The Black Jacket Mystery

but Trixie knew her brother better than they did.
    “So he’s hiding out in Sleepyside,” she chimed in with a twinkle in her china-blue eyes, “till he can rally an army and march against his enemies. And in the meantime he’s working for Mr. Maypenny to raise the money to pay for his army!”
    Mart put up his hands in token of surrender. “You win!” He laughed. "I surrender!”
    And while both Honey and Di Lynch still looked a little bewildered, the bell rang to warn them all that it was time to get back to their classes.
    After school, Trixie and Honey went to the Wheeler stable to get their horses.
    “I hate to see Regan,” Trixie sighed as they sighted his broad-shouldered, red-haired form at work near the stalls. “I’ve got to tell him about spilling his letter file, and I know he’ll snap my head off.” But, to her amazement, Regan was friendly, and he even laughed when she reluctantly admitted her accident.
    “It was pretty well mixed up, as it was,” he said good-naturedly. “Forget it.”
    He helped them saddle up, and while he did, he asked Honey, “Did you know that Maypenny finally hired somebody to help him take care of the game preserve? He’s a teen-ager, too.”
    “We saw a boy with him, a dark boy named Dan Mangan,” Honey told him. “He seems very nice, but he doesn’t look very strong.”
    Regan hesitated. Then he laughed. “He’s probably one of those stringy ones that are a lot stronger than they look.”
    Trixie couldn’t keep out of it. “He was telling some of the boys at school about belonging to a tough gang in the city. I bet he was just putting it on.
    Regan’s face flushed, and he hesitated even longer this time before he answered. “Well, Trixie, a lot of people talk big because they think other people will like them better. Maybe Danny Mangan s like that.”
    Honey nodded quickly. “I know how it is, Trix. I used to be scared of the water, till a girl at the boarding school where I used to go laughed at me and told everyone I was afraid. So the next day at the pool I jumped right in, though I was sure I’d drown. And the first thing I knew, I was swimming.”
    “And now you’re the prize swimmer of the Bob-Whites,” Trixie added admiringly.
    Regan nodded sagely. “That’s how it goes. This boy Danny, now, he’s taking a job he doesn’t know anything about and going into a school where he doesn’t know a living soul. He’s got to put up a good front, hasn’t he?”
    “That’s right,” Trixie agreed. And Honey nodded.
    “Well?” Regan grinned.
    “But he is Mr. Maypenny’s grandson, isn’t he?” Trixie flung the question at him suddenly as she settled into her saddle.
    Regan frowned. “Where did you get that?”
    “Why, I don’t know—we were just kind of guessing,” Trixie said hurriedly. “There’s no reason why he should be, except—I guess we were just hoping that he was, because Mr. Maypenny doesn’t have anybody.”
    Regan laughed, and the sharpness was gone out of his voice again as he told her, “If you ask me, he’s pretty satisfied without relations. Most of the time all you get from relations is grief.” He went on back into the stables, whistling.
    “I still think—” Trixie wrinkled her forehead.
    “Come on, stop thinking! If Dan Mangan were Mr. Maypenny’s grandson, there’d be no reason why Regan wouldn’t say so. So he isn’t. And, anyhow, what difference does it make to us? Or to Susie and Starlight, who are chewing their bits like madl”
    They cantered off down the driveway and along Glen Road to the pathway up into the woods.
    “I guess whatever was worrying Regan is all right now,” Trixie said after they had slowed down for the climb up the narrow trail to the game preserve.
    “You sound almost sorry!” her best friend said with a giggle.
    “I’m not, really,” Trixie said soberly. “I’m glad. Only—if it was something so important that he had to ask Miss Trask and Moms what to do about it, how could it all be cleared up in a teeny-weeny little trip to the city? And I still wonder what it meant in the letter about a judge—”
    “Oh, dear, I thought you were going to forget about that letter!”
    Trixie sighed and flushed. “I’m trying to. Honest!” Honey reined in suddenly. “Look up ahead!” she said quietly.
    Startled, Trixie reined in Susie and shielded her eyes from the slanting beam of sunlight coming down past the snow-laden trees. “Dan Mangan. And he’s having quite a