The Happy Valley Mystery

on!”
    “I can’t,” Trixie said.
    “Why not? Are you sick?”
    “No, but, Jim, thieves or no thieves, those two men back there are human beings. They’ll die just like all those drowned chickens and that cow, and we can’t let that happen to them. We have to go back there after them.”
    Jim threw back his head and laughed. The sound was so strange that Trixie and Honey were speechless. Had Jim, in his desperate worry, completely lost his mind?
    “How do you suppose you saw them so well through your binoculars?” Jim asked Trixie. “They’re on a rocky point, well above the water.”
    “Then why didn’t we try to get over where they are?” Trixie asked reasonably.
    “Because they would have taken our boat and let us do the waiting, while they escaped,” Jim said. “Start rowing, Trixie.”
    “If... well, if you’re sure they’ll be safe,” Trixie said. “We couldn’t just leave them.”
    “They’re a lot safer than we are, Trix, and a lot more comfortable,” he added. “Aren’t you freezing?”
    “I just never thought about it,” Honey said, “did you, Trixie? But I am cold, aren’t you?”
    “I just keep my eyes on that red barn,” Trixie said.
    “If we reach there safely, then I’ll take time to be cold. Anyway, this little fellow is so warm. You hold him for a while, Honey. He’s like an electric pad. And, Jim—”
    “Yes?”
    “If those men are safe, and the road out is all covered with water, it won’t be hard for Sheriff Brown to arrest | them when we tell him about them, will it?”
    “I guess you’re right, Trix,” Jim said. “I just hope we get a chance to tell him. Right now we have to pull hard for that barn. It’s beginning to get dark, but, thank , goodness, we’re getting nearer to the shore—barn, I mean. There isn’t any shore, as far as I can see.”
    “Over there,” Honey said, holding her hand to her eyes and pointing, “snagged against that old tree. It looks like the carcass of a drowned sheep. Isn’t this flood terrible?”
    Trixie looked in the direction Honey pointed. “It is terrible,” she said. “Something strange, though. That sheep has been shorn, and it isn’t shearing season yet. Why, don’t you know, that’s just what those thieves have been doing: stealing Uncle Andrew’s sheep, shearing them to get the wool—it was in that truck—then selling the carcasses to some of the lockers around here.”
    “Well,” Honey said, “you weren’t so far wrong, after all, Trixie, when you said that lamb we ate at the barbecue at Rivervale was stolen. I just hope that principal has a chance to eat his words—talking to Ned the way he did!”
    “Please—please!” Jim said. “Row! Keep your eyes on that barn. We’re gaining on it!”
    The girls obeyed. They were almost completely exhausted when they edged near enough to the barn for Trixie to catch the top of a door that protruded from the water.
    “Hold on tight!” Jim told her. “I’ll pull the boat alongside it. We can stand on top of that door you’re holding and crawl in the haymow window. There, Honey, it’s on your side—steady! Step out!”
    “I can’t,” Honey wailed. “I just can’t. I’m scared to death!”
    “I’ll do it, Jim,” Trixie said. “Sit down in the boat, Honey. There’s nothing to it.”
    Trixie, never relaxing her hold on the top of the barn door, pulled herself to the top of it, swung herself up on the sill of the haymow window, miraculously open, and climbed through. Then she reached down, took the puppy Honey held up to her, put it through the window, and reached back to help Honey, who, a little ashamed and more confident now, climbed up and into the relative safety of the haymow.
    “You come in now, Jim,” Trixie called down.
    “I’ve got to try to fasten this boat some way before I leave it,” Jim said. “We might need it.”
    “There’s a chain with a rope at each end of it under the seat where I was sitting,” Trixie said. “It’s what Ben used to fasten the boat on top of his car.”
    “I saw it,” Jim answered. “But what good is it? What can I fasten it to?”
    “If you reach down into the water below the top of this door,” Trixie answered, “you’ll find some kind of a latch or bolt. I felt it with my foot when I was climbing up here. Maybe there’s a hasp on it, and you can tie the rope there.”
    “I’ll try,” Jim said. “Sure thing, here it is—and it’s better than a hasp—there’s a staple the