Chapter XVI: Ruth's Alarm

"Minnie's loose!" cried Neale to Mr. Howbridge after the flight of the circus men. "Minnie is one of the worst elephants in captivity! She's always making trouble, and breaking loose. I imagine she's the one that wrecked the farmer's barn Uncle Bill was telling about. If she's on the rampage in the animal tent it means mischief!"

"An elephant loose!" cried Mr. Howbridge. "And Ruth and the children in the tent! Come on, Neale!" he cried. "Hurry!"

But there was no need to urge Neale to action. He was off on the run, and Mr. Howbridge showed that he was not nearly so old and grave as he sometimes appeared, for he ran swiftly after his more youthful companion.

The shouting continued, and the trumpet calls of the angry or frightened elephant mingled with them. Then, as Neale and Mr. Howbridge came within view of the animal tent, they saw bursting from it a huge elephant, followed by several men holding to ropes attached to the "ponderous pachyderm," as Minnie was called on the show bills. She was pulling a score of circus hands after her, as though they were so many stuffed straw men.

Mr. Bill Sorber at this time reached the scene, and with him were several men who had hurried after him when they heard the alarm. The ringmaster seemed to know just what to do. He caught an ankus, or elephant hook, from one of his helpers, and, taking a stand directly in the path of the onrushing Minnie, he raised the sharp instrument threateningly.

On thundered the elephant, but Mr. Sorber stood his ground. Men shouted a warning to him, and the screams and cries of women and children rose shrilly on the air. Minnie, which was the rather peaceful name for a very wild elephant, raised her trunk in the air, and from it came the peculiar trumpet blasts. The men she was pulling along were dragged over the ground helplessly.

"Can he stop her, Neale?" gasped Mr. Howbridge, as he ran beside the former circus boy.

"Well, I've seem him stop a wild lion that got out of its cage," was the answer. "But an elephant--"

And then a strange thing happened. When within a few feet of the brave, resolute man who stood in her path, Minnie began to go more slowly. Her shrill cries were less insistent, and the men being dragged along after her began to hold back as they regained their feet.

Mr. Sorber raised the ankus on high. Its sharp, curved point gleamed in the sun. Minnie saw it, and she knew it could cruelly hurt her sensitive trunk. More than once she had felt it before, when on one of her rampages. She did not want to suffer again.

And so, when so close that she could have reached out and touched the ringmaster with her elongated nose, or, if so minded, she could have curled it around him and hurled him to death--when this close, the elephant stopped, and grew quiet.

"Minnie! Minnie!" said the man in a soothing voice. "Behave yourself, Minnie! Why are you acting in this way? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

And the elephant really seemed to be. She lowered her trunk, flapped her ears slowly to and fro, and then stood in her tracks and began swaying to and fro in the manner characteristic of the big beasts.

Mr. Sorber went up to her, tossing the ankus to one of his men, and began to pat the trunk which curled up as if in anticipation of a treat.

"Minnie, you're a bad girl, and you oughtn't to have any; but since you stopped when I told you to I'll give you a few," said the ringmaster, and, reaching into his pocket, he took out some peanuts which the big animal munched with every appearance of satisfaction.

"She's all right now," said Neale's uncle, as the regular elephant men came up to take charge of the creature. "She was just a little excited, that's all. How did it happen?"

"Oh, the same as usual," replied Minnie's keeper. "All at once she gave a trumpet, yanked her stakes loose, and set off out of the animal tent. I had some ropes on her ready to have her pull one of the wagons, and we grabbed these--as many of us as could--but we couldn't hold her."

"I'm afraid we'll have to get rid of Minnie, she's too uncertain. Doesn't seem to know her own mind, like a lot of the women folks," and Mr. Sorber smiled at Mr. Howbridge.

"You were very brave to stop her as you did," observed the lawyer.

"Oh, well, it's my business," said the animal man. "It wasn't such a risk as it seemed. I was all ready to jump to one side if she hadn't stopped."

"I wonder if any one in the animal tent was hurt," went on the lawyer. "We must go and see, Neale. Ruth and the others--"

"I hope none of your folks were injured," broke in Mr. Sorber. "Minnie has done damage in the past, but I guess she only just ran away this time."

With anxious hearts Neale and Mr. Howbridge hastened to the animal tent, but their fears were groundless. Minnie had carefully avoided every one in her rush, and, as a matter of fact, Ruth, Agnes, Dot and Tess were in the main tent when the elephant ran out. They heard the excitement, but Ruth quieted her sisters.

"Well, now we'll go on with the show," said Mr. Sorber, when matters had settled to their normal level. "I'll see you afterward, Neale, and you too, Mr. Howbridge, and those delightful little ladies from the old Corner House."

"Oh, Uncle Bill, I almost forgot!" cried the boy. "Have you that trick mule yet--Uncle Josh? The one I taught to play dead?"

"Uncle Josh? No, I haven't got him, but I wish I had," said the circus owner. "One of the stablemen took him away--stole him in fact--and I'd give a hundred dollars to get him back!"

Neale held out his hand, smiling.

"What do you mean?" asked his uncle.

"Pay me the hundred dollars," was the answer. "I have Uncle Josh!"

"No! Really, have you?"

"I have! I thought you hadn't sold him!" exclaimed the boy, and he told the story of the man on the towpath.

"Well, that is good news!" exclaimed Mr. Sorber. "I'll send for Uncle Josh right away. I sure am glad to have him back. He was always good for a lot of laughs. He's almost as funny as Sully, the clown."

A few minutes later Neale and Mr. Howbridge joined Ruth and the others in the main tent.

Tess and Dot especially enjoyed the performance very much. They took in everything from the "grand entry" to the races and concert at the end. They were guests of the show, in fact, Neale having procured complimentary tickets.

When the performance was over, they visited "Uncle Bill" in his own private tent, and the Corner House girls had a glimpse of circus life "behind the scenes," as it were, Tess's first experience of the sort.

Neale met many of his old friends and they all expressed the hope that he would soon find his father. Uncle Josh, the trick mule, was brought to the grounds by Hank, and the animal seemed glad to be again among his companions.

"Will you be back again this evening?" asked Neale's uncle, when the time came for the party to go back to the houseboat for supper.

"I think not," was Neale's answer.

He said good-by to his uncle, arranging to write to him and hear from him as often as needful. And then they left the circus lot where the night performance would soon be given.

"Well, I have real news of father at last," said Neale to Agnes, as he went back toward the canal with his friends. "I would like to know, though, if he got rich out in the Klondike."

"If he wants any money he can have half mine!" offered Dot. "I have eighty-seven cents in my bank, and I was going to save up to buy my Alice-doll a new carriage. But you can have my money for your father, Neale."

"Thank you," replied Neale, without a smile at Dot's offer. "Maybe I shan't need it, but it's very kind of you."

Mrs. MacCall had supper ready soon after they arrived at the boat, and then, as the smaller girls were tired from their day at the circus, they went to bed early, while Ruth and Mr. Howbridge, Agnes and Neale sat out on the deck and talked. As they were not to go on again until morning, Hank was allowed to go back to the circus again. He said seeing it twice in one day was not too much for him.

"I do hope you will find your father, Neale," said Agnes softly, as, just before eleven o'clock, they all went to bed.

But Ruth, at least, did not go to sleep at once. In her bosom she carried the letter she had received from Luke, and this she now read carefully, twice.

Luke was doing well at the summer hotel. The proprietor was sick, so he and the head clerk and a night man had their hands full. He was earning good money, and part of this he was going to spend on his education and the rest he intended to save. He was sorry he could not be with the houseboat party and hoped they would all have a good time. Then he added a page or more intended only for Ruth's eyes. The letter made the oldest Corner House girl very happy.

Soon after breakfast the next morning they were under way again. The circus had left town in the night, and Neale did not know when he would see his uncle again. But the lad's heart beat high with hope that he might soon find his father.

The weather was propitious, and hours of sunshine were making the Corner House girls as brown as Indians. Mr. Howbridge, too, took on a coat of tan. As for Neale, his light hair looked lighter than ever against his tanned skin. And Hank, from walking along the towpath, became almost as dark as a negro.

One morning, Ruth, coming down to the kitchen to help Mrs. MacCall with the dinner, saw two fat, chubby legs sticking out of a barrel in one corner of the cabin.

The legs were vigorously kicking, and from the depths of the barrel came muffled cries of:

"Let me out! Help me out! Pull me up!"

Ruth lost no time in doing the latter, and, after an effort, succeeded in pulling right side up her sister Tess.

"What in the world were you doing?" demanded Ruth.

"I was scraping down in the bottom of the barrel to get a little flour that was left," Tess explained, very red in the face. "But I leaned over too far and I couldn't get up. And I couldn't call at first."

"What did you want of flour?" asked Ruth. "Goodness, you have enough on your dress, anyhow."

"I wanted some to rub on my face to make me look pale," went on Tess.

"To make you look pale! Gracious, Tess! what for?"

"We're playing doctor and nurse, Dot and I," Tess explained. "I have to be sick, and sick people are always pale. But I'm so tanned Dot said I didn't look sick at all, so I tried to scrape some flour off the bottom of the barrel to rub on my face."

"Well, you have enough now if you brush off what's on your clothes," laughed Ruth.

"And be careful about leaning over barrels," put in Mrs. MacCall. "You might have been hurt."

"Yes," agreed Tess, "I might be but I wasn't. Only my head felt funny and my legs felt queer, too, when I wiggled them."

They were approaching the end of the stretch of the canal through which they must travel to reach Gentory River. The boat would be "locked" from the canal to the larger stream, and then Neale could have his wish of operating the motor come true.

Toward evening they arrived at the last lock of their trip. Just beyond lay the river, and they would proceed up that to Lake Macopic.

As the _Bluebird_ emerged from the lock and slowly floated on the little basin into which just there the Gentory broadened, the attention of Ruth and Agnes was directed to a small motor boat which was just leaving the vicinity.

Ruth, who stood nearest the rail, grasped her sister by the arm, and cried an alarm.

"Look! Those men! In the boat!" exclaimed Ruth.

"What about them?" asked Agnes, while Mr. Howbridge glanced at the two sisters.

"They're the same men who robbed us!" exclaimed Ruth. "The men who took our jewelry box in the rain! Oh, stop them!"