The Happy Valley Mystery

they’ll know they’re being followed. Calm down, Trixie!”
    He might have saved his breath, because Trixie, who sat with Jim, just behind Brian, kept bobbing up and down in the seat. “Is that their taillight?” she asked. “There are two trucks ahead of us. Dam it, we’ve lost them. No, there they are again, or is that the truck we’re trying to follow? Is that Army Post Road we’re coming to?”
    “That’s what it is,” Ned answered, “and they’re the same two men, I’m sure. They’ve crossed Army Post Road. They’re down Sand Hill. They’re getting near the river and the woods.”
    “They’re turning into the woods road!” Trixie called. “Follow them, Brian!”
    “What do you think I’m doing?” he asked. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t land in the river ourselves. Ned won’t even let me drive with the lights on.”
    “It would just be a dead giveaway that someone is after them,” Mart said. “Gosh, Brian, I’d better turn my flashlight down on the road so you can see the shoulder.”
    “Somebody do something,” Diana called. “We’ll all be drowned in the river. I wish you’d dropped me off at Happy Valley Farm.”
    “Don’t be a baby,” Trixie said. “Go faster, Brian. I can’t even see them now.”
    “I’m scared,” Diana said, “and I don’t care who knows it. I don’t want to be a detective, and I don’t even want to be a detective’s assistant”
    “We re all right,” Honey assured her. “Brian can see the road now, with Mart’s flashlight We don’t seem to be getting anyplace, though.”
    “We are, too, Honey Wheeler!” Trixie shouted. “There, off in the woods... see?”
    “See what?” Jim asked.
    “That light flickering,” Trixie said. “It’s the same light I saw the night we followed Ben. I just know there’s a cabin or something back there.”
    “It could be the will-o’-the-wisp that Mr. Gorman mentioned,” Diana said. “And I think that’s what you’re chasing, Trixie.”
    “I can see a light,” Jim said. “Way back. Boy, is it dark around here! The light’s gone now, Trixie.”
    “Just as though someone pulled a shade,” Trixie said. “What’s the matter, Brian? Why are you stopping?”
    “Because there isn’t any more road, that’s why,” Brian said. “And I don’t know what we’re after, anyway. I haven’t seen a taillight since we turned off that other road. I wonder where we are.”
    “We sure are at the end of the road,” Ned said. “I’ve never been this far into this side of the woods. We’ve only lived here a year. Anybody would have to have a machete to cut through this jungle. How can we turn around, Brian?”
    “We can’t,” Brian said and cut off the engine.
    “Are we just going to sit here all night?” Diana asked. “Oh, dear, what was that noise?”
    “A bullfrog.” Ned laughed. “A wild, ferocious bullfrog, Di. I’ll get out and have a look at the situation. Come on, fellas.”
    “Jeepers, but I hate to give up now,” Trixie said. “I know those men are the thieves. How could they disappear into thin air? They had to go someplace.”
    “You can search me,” Brian answered. “I’m interested right now in getting out of here.”
    “If you want to pursue the search further, my dear intrepid sibling,” Mart said, “you go off on foot—unaccompanied.”
    “You’d never let her do that, would you?” Diana asked. “I won’t stir an inch if you do.”
    “Forget it, Di,” Brian said. “You should know Mart by this time. Say, I think I can back out of here all right if you go ahead and train your flashlights down on the road. If those men are back in there someplace, I’d just as soon stay out of their way. They may be armed.” The four flashlights, two on each side of the road, furnished enough light so that Brian could back the car until he reached the point where the road had entered the woods. There he turned on the car lights and headed the car toward Happy Valley Farm.
    “I’ve heard all kinds of stories about those old woods —people getting lost and all that. I never believed them before, but I do now,” Ned said. “It sure is a mystery what happened to that truck.”
    “I don’t think they took the same road we did at all,” Jim said. “I mean when they got right up to the woods. I’d like to come down here and take a look in the daytime.”
    “Why don’t we just get out and go back with our flashlights and see what we can find?” Trixie