The Black Jacket Mystery

few minutes later when she heard the sound of a car’s motor. It was coming from the private road over on the other side of the hill.
    It was a steep, narrow road and very bumpy. It wasn’t meant for anything but a car with four-wheel drive, and from the sound of this car, the driver was having a time getting uphill with this one. The road led only to the game preserve and Mr. Maypenny’s cabin in the center of it.
    She knew that Mr. Maypenny didn’t have a car. In fact, he positively loathed the “critters.” When he didn’t walk on his rounds of the traps and snares for the pesty little cottontails, he rode Brownie, his old mare.
    Now the chugging and puffing sounded as if it were just on the other side of the hill. Trixie couldn’t resist climbing up to the top of the hill among the tall spruces and trying to see who was driving that car. If it turned out to be Mr. Maypenny himself, f she would have fun teasing him about driving, after f all the things he had said about cars.
    She started to climb, but she was in too much of a hurry. She carelessly stepped on a loose rock on the side of the hill and stumbled, landing on one knee. It was a hard fall and it hurt; by the time she had scrambled to her feet and limped the rest of the way up to the top of the hill, the car had passed. The only glimpse she had of it was of the rear end turning a comer in the road and going out of sight.
    She rubbed her painfully skinned knee and went down the hill again, very much annoyed with herself.
    The storm had really begun now, and the wind was sending heavy gusts of snow across the surface of the ice.
    Brian and Mart were waiting beside the fire, “Let’s call it a day,” Brian said, glancing at the leaden sky.
    Honey was coming across the ice with Bobby at her side, and the wind was blowing and pounding them unmercifully.
    “I only failed down once,” Bobby boasted as they came up to the fire.
    “Good for you, young feller!” Mart laughed. “Now how about heading for home?”
    “But I’m c-cold,” Bobby complained and huddled shivering at the fire.
    “Let him get warmed through first, and then we’ll come along after you,” Honey told the boys.
    “I’ll wait with you,” Trixie said hastily. She was glad to linger so the boys wouldn’t have a chance to notice that she was limping. She knew Mart would tease her about it.
    “Okay, but don’t wait too long.” Brian glanced skyward again. “This looks like a mean one.”
    “And stomp out the fire, squaws,” Mart added. “With this wind, one live spark could make a lot of animals homeless—and lifeless!”
    “To say nothing of Mr. Maypenny,” Brian said grimly. “So don’t forget.”
    Trixie’s knee was hurting and it made her cross. “Go on ahead. I guess we’re as good woodsmen as you two. We know what were doing.” She was trying to stand very straight, but if they didn’t hurry and start off, she just knew she was going to collapse.
    “Hey!” Mart pointed to her knee. “What’s with the tom dungarees? Did you ‘failed down‘ too?”
    “Go on, and stop asking silly questions!” Trixie gripped the slim trunk of a sapling beside her and held on. “You didn’t see the ice cracked anywhere, did you?”
    Brian laughed and drew Mart away with him. “See you later at the clubhouse, ladies.”
    As soon as they were out of sight, Trixie groaned and sat down on a flat rock, gingerly feeling the injured knee.
    “Why, you did fall, didn’t you?” Honey hurried to her. “Let me see.”
    Trixie had tucked her dungarees into the top of her boots, so they had to pull off the boot before they could roll up the pants leg and look at the scraped spot. Trixie fingered it gently, with a moan or two, and then decided that nothing was broken, after all. “Just a scrape,” she told Honey.
    “We’ll get the first-aid kit at the clubhouse and bandage you pretty,” Honey told her, “with some of that red, white, and blue adhesive tape.”
    “I want some heap-o’-tape, too. See?” Bobby held out a finger with a tiny scratch on it. “I hurt awful.”
    Trixie grinned at him as she rolled down her pants leg. “We’ll put some on the other hand, too, so you’ll balance!”
    Bobby’s eyes shone. “I love you, Trixie!” He flung his arms around Trixie’s neck, and they hugged each other.
    “But you must promise not to tell Mart or Brian that I skinned my knee,” Trixie warned him. “That’s our secret.”
    “I love see-cruds.” Bobby