The Happy Valley Mystery

Straight to Adventure • 1
     
    TRIXIE BELDEN shook back her short sandy curls, unfastened her seat belt when the light up front flashed off, and settled back in the plane seat next to her friend Honey Wheeler.
    “I have to pinch myself,” she said, “to realize that in just an hour well be in Des Moines, Iowa. It all happened so quickly. Honey, I wonder if I even said good-bye to Moms.”
    “You did,” Honey assured her, “but I wouldn’t have been surprised if you hadn’t. We were in such a tizzy at Kennedy International Airport this morning—running around claiming our reservations, having our baggage weighed—”
    “Waving good-bye to Uncle Andrew,” Trixie interrupted. “I just don’t seem to remember a thing about the flight from New York to Chicago, where we changed planes. Isn’t it thrilling? All the Bob-Whites right here on this plane?”
    “Not all of them,” Honey reminded her. “I wish Dan could have come. It’s the one thing that keeps everything from being perfect.”
    “All the Bob-Whites” meant Trixie Belden, Honey Wheeler, and Diana Lynch, who were thirteen; Trixie’s brothers Brian, sixteen, and Mart, fourteen; Honey’s adopted brother Jim, who was fifteen; and Dan Mangan, the seventh member of their semisecret club, Bob-Whites of the Glen. Neighbors in Sleepyside, Westchester County, New York, they were students at the junior-senior high school. It was spring vacation, and all but Dan were on a plane bound for Trixie’s Uncle Andrew’s farm, near Des Moines, Iowa.
    “Isn’t it thrilling?” Trixie repeated as the plane leveled off and she looked at the ground below.
    “No mountains,” Honey said, disappointed, “no Hudson River—”
    “Maybe not,” Jim said. He and Brian sat ahead of the girls. “But, Sis, look at the millions of trees and all the fields marked off so exactly and all the different shades of green... dark for the woods...
    “Dark woods,” Trixie repeated thoughtfully. “I didn’t realize that there were so many acres and acres of dark woods. Do you suppose—”
    “Trixie Belden,” Jim said, “for heaven’s sake, let’s have one expedition where you don’t try to be a detective.”
    “Why shouldn’t I?” Trixie retorted. “If you’ll just think back, Jim, you have plenty of reason to be thankful for my ‘snooping,’ as you always call it.”
    “That’s right, Jim,” said Honey. “If it hadn’t been for Trixie, I wouldn’t have you for an adopted brother.”
    “I wasn’t criticizing you, Trix,” Jim assured her hastily. “Most of the cases you and Honey have tackled have finally turned out all to the good. I just hoped you’d have one carefree vacation.”
    “With Uncle Andrew worried about his sheep?” Trixie asked. “How could I forget about it? You know how he hated to go off to Scotland right now. He thought if he postponed his trip for even a little while, he could solve the mystery.”
    “He had to leave now,” Brian reminded Trixie. “He had to be in Scotland this week to complete the purchase of that new kind of sheep, Scotch Blackface.”
    “You sound like a sheep farmer yourself,” Mart called from across the aisle.
    “We should at least know the names of the different breeds,” Brian answered. “From the time Uncle Andrew arrived at our house, we heard nothing else.”
    “And ever since we knew we were going to Iowa, I’ve been studying them,” Trixie said. “Jim has, too. We found a wonderful article in the junior encyclopedia, and more in some old geographies that were library discards we had in the attic.”
    “Those geographies were so old,” Jim said to Brian, “that the girls began to gather up beads and trinkets to use for trade with the Indians they thought they’d find near the farm.”
    “Well, what if we did?” Trixie bristled. “There are Indians in Iowa. There’s a reservation near a town called Tama... Sacs and Foxes. Black Hawk was one of them. He died there. And, if you please, I know the names of all the different sheep there are. So there!”
    “Jeepers!” Honey exclaimed. “You really have been studying. I’m not sure I’d even know a sheep if I saw one.”
    “Bemember your Mother Goose book?” Mart leaned across the aisle. “ ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep’?”
    “I don’t think you know any more than that about sheep, either,” Honey said.
    “That remark is erroneous and irrelevant,” Mart said, “for, while I am not an authority, I am still cognizant of