The Black Jacket Mystery

smiled and nodded. “Broke, a runaway, and scared. And I haven’t forgotten it. But I think it would do Mr. Maypenny a lot more good if we got out of here than it will if we stand around arguing.”
    “Come on, kids.” Brian shooed the girls and Mart toward the front door.
    Trixie stopped near the door after Honey had gone out. She looked back at Dan with fire in her eyes. “You do hiss and coil like a snake. A copperhead!” As she finished speaking, she turned and flounced toward the door where Brian was waiting. She wasn’t looking where she was going, and she bumped her shin on a chair. It hurt so much that she said, “Ouch!” and grabbed the back of the chair to support herself while she rubbed the bumped spot.
    She flashed an angry look back at Dan to see if he was laughing at her, and was surprised to see him staring with a worried expression at the chair and the object draped over the top bar that she was clutching.
    The object was a black leather jacket. She forgot her aching shin. She angrily snatched the jacket off the chair and flung it at Dan. “Don’t look so mean!” she stormed at him. “I was hardly touching your disgusting old jacket! I wasn’t hinting it! Take a good look!”
    But although Dan reached out to catch the jacket, it fell short and spread out on the floor between them. Its black, shiny back lay uppermost, and across it from shoulder to shoulder, a neatly lettered legend in white paint spelled out THE COWHANDS. And there wasn’t a sign of a tear in either of the sleeves!
     

A Terrible Discovery • 16
     
    TRIXIE STARED at the black jacket spread out on the floor between her and Dan. “Why, that isn’t the same ja—” she began, surprised.
    Dan cut her off sharply. “Get out, will you!” he shouted, and at the same time he darted forward, snatched up the jacket, and held it behind him as he glared defiantly at her.
    “Trixie!” Brian poked his head in through the doorway. “Come on! Stop squabbling, both of you! Have a little consideration for Mr. Maypenny.”
    She turned and went out, and a moment later Dan had slammed the door shut after them and slipped the bolt.
    Brian hurried Trixie along. “We’ll come back tomorrow and change the bandage, but I’m sure Mr. Maypenny will be up and around then. He’s a tough old coot and it’s only a scalp injury.”
    “It could happen to anybody after the branches get loaded with snow,” Mart said. “Maybe somebody ought to advise the old boy to wear a fireman’s helmet so he won’t get conked again!”
    All three of the boys snickered at the thought, and Honey giggled with them. But Trixie, walking a little apart as they came up to the horses, didn’t join in. Her thoughts were on the black jacket spread on the cabin floor and the way Dan had acted.
    As Jim settled in the saddle, he glanced back at tire cabin and shook his head. “I wish there were some way to get through to Dan. Something’s bothering him a lot, and if he could just talk it out to somebody, he’d be a lot better off.” He paused, then added, “Dan needs friends.”
    “He needs a good punch in the nose!” Mart contradicted him grimly.
    “He had no right to shout at Trixie that way!” Honey said from beside them as they all rode down the trail. “He’s just hopeless, that’s all! And I wish he would go back where he came from!”
    “I thought you girls were all for Dan, now that we’ve decided he didn’t break into the clubhouse,” Brian said teasingly.
    “We’re not so sure now,” Honey said quickly. “There were cigarette butts in the bowl I broke.
    And they were the same kind as we found in the clubhouse.”
    Mart hooted. “Ye gods and little fishes! Those cigs sell a million packs a week! How do you know Mr. Lytell hadn’t been calling on Mr. Maypenny lately?”
    “Does he smoke that kind?” Trixie asked. She had kept out of the conversation till now.
    “Who knows? I know if he does, Mr. Maypenny wouldn’t have stopped him from smoking them there, even though he’s so set against tobacco.”
    “We hadn’t thought of that,” Honey said with a little sigh of relief and smiled.
    “Besides, what about the brown boots our thief was wearing, two sizes larger than Dan wears?” Jim asked quietly over the clop-clop of the hooves.
    “That’s right,” Honey agreed cheerfully. “I forgot all about them. Didn’t you, Trixie?”
    “Sort of,” Trixie admitted.
    “Why don’t you two get off Dan Mangan’s back?” Mart