The Happy Valley Mystery

we’ve—ever—been—in.”
    The girls didn’t answer. They couldn’t.
    “Hold your oar steady, girls,” Jim ordered. “We have to turn this boat. It’s drifting toward the current—and— we—have—to—turn it,” he panted.
    The girls strained to hold the boat as nearly steady as possible. Jim tugged with his oar against the rush of water. Finally, reluctantly, the boat veered around. “Now, pull!” Jim shouted. “Pull hard!”
    “There goes a chicken house,” Honey said. “I suppose all of the chickens have been drowned. Isn’t this terrible?” Honey put her hands before her eyes.
    “Keep pulling, Sis!” Jim commanded.
    “Oh, see what’s on top of that chicken house,” Trixie called. “Stop, Jim! Stop!”
    “I will, if you tell me what for,” Jim said. “This isn’t an outing, Trixie. We’re in big trouble!”
    “You have to stop before that chicken house gets down where we are,” Trixie said. “Jim, there’s a little puppy on top of it. He’s crying. Hear him? Let’s try to work our way over to him.”
    “And get hit midships with that big old hen house?” Jim asked. “You’ve lost your mind, Trix.”
    “She has not ” Honey said, pulling hard on the oar. “We can’t just let that puppy drown. Look, Jim... it’s a setter puppy... just like Reddy back home.”
    “Don’t cry, baby!” Trixie called to the dog.
    When the puppy heard her, it started yapping happily, just as though it were saying, “It’s people, and they’ll know what to do.”
    “That does it!” Jim said. “Poor little guy. Hold your oar firm, and I’ll see if I can get any closer to the hen house.”
    “It’s rammed up against a tree trunk now,” Trixie reported. “Thank heaven. Now, if we row fast, we can reach it before the current catches it and whirls it away.”
    Jim, his eyes determinedly trained on the puppy and measuring the distance they had to go to save it, pulled harder and harder.
    “Now!” he shouted triumphantly. “Jump for it, fella!” He held his oar steady with one hand and reached for the small puppy with the other.
    Confidently, accurately, the puppy jumped. Jim caught it by its front feet in midair and tossed it into Trixie’s lap.
    “There’s your puppy,” he said. “I wish I were as sure of saving your lives. We’ve got to regain the distance we lost by backtracking. Do you see that red barn?”
    Jim pointed to a barn that just barely showed its red top, far back at the beginning of the Walnut Woods road.
    "I see it, Jim,” Trixie said.
    “That’s where we have to set our sights. That’s where we have to land to get away from this flood. That’s Ned’s father’s second barn. He just bought the land. There’s no house on it, but he uses the barn. Ben told me about it when we were fishing. I hope we make it!”
    “We will!” Trixie said, her lips firmly set.
    “We will,” Honey said, just as confidently. “I’ve been praying—hard.”
    “We all have, I think,” Jim said. “Don’t stop now. Trixie, what in the name of heaven are you doing?” Trixie had taken the glasses out of her pocket and, as she helped Honey row with one hand, she held the binoculars to her eyes with the other. They were trained on the woods.
    “I just have to look,” she explained. “After all we’ve been through—are going through—I want to take a last look to see if I can see anything over there in the woods. Jim! Jim!”
    In her excitement Trixie dropped the glasses. The puppy, startled from her lap, barked and whined.
    “Sit down!” Jim commanded.
    “I am sitting down,” Trixie shouted. “Jim, I saw something! Here, I’ve got to look again. It is. I can see them plain as day! Jim, it’s the thieves, as sure as you’re born... right over there on the edge of the woods.
    They’re marooned with a big truck. And what do you think they have in that truck?”
    “I don’t know, but sit down! For the love of heaven, sit down, Trixie! I swear I’ll bat you over the head with my oar and knock you down if you don’t. Were in real danger, Trixie. Sit down!”
    Trixie, so excited she forgot where she was, didn’t even hear Jim’s shouting. “It’s bundles of wool!” she screamed. “That’s what they have in that truck— bundles of wool! They’re beckoning to us to come over. Jim, it’s the thieves! It is! Oh, jimmy jeepers, hallelujah, it’s the thieves! I can tell the sheriff exactly where to find them-exactly-and they can’t get out! Jeepers,