He was about to leave the porch, to hasten away, when Ruth interposed.

"Mr. Howbridge is coming here this afternoon," said the girl. "You might stay and see him, if you like, Neale."

"What, with a whole Civic Betterment Club of girls coming to the Corner House! No, thank you," he laughed. "I'll see him afterward. But I have more hope now than I ever had before."

"I'm very glad," murmured Ruth. "Mr. Howbridge will give you any help possible, I'm sure. Shall I speak to him about it when he comes to advise us how to form our Civic Betterment Club?"

"Oh, I think not, thank you," answered Neale. "He'll have enough to do this afternoon without taking on my affair. I can tell him later. But I couldn't wait to tell you."

"Of course you couldn't!" said Agnes. "That would have been a fine way to treat me!" Neale, who was Agnes' special chum, in a way seemed like one of the family--at least as much so as Mrs. MacCall, the housekeeper, Uncle Rufus, or Sammy Pinkney, the little fellow who lived across Willow Street, on the opposite side from the Corner House.

"Well, I feel almost like another fellow now," went on Neale, as he started down the walk. "Not knowing whether your father is alive or not isn't much fun."

"I should say not!" agreed Agnes. "I wish I could ask you to stay to lunch, Neale, but--"

"Oh, gee, Aggie!" The boy laughed, and off down the street he hastened, his step light and his cheery whistle ringing out.

"Isn't it wonderful!" exclaimed Agnes, as she followed her sister into the house.

"Yes, if only it proves true," returned the older girl, more soberly.

From the kitchen came the clatter of pans and dishes as Linda disposed of the clutter incidental to making cakes and dainties for a bevy of girls. Mrs. MacCall could be heard humming a Scotch song, and as Tess and Dot returned from the store she raised her voice in the refrain:

"Thou art a gay an' bonnie la.s.s, But thou hast a waukrife minnie."

"What in the world is a waukrife minnie?" demanded Agnes again, pausing in her task.

"It's 'wakeful mother,'" answered Ruth. "I remember now. It's in Burns'

poem of that name. But do hurry, please, Aggie, or the girls will be here before we can change our dresses!"

"The fates forbid!" cried her sister, and she hastened to good advantage.

The lunch was over and the "Civic Betterment League" was in process of embryo formation, under the advice of Mr. Howbridge, and Ruth was earnestly presiding over the session of her girl friends in the library of the Corner House, when, from the ample yard in the rear of the old mansion, came a series of startled cries.

There was but one meaning to attach to them. The cries came from Dot and Tess, and mingled with them were the unmistakable yells of Sammy Pinkney.

At the same time Mrs. MacCall added her remonstrances to something that was going on, while Uncle Rufus, tottering his way along the hall, tapped at the door of the library and said:

"'Scuse me, Miss Ruth, but de chiluns done got cotched in de elevator!"

"The _elevator_!" Agnes screamed. "What in the world do you mean?"

"Yas'um, dat's whut it is," said the old colored man. "Tess an' Dot done got cotched in de elevator!"

CHAPTER IV

AN AUTO RIDE

Mr. Howbridge had been making an address to Ruth's a.s.sembled girl chums when the interruption came. He had been telling them just how to go about it to organize the kind of society Ruth had in mind. In spite of her half refusal to attend the session, Agnes had decided to be present, and she was sitting near the door when Uncle Rufus made his statement about the two smallest Kenways being "cotched."

"But how can they be in an elevator?" demanded Agnes. "We haven't an elevator on the place--there hardly is one in Milton."

"I don't know no mo' 'bout it dan jest dat!" declared the old colored man. "Sammy he done say dey is cotched in de elevator an'--"

"Oh, Sammy!" cried Agnes. "If Sammy has anything to do with it you might know--"

She was interrupted by a further series of cries, unmistakably coming from Tess and Dot, and, mingled with their shouts of alarm, was the voice of Mrs. MacCall saying:

"Come along, Ruth! Oh, Agnes! Oh, the poor bairns! Oh, the wee ones!"

and then she lapsed into her broadest Scotch so that none who heard understood.

"Something must have happened!" declared Ruth.