The Black Jacket Mystery

longer.”
    So it was arranged, and both Trixie and Honey were delighted. They had so much to talk about, anyhow, that they would have been on the phone for hours every day if Honey hadn’t been under the same roof.
    By Monday morning, after much conferring in the clubhouse, the Bob-Whites had set the date for their ice carnival. Honey, who was a whiz at sewing, had already sketched a few of the Spanish costumes they would wear, and Trixie had chewed the ends off two perfectly good pencils trying to figure how they could raise cash to buy the materials for the costumes.
    She was moaning about it as she and Honey and Di Lynch waited in the chilly wind that morning for the school bus.
    Di, the other member of the B.W.G.’s, had been helping a lot. It was her Uncle Monty’s dude ranch at which they had spent the Christmas holidays in Tucson. Di owned several Mexican shawls and high tortoiseshell combs and some red-heeled dancing slippers that Uncle Monty had sent to his sister, Di’s mother, when she had given a New Year’s Ball. Di had good news for the girls.
    “Mother says that we can use all of that stuff. And lots more Indian and Mexican pottery and serapes that Uncle Monty sent for decorations. We’ll have all the booths draped with them.” Diana was full of plans. “And I’ve written Uncle Monty to send us a whole lot of cactus candy to sell in one of the booths.”
    “Cactus candy? Ugh! I should think people would choke on all those awful spines!” Trixie shuddered.
    “They peel the cactus before they make the candy out of it.” Di laughed. “Not a choke in a carload!” Mart and Brian had caught the early bus, because they expected to do a bit of preliminary advertising among their classmates about the carnival.
    “I hope we picked a good date for our show,” Trixie said. “It would be horrible if it snowed hard, and all our customers stayed home. I’d die if we had to write to Dolores and Lupe and tell them that we had had a flop.”
    “What we need is a good old-fashioned almanac.” Honey laughed. “Mr. Lytell has one in his store that he swears by. He reads every word in it, and he insists that it never misses telling exactly what kind of weather to expect every day of the year.”
    “I saw one of those in Mr. Maypenny’s kitchen, the day he gave us that stew for lunch when we barged in on him,” Trixie said, her blue eyes sparkling suddenly with an idea. “Hey! Why don’t we ride out there after school and ask him to show us what the weather’s going to be like on the twenty-seventh? If it’s supposed to be sleet-and-snowy, we can change the date before the posters are dated!”
    “Why go all that way?” Honey’s own eyes twinkled. She knew Trixie. “We can stop by Mr. Lytell’s store and ask to look at his almanac.”
    “I’d rather ask Mr. Maypenny,” Trixie said promptly. “Mr. Lytell’s always so grouchy. Besides, we have to ride Susie and Starlight this afternoon, anyhow.”
    Honey grinned at her friend. “And, besides, you think you might get Mr. Maypenny to tell you what kind of experiment Regan’s doing. You still think it was Mom’s car you heard by the lake!” She spoke low so Di wouldn’t hear. Di was greeting another schoolmate a few feet away.
    Trixie had the grace to blush. “Well,” she said, pouting, “I guess I do, really. And it would be fun to know.”
    The bus came just then, so nothing was settled. They climbed aboard the bus, and the three girls went on back to the rear seats that they usually took.
    But the bus driver didn’t close the door at once. He seemed to be waiting for someone. Trixie noticed it. She craned her neck to look through the window.
    “We have a new rider,” she told Di and Honey.
    A moment later a boy who looked about Mart’s age came up the steps. He had a thin, dark face and was wearing a peaked black cap with a patent-leather band and a broad-shouldered black leather jacket with the collar turned up. His black eyes peered out from under the shiny visor of the cap and swept the length of the bus, almost as if he expected to see some danger there. His face was grim
    Trixie kicked Honey in the ankle, and out of the side of her mouth she whispered, “Wonder where he left his motorcycle.”
    The boy’s eyes fixed on Trixie almost as if he had heard what she was saying. They were cold eyes and not in the least friendly.
    Trixie swallowed hard, and her face got red. She knew the stranger couldn’t have heard her,