The Black Jacket Mystery

cavelike hole. “Trixie? Don’t go away!” There was a hysterical note in the small voice now.
    Trixie plunged recklessly into the hole. “Bobby! Here I am! Come on out and say hello!”
    But he answered, with a sob, “I c-can’t! It’s holding me!”
    She was well inside the cave now and groping about, hoping to contact her small brother. “I’m stuck!” The voice came surprisingly from below, and Trixie realized with a shock that she had almost stumbled into a deep hole.
    Somewhere down that hole, Bobby was “stuck.” She felt panic, but she knew she couldn’t give way to it without terrifying Bobby as well. She forced herself to keep her voice calm, as she called down to him, “It’s all right, honey. I’ll come down and get you right away.”
    “Hurry up, Trixie,” Bobby’s voice came crossly. “I’m hungry, and it’s dark down here, and the rock is holding my legs.”
    “Coming right now!” she assured him with make-believe cheerfulness. Then she let herself over the edge of the hole in the floor of the cave. “I’m climbing down. Look out below!” She made herself laugh to cheer him.
    Now she was at the bottom of the hole, and she felt around in the darkness for Bobby. Instead of the curly head she expected to touch, she found only another and much narrower opening than the one in the floor of the cave through which she had let herself down. And Bobby’s voice, now a little thin and tired, complained from inside that hole, “I’m gettin’ sleepy, Trixie. Please pull me out!”
    She knelt on the soft dirt floor and reached into the hole. It was rock-lined and seemed too narrow for her to enter, but by stretching as far as she could reach into the hole, she could touch Bobby’s hand as it reached out to meet hers.
    She reached in as far as she could and took his small wrist in a firm grip. “Okay, skipper, here we go I I’ll pull and you wiggle this way, and we’ll get you out in a second! Hang onto my wrist now!”
    “Awright,” he answered. And when she pulled at his arm, she heard him grunt and felt his fingers dig into her wrist. He was trying hard. Then suddenly his wrist went limp, and his fingers let go. “The rock won’t let me go,” he complained with a sob. “It’s holding me!”
    “Bobby,” she said, trying to keep the fear out of her voice, “does it hurt a lot when you try to get away?”
    “No.” Bobby’s voice sounded weary now. “I feel fine, but I’m hungry an’ you better pull me out, right now.”
    A cold chill ran through her. If he didn’t feel any pain, it could mean the rock had injured his spine. Pulling and tugging at him could only make the damage worse.
    Somehow, somewhere she would have to find help! But where? She was lost. She hadn’t the slightest idea which direction to go to find anyone. But she had to try.
    “Bobby, honey,” she said, patting the small hand that now lay limp, outstretched, “your silly old Trixie has to go find Jim and Mart and Brian, so they can move that mean old rock that’s holding you. Will you stay real quiet for a little while? Maybe you’d better put your head down now and rest till I get back.” She tried to sound cheerful and unworried.
    There was a little pause, and she heard the sound of a yawn. Then, “Awright, but when you pull me out, will you help me find the kitty? It was a nice big one, and it runned when I tried to catch it, and I thought it was in the cave, and I fell in the hole, and—” The voice had grown fainter. Now it stopped.
    “Gleepsl” Trixie said to herself. “I better find somebody in a hurry. I hope he stays asleep.”
    She wriggled clear of the narrow opening beyond which he was trapped and stood up in the hole in the cave floor. It wasn’t as easy to get out of it as it had been to drop down into it, but she managed, in her desperation, to claw her way up into the cave and stumble out into the starlit night.
    “If I only knew which way to go!” she thought, staring all around her despairingly. The wind was starting to blow now, and overhead big masses of clouds tumbled through the sky. She slapped her arms across her chest to warm herself a little. But her teeth chattered as much from a very real fear as they did from the cold, the fear that before help could come for Bobby, he could freeze down there under the chilly earth.
    Two large tears rolled down her cheeks, but she dashed them away angrily. “Trixie Belden! Crying isn’t going to help any. Think of