The Happy Valley Mystery

house?”
    “Jim Frayne, of course I won’t,” Trixie said. “This is the very last chance I have. I know just exactly where to look for those men. I know where I saw that light in the woods. The water isn’t even near the road. Jim, you just went past Sand Hill!”
    “Oil, Trixie, let me out of my agreement, won’t you?” Jim said. “This is a day for ducks.”
    “I think we have to go over there today,” Honey said. “It means a lot to Trixie. It should mean a lot to you, too. We want to do something for Trixie’s Uncle Andrew, after all the fun we’ve had this week.”
    “Right you are, Sis,” Jim said. “You’ve heard my last word. Wait till I turn this bus around and get onto Sand Hill.”
    It was easier said than done. In backing around, Jim went into the ditch, and the girls had to get out and push. The mud splashed on them, and their clothing clung to them.
    “You two look just like the witches in Macbeth ’’ Jim said.
    “I’ll lend you my compact, and you can see what you look like,” Honey said. Then, as he straightened the car, she said, “It looks like clear sailing now.”
    “Sailing is right,” Jim agreed. “Down there on the woods road the water is almost over the shoulder. But here we go... kersplash!”
    “It’s the first road,” Trixie directed. “We took the second one, if you’ll remember, Jim, that night of the barbecue, and it’s a dead-end road. It was just opposite here,” she went on, “that I saw that light. Stop a minute, please, Jim!”
    Jim slowed the car, and Trixie took some small field glasses from a case in her pocket.
    “Gosh, you think of everything!” Jim said admiringly. “Can you see any sign of life over there?”
    “Not yet,” Trixie said, trying to adjust the lenses. “Let me take a look,” Jim said, and Trixie handed over the glasses.
    “The woods are so dense and the rain’s coming down so hard I can’t see a thing,” Jim said. “Wait a minute. I’ll pull a little closer.”
    Jim started the car. The engine roared. Then a noise far louder intruded—a crash, as though a dozen brick walls had fallen.
    “What’s that?” Honey asked and grabbed Jim’s arm. “Darned if I know,” Jim answered. “Do you have any idea, Trix?”
    “I think I do...” Trixie said, really frightened now. “In fact, I know I do.”
    “The bridge over the Raccoon River went out!” Jim guessed.
    Trixie nodded, unable to say anything.
    “We’d better get out of here in a hurry, then,” Jim said. “Here, take your field glasses, Trixie.”
    A rush and a roar of water followed the collapse of the bridge. About fifty or seventy-five feet from them, water swirled angrily. They were now on the edge of a bayou, and, as Jim tried to start the car so that he could turn, great branches floated by out in the current, then the bloated body of a cow and half a dozen chickens.
    “Turn around as fast as you can,” Honey urged, terrified. “Oh, you can't turn around, Jim! There isn’t any road!”
    “It’s dry land where we are,” Trixie said.
    “Just now it is,” Jim agreed. His face was grim.
    “Let’s not get panicky,” Trixie urged. “I’m going to have another look. I think I see something over there. Look, Jim!”
    “Are you crazy, Trixie?” Jim asked exasperatedly. “Forget that house in the woods. You don’t seem to realize that we’re in real danger. I don’t know what to do first.”
    “We are in a jam,” Trixie said apologetically. “And it looks as though we’re going to be in a worse one. Jim—”
    “Yes, Trixie, what is it? You’d better come up with an idea.”
    “Let’s get out and take Ben’s boat off the top of the jalopy. We’ll be a lot safer in a boat than we are here.”
    They hurriedly piled out of the car. In a few minutes Trixie said, “Quickly, Jim—there—it’s loose on this side. The water’s coming right up to our feet! Push the boat off, Jim! There now— shove!”
    The little rowboat plopped into the water, and they all scrambled into it. Just in time, too, for the water, rising quickly, swirled around the car as they pushed away from it. Then, viciously, the backwash lifted the small, high, old-fashioned jalopy and carried it ten or fifteen feet, then whirled it out into midstream.
    “There goes our last touch with dry land,” Jim said, “and there goes Ben’s pride and joy. Honey, Trixie, you take the other oar, and I’ll get this one. I think—this— is—the—toughest spot