The Happy Valley Mystery

blast, and Diana and Mart were trying to do the Charleston the way they’d seen it done on television.
    As a lull came in the music, they heard Mrs. Gorman’s footsteps overhead, so they all crowded up the stairs. “Did you have a good time?” Honey asked.
    “Is the storm still bad?” Trixie asked. “Why, Mrs. Gorman, what is the matter? Where is Mr. Gorman?”
    “Out in the snow, that’s where he is,” Mrs. Gorman said, near tears. “Oh, why couldn’t you have been depended upon to do a little thing like putting the sheep under shelter? Why did you tell him it had been done when it hadn’t? How could you?”
    “But it was done,” Trixie said. “We did do it. We really did. All Mr. Gorman has to do is to go out there and look, and he’ll find the sheep safe and sound in the shelter field. We put them there, Mrs. Gorman. I helped the boys pull the gate shut after them—”
    “And lock it?” Mrs. Gorman asked. “Did you drop the wooden bar down to lock it?”
    Trixie’s face fell. Jim’s, too. And Brian’s. There was a moment of silence.
    “Oh-oh,” Mart groaned.
    “No, Mrs. Gorman,” Trixie said sadly, “we didn’t. I guess we didn’t know. The dogs knew, though. They have been sort of frantic... running to the door, then back to us. No, we didn’t lock the gate. Are the sheep all gone, every one of them?”
    “Every one,” Mrs. Gorman said and sank into a chair. “Heaven knows where they are. They’ll be frozen or smothered, and Hank’ll lose half the herd and his job, too, what with all the stolen sheep. Where are you going?” she called.
    “Out to help,” said the Bob-Whites. They struggled into their coats, pulled on galoshes, and were gone out the door, Trixie ahead of them with a big flashlight. “We’ve been in worse mix-ups than this,” she said to the others. “And we’ve gotten out of them. This’ll turn out all right, too. See if it doesn’t.”
     

The Trapped Sheep • 4
     
    THE FLOODLIGHTS in the farmyard were turned on, but only a faint blob of light showed, so dense was the falling snow. Betsy’s small calf, startled by all the noise, bawled mournfully. Everywhere else there was silence... not a tinkle of a sheep s bell, not a sound of Tip’s or Tag’s barking. The Bob-Whites had no idea where Mr. Gorman was.
    “It’s a good thing we rode around the farm today,” Jim said. “At least we know something of the layout, but I still don’t know which direction we should take first.”
    “If you were a sheep in a snowstorm, where would you go?” Mart asked.
    “Isn’t he crazy?” Diana said. “He finds fun in everything.” No one else seemed to think it was time for fun.
    “Well, it isn’t a funeral, you know,” Mart said and balled some snow and threw it at Trixie, who struggled far ahead.
    “Stop fooling!” Trixie turned around to say. “It may very well be a funeral... the funeral of a lot of Uncle Andrew’s sheep. And it’s all our fault. I wish we could find Mr. Gorman.”
    “I don’t know why the dumb sheep wouldn’t stay under the shelters without having to be made to do it,” Mart said. “Is that one of the dogs barking?”
    Snuffling noisily, Tip appeared out of the curtain of thick snow. Half whining, half barking, he wiggled his wet body against Brian’s legs, then dashed off into nowhere. The Bob-Whites followed his whimpering up a hillock, their flashlights barely cutting the darkness ahead. As they topped the hill, they could discern the blurred light of Mr. Gorman’s big flash lantern.
    As the Bob-Whites appeared, Trixie leading the way, Mr. Gorman’s recognition of them was anything but cordial.
    “You’d better get right back to the house,” he said. “I have enough on my mind, trying to find the sheep. I don’t want a bunch of lost kids as well. If you turn back now, you can follow your own footprints. I’d appreciate it if you’d please go back.”
    “It’s no wonder he’s angry with us,” Trixie said under her breath to Jim. “But I’ll tell you one thing:
    I’m not going back till those sheep are found.
    “Mr. Gorman,” she called, “you haven’t located any of the sheep, have you?”
    “I haven’t,” he answered. “But Tip and Tag have. They sound as though they’ve found them in the edge of the woods over the hill.”
    “All of them?” Trixie asked.
    “How can I tell that until I catch up with them?” he asked, irritated. “You’d do me a big favor, all of you, if you’d just go