"Who is Scalawag?" was the chorused question.
"That pony, Uncle Bill?" asked Neale.
"Oh!" gasped Sammy Pinkney, quite himself once more. "The calico pony with pink on him! Je-ru-sa-lem!"
"Exactly," agreed Mr. Sorber, answering all the queries with one word. Then he turned to little Louise Quigg, to add:
"That means you and your dad. You will be guests of the circus, too. Come on, now, Neale, turn your car around and hurry. I'm due to get into another ring suit—I always keep a fresh one handy in case of accident—and walk out before the audience in just—le's see—eleven minutes, now!"
That was surely a busy eleven minutes for all concerned. The Quiggs had to be urged a little to leave their canal boat again; but Beauty had faithfully remained aboard, even if she had gone to sleep at her post; so they shut her into the partly burned cabin to guard the few possessions that remained to them.
"We never did have much, and we ain't likely to ever have much," said the philosophical Louise. "We can bunk to-night in the hold, Pap. We couldn't find John and Jerry till morning, anyway. We might's well celebrate 'cause the old Nancy Hanks didn't all go up in smoke."
Luke telephoned the good news to the old Corner House that Dot and Sammy were found, safe and sound, and that they were all going to the circus. Poor Tess had to be satisfied with the promise that the long-expected pony would be at Milton in a few days. News of the runaways' safety was carried quickly to the Pinkney cottage across Willow Street.
"It strikes me that these kids are getting rewarded instead of punished for running away," Luke observed to Ruth, when he returned from telephoning.
"But what can we do?" the girl asked him. "I am so glad to get Dot back that I could not possibly punish her. And I don't know that she did anything so very wrong. Nor do I believe she will do anything like it again."