The Happy Valley Mystery

to pass Midnight off in its place, but it didn’t work. You see,” she went on, “if we work fast enough, sometimes we can put the skin of the stillborn lamb over the head and shoulders of the orphan and fool the ewe long enough for her to let it feed—then she’ll adopt it. It’s wonderful when it works.”
    “That’s probably where Aesop got his idea for the wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Mart said. Everyone hooted at him, but he went on, “You can be pretty sure it wasn’t Iowa farmers or the professors in the agricultural department at Iowa State University who invented the practice. There were sheep in the hills of Egypt and Jerusalem thousands of years ago.”
    “Don’t get so worked up about it,” Brian said. “Say, Mrs. Gorman, that creek out in the field is almost even with its banks. I couldn’t get Black Giant to go near it. Horses are like babies about water.”
    “Ben said the river is up, too,” Mrs. Gorman said, “and it’s clouding over. Maybe we’ll have some rain.”
    “We’d better get over to Walnut Woods right away,” Trixie whispered to Jim. “Honey wants to go, too. And do you know something? I heard Mr. Gorman tell Mrs. Gorman before breakfast that he was going in and talk to Sheriff Brown today about that light in the woods. He said he was getting sick and tired of the way the police were stalling.”
    Jim whistled. “That’s the first time Mr. Gorman has admitted that there might be something to a hideout in the woods, isn’t it? We better get going now, Trixie— What’s that Mrs. Gorman is saying?”
    “Oh, no!” Trixie groaned. “Oh, no!”
    “So I thought,” Mrs. Gorman finished, “that you haven’t planned to do anything in particular today, and as long as Ben and Hank thought it would be a good idea, I told Ned and the others to come along rabbit hunting with you. There they are now.”
    Ned Schulz and the Hubbell twins, Barbara and Bob, from Army Post Road, drove into the farmyard in Ned’s new red hardtop.
    Mart, Diana, Brian, and Honey ran out to welcome them, while the dogs barked and snapped at the whitewall tires. The kittens, startled by all the noise, arched their backs indignantly.
    “Oh, dam, dam, dam!” Trixie said to Jim. “Do you think we can duck out of it?”
    “Not a chance,” Jim said. “Didn’t you hear what Mrs.
    Gorman just said? Rabbit hunting! I wouldn’t pass that up for thief hunting in a whole month of Sundays.”
    “Jim Frayne, you said you’d go with me today,” Trixie reminded him.
    “I will, too. Calm down, Trix. We have the whole day ahead of us. Heck, Trixie, I don’t get a chance to go rabbit hunting every day. Ben said the rabbits around here are as big as kangaroos.”
    “I don’t care if they’re as big as elephants,” Trixie said mournfully. “I’d never take a shot at one of them, anyway. I’d just as soon shoot the Easter bunny.”
    “Wait till you see,” Ned said as he heard Trixie’s last remark. “We never hit one. They’re too quick. Most of the fun is hunting them out. Say, Jim, I brought another BB gun for you. BB shot wouldn’t dent a jack-rabbit’s skin, even if we did hit one,” he added as the other girls added their protests to Trixie’s.
    “Come on with us,” Brian begged. “We can have a lot of fun running races with the rabbits, at least. You’ve been wanting to get out in the fields of the farm. This is your chance.”
    “We won’t stay long,” Jim whispered to Trixie. “I’ll keep my promise.”
    “And we’ll leave the BB guns here, if you don’t like the idea,” Ned told Trixie. “It’s just as much fun without them.”
    So the girls put on their jeans and boots and heavy sweaters, tied scarves around their heads, and went with Barbara Hubbell and the boys.
    “If you lost about half your kitchen garden every year to those thieving rabbits, you wouldn’t feel so squeamish about shooting them,” Mrs. Gorman called to the girls as they left.
    “Take the dogs!” Ben called from the barn. Tip and Tag joined the group, barking excitedly, heads up and tails wagging.
    Bob and Barbara Hubbell had sat near the Bob-Whites at the barbecue. Barbara was about Trixie’s size, with coal black curls. Her twin was as tall as Brian. Trixie liked them both.
    “They play guitars and sing,” Ned told the Bob-Whites. “Maybe we can get them to perform for us when we get back.”
    Heavens, I hope not, Trixie thought. I'll never get to Walnut Woods.
    Then, before she