The Black Jacket Mystery

least of all just before bedtime. His imagination was a little too strong sometimes, as it was, and required no further stimulation.
    Jim spoke casually. “I think Brian and I will ride out that way tomorrow, or Monday before school. I want to see those tracks if they’re still there. I may measure and sketch them for a paper I’m doing on the carnivores of our valley.”
    “Good idea,” Brian agreed. “And, meanwhile, you girls stick around home for a change. We’ll exercise your horses for you, while you get busy coloring those posters. Jim’s managed to get some terrific ideas in them, and we’re anxious to have a few painted and ready to place around town where our book-donating customers can see them.”
    “We’ll get right on them,” Trixie assured him. She was just as eager to have the posters finished as the boys were. She and Honey had written Dolores and Lupe about the ice carnival benefit they were planning, and she wanted to be able to tell them in her next letter that things were shaping up just fine.
    All three of the boys drifted over to talk to Regan after dinner. And, for once, Trixie didn’t mind not having them help with the dishes. She was tired, and she didn’t think she could stand any of Mart’s teasing tonight.
    Honey had trotted Bobby up to bed as soon as the boys had left and was probably, Trixie thought wearily, in the middle of the second of those all-too-familiar stories by this time. Honey was a real friend, and Trixie decided she wouldn’t know how
    to get along without her now.
    The hallway door swung open with a bang, and Honey, her big hazel eyes wide with alarm, rushed in. “Trixie!”
    Trixie almost dropped the dish she was washing. “What’s happened? Bobby?”
    “No.” Honey sank onto the nearest chair and pushed up her left sweater sleeve to show her bare wrist. “My watch! It’s gone!”
     

More Suspicions • 11
     
    OH,IS THAT ALL?” Trixie was weak with relief that there was nothing the matter with Bobby. “You probably forgot to put it on this morning.”
    Honey shook her head, big tears starting to fill her eyes. “No. I remember, this morning when I was dressing I took it out of my leather jewel box to look at it-”
    Trixie interrupted. “I didn’t know you kept it there. I thought you hung it on that ceramic jewelry tree where I put mine every night when I take it off.”
    Honey nodded. “I do. That watch, my everyday one. This was the one Mom gave me that her mother gave her when she finished school. My very best dress-up watch.”
    “You wore that one to go riding?” Trixie was frankly shocked. “What on earth for?”
    “I don’t know. I just thought, ‘It’s so pretty. I’ll wear it today and enjoy it!’ ” She burst into sobs. “What am I going to do?”
    “Stop crying first,” Trixie advised, patting her shoulder, “and maybe we can think of something. I’m sure it can’t be very far away. Let’s start thinking of a way to find it.”
    They had been many places and done many things that day. The stables, the clubhouse—it was going to be hard to decide where to begin looking.
    “Let’s see, now. Where could you have loosened it accidentally and not noticed?”
    “Oh, I don’t know!” Honey had almost dried her tears, but they started to flow again. “It had such a good, strong catch on it. It was hard to open. I always had to pull a lot on it before I could get it unfastened. Mom said that the catch was made like that because the watch was so valuable!”
    “Mmmm.” Trixie was thinking. “Let’s see, now. If something pulled on your wrist—hey, wait a sec! Remember how you kept hold of the reins when you dismounted to look at those cat tracks? Which hand did you use?”
    “Why, I looped the reins over my wrist”—Honey touched her bare left wrist—“this one, naturally.”
    “Don’t you see?” Trixie was excited. “Starlight tried to pull loose, and the reins must have sprung open the catch on your watchband!”
    “Trixie! My watch is probably lying out there in the woods right now!”
    “Well, it could be,” Trixie admitted with a grin. “So let’s start looking there tomorrow morning.”
    “Wonderful!” Honey beamed. Then, just as suddenly, she looked worried. “Only—Brian said we shouldn’t ride.”
    “That’s mostly because he thinks we’re afraid of the cat! But the thing’s probably miles and miles away by now, or it will be by morning.”
    “Or else Mr. Maypenny may have