Neale, being better acquainted with the dwellers in this neighborhood, seized a half-grown youth on the edge of the crowd and put several very pertinent questions to him.
Was there any place right around there that the children might have fallen into—like a cellar, or an excavation! Any place into which they could have wandered and be unable to get out of, or to make their situation known? Had there been an accident of any kind near this vicinity during the day?
The answers extracted from this street youth, who would, Neale was sure, know of anything odd happening around this section of Milton, were negative.
"Say, it's been deader'n a doornail around here for a week," confessed the Meadow Street youth. "Even Dugan's goat hasn't been on the rampage. No, sir. I ain't seen an automobile goin' faster than a toad funeral all day. Say, the fastest things we got around here is the canalboats—believe me!"
"Funny how we always come around to that canal—or the barges on it—in this inquiry," murmured Luke to Neale O'Neil.
The two had started down the street, but Neale halted in his walk and stared at the young collegian.
"Funny!" he exclaimed suddenly. "No, there isn't anything funny in it at all. The canal. Canalboats. My goodness, Mr. Shepard, there must be something in it!"
"Water," growled Luke. "And very muddy water at that. I will not believe that the children fell in and were drowned!"
"No!" cried Neale just as vigorously. Then he grinned. "Sammy Pinkney's best friends say he will never be drowned, although some of them intimate that there is hemp growing for him. No, Sammy and Dot would not fall into the canal. But, crickey, Shepard! they might have fallen into a canalboat."
"What do you mean? Have been carried off in one? Kidnapped—actually kidnapped?"