The Red Trailer Mystery (9 page)

All of the boys were excellent swimmers, but Ben, in spite of his clowning, won with apparently no effort at all. “Nothing to it,” he grinned as he joined the girls on the rock. “Before you stands the world’s greatest swimmer. I shouldn’t have entered an amateur race. It was like taking candy from a baby. As you no doubt noted, Sid here, was outclassed from the beginning.”

Sid had been such a close second that everyone laughed, and Ben pretended to sulk. Sid hoisted himself up on the rock beside Trixie. “I’ll bet you could beat boastful Ben with your arm in a sling,” he said.

Trixie shook her head. “I couldn’t, but Honey could. She’s marvelous.”

Honey flushed. “I’m not at all.”

Ben scrambled to his feet. “Dare you to challenge me. Double dare you.” He pulled his cousin down to the starting point on the edge of the quarry.

“Ready, on your mark, get set,
go!
” Sid shouted and they were off.

Trixie had not really been sure that Honey could beat Ben, but she did, by a whole yard, and the quarry resounded with the boys’ loud cheers. Red-faced and embarrassed, Honey let Ben help her out of the water and before she could get her balance, he pushed her in again. That was a signal for everybody to drag Ben into the quarry and duck him over and over again. At last it was over and Ben, spluttering good-naturedly, held up Honey’s arm and gasped, “The winnah!”

The dinner bell rang, and they raced away to change into dry clothes. Honey and Trixie sat on each side of Mr. Ditmar at the long table in the ranch house and had several helpings of the hunter’s stew.

“Maybe you proved girls are the best swimmers,” Ben teased, “but it looks as though boys are the best cooks.”

“I won’t argue that point,” Trixie admitted with a laugh as she passed her plate for more of the savory meat and vegetables. “But I
would
like to know how you did it. Most stews are awful.”

“First you take an onion,” Ben said, his eyes twinkling, “and after that you weep and weep.”

“Not if you peel it under water.” Mrs. Ditmar smiled. “But Ben will never learn.”

“By the way,” Mr. Ditmar said to Trixie, “you’re not the only people who’ve stopped at the ranch today asking for missing persons. A man came to the back door early this morning wanting to know if we’d seen his little girl.”

Trixie stared across the table at Honey. “Was he driving a red trailer?” she asked.

Mr. Ditmar looked surprised. “Why, no,” he said. “He was on foot and went off through the woods walking north. I took it for granted that he was a farmer.”

Trixie laid down her fork. “Did he describe the girl?” she asked, trying not to sound excited. “Did he say her name was Joeanne?”

“No, he didn’t.” Mr. Ditmar shook his head. “He simply said she had black pigtails and was about eleven years old. I offered to send a group of boys through the woods to help search for her, but he rather rudely refused the offer and strode away hastily.” He gave Trixie a sharp glance. “What made you think he would be in a red trailer? Do you suspect the man had anything
to do with the recent theft that has been announced on the radio so many times?”

Before Trixie could think of a word to say, Honey interrupted with, “Did the man have long, shaggy hair?”

Mr. Ditmar laughed. “There’s some mystery about all this, but you two are certainly on the wrong track. The man, and I think he must have been a neighbor farmer, had a closely cropped head—it was practically a crew haircut.”

“Then I guess we’re talking about two different people,” Trixie said with relief. “We saw a shaggy-haired man driving a red trailer on our way up the river last week.”

Honey quickly changed the subject. “You must come over and see our trailer before we go back,” she said to Ben. “I’d like to ask you all to lunch but it’s not quite big enough for that.”

“I should hope not,” Ben said as they left the dining hall. “It would have to be a young village on wheels to hold all of us.”

Sid and Ben went off to saddle Prince and Peanuts while the girls said good-by and thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Ditmar. Then they rode off through the woods in what they thought was the right direction.

The minute they were alone Trixie said, “Didn’t you
nearly die of excitement when Mr. Ditmar said a man had been asking about an eleven-year-old girl with pigtails?”

Honey nodded. “And I almost died of disappointment when he said the farmer had a crew cut.”

“Well,
I
didn’t,” Trixie said. “I think Joeanne’s father has simply had a haircut, that’s all.”

Honey, who had been leading the way, looked over her shoulder at Trixie. “I never thought about that,” she admitted. “Then maybe the red trailer family is somewhere near here.”

“That’s right,” Trixie said. “They’ve probably abandoned the
Robin
and are living in the woods.”

“Oh, golly,” Honey giggled. “You’ve got so many people hiding in the woods now it’s a wonder we don’t stumble over them.”

Trixie grinned. “Maybe we’ll do just that before we’re through, but right now I wish we’d stumble across a trail that looks familiar. We should have come out on the field we galloped through on our way over to the ranch long ago.”

“That’s true,” Honey said, frowning. “I never saw that brook before, did you?”

“Never,” Trixie said. “Does it show on the map?”

The horses had stopped of their own accord and
were drinking thirstily. Honey produced the map from her pocket and handed it to Trixie.

“You figure this one out,” she said with a laugh. “I got us to the ranch, now you get us back!”

Trixie stared at the map for a whole minute before she realized that she was holding it upside down. Even when she had righted it she was as baffled as ever. “I simply can’t follow maps,” she said ruefully. “Maybe we’d better go back to the ranch and start all over again.”

“All right,” Honey agreed, gathering up her reins. “But Ben will tease us for losing our way so quickly.”

They rode along in silence for a while and then Trixie said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Honey, here’s the brook again. Now we
are
good and lost. I don’t even know how to get to the ranch from here, do you?”

“No,” Honey said. “But let’s keep going anyway. Miss Trask said all the trails come out on a main highway sooner or later. This path looks as though it was used more than the other ones. It’s bound to lead somewhere.”

“Suits me,” Trixie said. “I’d just as soon not go back through the woods. The deer flies are simply terrible.”

The path grew wider and wider and finally they realized they were on a back country road.

“We’re probably trespassing,” Honey said. “I can hear a dog barking just ahead of us. I hope he doesn’t rush out and bite us.”

“Why, we’re on somebody’s farm,” Trixie said with a gasp of surprise. “See the cows in the pasture over there? And look, Honey. Just beyond the pasture is that old orchard we saw from the top of the hill.”

And then the sound of the barking dog came nearer. In a moment they saw a large collie racing through the fields toward them. Before the girls could gather their wits, Peanuts, terrified at the sight of the angry dog, bolted and set off up the road at a run. Trixie took up the slack in her reins too late. Prince was already galloping madly after Honey’s big chestnut gelding.

A low branch slapped Trixie in the face as Prince raced up the road with the collie barking at his heels. Tears of pain filled her blue eyes and for a moment she was blinded. Clinging desperately to the saddle with her knees and pulling in the reins with all her might and main, she got out a few weak “Whoa’s,” and then she saw that Honey, a few yards ahead of her, had managed to halt Peanuts in front of a rambling white frame farmhouse.

Trixie sighed with relief. “Prince will stop when he catches up with Peanuts,” she thought, bracing herself.

Prince was, in fact, already slowing from a dead run to a more sensible gait when a large black crow suddenly swooped down from a cherry tree beside the house. With a loud, defiant “Caw!” the crow flapped its widespread wings in Prince’s startled face.

The horse shied violently and the next thing Trixie knew she was sprawling in the gravel driveway. The angry collie skidded to a stop beside her and stood there, growling threateningly, while the crow, from its perch in the tree, screamed insults down at her.

“If I lie perfectly still,” Trixie decided in desperation, “the collie probably won’t come any nearer, but I wouldn’t trust that crow. He’s as mad as a hornet and he could do a nice job on my face with his beak and claws.”

And then she heard a woman’s voice calling from the farmhouse, “Laddie, Laddie! Come right here to me, you naughty dog, frightening that poor little girl. Don’t worry, child, he wouldn’t hurt a flea. His bark is worse than his bite.”

The collie, tail drooping, head lowered in shame, trotted obediently to his mistress. Trixie, keeping one eye cautiously on the bird in the tree, rolled to a sitting position.

An enormously fat woman with bright red cheeks and snapping black eyes was hurrying as fast as her weight would allow her down the back steps. “You poor lamb,” she crooned breathlessly. “I saw the whole thing from the kitchen window. It was that crow’s fault, the black pest.” She shook a plump, dimpled fist up at the cherry tree. “Just wait till I get my hands on you, Jimmy. I’ll make you into a pie so fast you’ll never know what happened to you.”

Jimmy Crow shifted back and forth on his perch as though rocking with laughter. Then with a hoarse, derisive “Caw!” he swooped down on an innocent little garter snake that was wriggling through the grass under the cherry tree.

By this time his mistress had reached Trixie’s side. “Are you all right, lamb?” she asked worriedly. “Such a tumble! You did a complete somersault in mid-air. It’s a wonder you didn’t break every bone in your body!”

Trixie laughed and scrambled to her feet. “I’m all right,” she said, “but your pet crow had me scared for a while.”

“My pet, indeed!” the fat woman sniffed. “It’s my husband who has adopted the loudmouthed pest, and the pest has adopted me. He knows I don’t like him so he follows me every step I take. I tell you it gets on my nerves, or at least it would if I were not so fat that I haven’t any nerves.” She laughed loudly at her own joke and patted Trixie’s arm. “I’m Mrs. Nat Smith,” she said, gasping for breath. “And you must come into the house and have some lemonade and cookies. If I do say so myself, I make the best chocolate oatmeal cookies in the county.” She glanced down the road, her black eyes sparkling. “Your friend will be back as soon as she catches your horse, and then we’ll have a nice tea party in my kitchen.”

“We’d love it,” Trixie said as she followed Mrs. Smith to the back steps. “But won’t it be too much trouble?
I know how busy a farmer’s wife must be all the time. We have a small farm farther down the river. Just a vegetable garden and about forty chickens, but it’s an awful lot of work.”

Mrs. Smith nodded as she began a slow, ponderous ascent of the steps. “Work, work, work from morning till night,” she panted. “I tell Nat he’s too old now to keep up that pace, but you can’t stop him. And now with the beans all ready to be picked our hired hand fell out of a tree and broke his leg.” She grunted in disgust as she heaved her bulk through the door and collapsed into a huge rocking chair beside the stove. “Wouldn’t you know that good-for-nothing boy would pick a time like this to climb one of those half-dead trees down in the orchard?”

“Oh,” Trixie asked, “does that old orchard belong to your property?”

“Indeed it does,” the woman said, “although we haven’t got an apple out of it for these past six years, and the boy knew as well as I do that it’s not safe to climb those half-dead trees.” Having regained her breath, Mrs. Smith shuffled to the refrigerator and produced a gallon jug of lemonade. She pointed to an enormous crock on the other side of the long, sunny kitchen. “Get out some cookies, will you, my dear? That copper
tray on the wall behind you will do nicely. I’m not one for platters. They just don’t hold enough. I always say if you’re going to take the time to eat at all you might as well eat all you can hold.”

Trixie heaped thick oatmeal cookies, dotted with chunks of chocolate, on the tray and brought it to the table while Mrs. Smith filled tall glasses with ice-cold lemonade. “These are the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted,” Trixie said between munches and sips.

Mrs. Smith beamed. “That’s what our hired hand used to say about everything I cooked. Poor boy! I’m sorry he had to go and hurt himself, and of course we’re paying his hospital bills and his salary as well while his leg’s in the cast, but I must say if he had to fall out of a tree he might have picked a time when we didn’t need help so badly. All those beans!” She folded her hands in her snowy apron and rocked back and forth in despair.

“Why do you suppose he did such a foolish thing?” Trixie asked. “Even
I
have sense enough to stay out of a dying tree.”

“That’s the worst part of it,” Mrs. Smith told her. “He gave as his reason that he thought he saw a tramp down in the field below the orchard. Now what would a tramp be doing down there? A tramp can smell as well as the next person, and even a blind one could find his
way to my kitchen door and ask for food. But does that idiot boy figure that out? No, he climbs a rotten tree to get a better view of the field, and that’s that!”