The Marshland Mystery

away again.
    “Bring our map while you’re at it,” Trixie called. “Jim pinned it to the door.”
    But the map was not pinned to the door. Nor was it anywhere in sight on the ground nearby.
    Trixie hurried to help look for it, while Mart waited impatiently.
    “It probably blew away, and somebody picked it up and put it in the trash can,” he suggested.
    “Golly! I hope they didn’t!” Trixie wailed. “I wanted to show it to Miss Bennett and the class on Monday. It was such a lovely map, with those cute drawings of yours, Brian.”
    “Well, thank you, small sister! Your praise is music to my ears, or something!” Brian laughed.
    “Huh!” Mart remarked dryly. “She didn’t think it was such a masterpiece when she dashed off and forgot it this morning!”
    Trixie gave him a withering look, but Brian merely grinned. “Never mind, Trix. I’ll do you another and really let my artistic ability show.”
    “Brian, you’re absolutely the darlingest—” Trixie beamed at her big brother.
    “Sap,” Mart said, finishing her sentence for her. Then, as she glared at him, he strolled back to the car. “Come on. It’s gone, so why worry?”
    But Trixie had noticed a tiny piece of paper in the tall grass beside the walk, and she made a sudden swoop to recover it. “Here’s part of it!” she exclaimed. “The pin’s still in it.”
    “Let’s see.” Brian took it from her fingers. “The pin is bent, as if someone had jerked at the map before the paper tore. I used heavy paper so it wouldn’t go to pieces if you kids got it wet while you were wandering around in the marsh, trying to match my sketches with the plants there.”
    “Then it didn’t blow away, after all,” Trixie said, frowning. “Somebody deliberately tore it down.”
    “A tramp, probably,” Brian suggested. “Or some kid biking past and just plain curious. I hope he didn’t decide it was a treasure map and try to follow it!”
    “He’ll end up with wet feet if he did!” Trixie laughed. But as she climbed into the rear seat of the jalopy a few minutes later and they started for home, she sobered suddenly at a thought. There was one person who might have been very interested in that map: Gaye!
    Gaye could have hurried back to the clubhouse when she escaped from the music room and her practice session. Finding the map pinned to the door, she could easily have recognized it as the one that the girls had intended to use on their flower-picking excursion.
    Perhaps she had decided to use it to follow them to the marsh and prove to them that she could find her way.
    But Gaye would have had to walk, probably carrying Mr. Poo, whose delicate little feet could never have taken him several miles. But then, even though Honey and she had stopped for lunch and spent a long time picking the swamp plants, Gaye could hardly have reached the marsh on foot before they had come pedaling out on their way home. They would have been sure to meet her on the road.
    Gaye could have caught a ride as far as the marsh, however, and wandered in looking for them while they were at the other end. The rain could have sent her into some shelter off the road. In that case, perhaps she was still there—lost and frightened.
    Trixie wondered if she ought to tell the boys what she was thinking. Maybe they would decide to turn the car around and drive out to the marsh to search. But even as she leaned forward to interrupt their discussion of fuel injection and initial acceleration, whatever that was, she sank back again.
    After all, anybody could have come along and taken the map. She hadn’t a shred of evidence that it had been Gaye. It would be better to wait to say anything until she arrived home and found out if Honey had phoned any news about the missing child.
    She sat silent, until Mart turned suddenly and stared at her in mock surprise. “Hey! Where’s that brilliant outburst of chatter we customarily receive from our feminine sibling?”
    “Oh, let me alone,” Trixie retorted. “Can’t you see I’m quietly getting an education by listening to your brainy conversation?”
    They were just turning into the Belden driveway.
    Brian stopped the car with a flourish and a roar of his engine. “All ashore that’s going ashore!” he sang out cheerfully. “Crabapple Farm, last stop!”
    Mart hopped out and started unloading Trixie’s bike.
    “Come on; come on; look alive!” he barked as Trixie took her time getting out of the car. “Climb out of the