The Marshland Mystery

watching them disappear around the next curve. “They look as if they’d been digging,” Trixie said in a carefully lowered voice.
    “Maybe they’ve been digging in the swamp for that legendary pirate loot,” Honey guessed.
    But Trixie shook her head and said, “Nobody’s been silly enough to do that in the past hundred years. Besides, their boots weren’t muddy. I looked specially.”
    “Then, I wonder if—” Honey began but stopped abruptly. “That silly newspaper story about a fortune being hidden in the ruins of the Martin place! That must be what brought them here!”
    “Mr. Trent again! I bet you’re absolutely right!” Trixie exclaimed disgustedly.
    “But I wonder what the shots were,” Honey said, with a little shiver.
    “There’s only one way to find out,” Trixie said soberly. “I think we should keep on. I have a funny sort of hunch about it. When we were at Miss Rachel’s the other day, I noticed a double-barreled shotgun in a rack near the fireplace.”
    “Oh!” Honey exclaimed, horrified. “You surely don’t think Miss Rachel would shoot at anyone, do you?”
    “She might shoot over their heads to scare them away,” Trixie answered. “I think we should find out right now what happened. She might be glad to see us.”
    “All right,” Honey agreed, but weakly.
    A moment later, they were again on their way.
    They stopped as they came to the ruined mansion. Footprints made by boots such as the men were wearing were all around the place. And when Trixie, on an impulse, dismounted and ran back to look at the rose garden, she found it a complete wreck. Bushes were broken, some were uprooted, signs of digging were at the foot of the mounds of rubble at the edge of the garden, and there was strong evidence that the men had been looking for something there.
    She rejoined Honey and swung into her saddle. “They made a mess of the rose garden,” she said, “but I didn’t see a print of her little shoes anywhere around, so I guess they must have gone to her cottage, too. Let’s hurry.”
    And they were on their way again, riding faster now.
    Miss Rachel was standing in front of her open door, watching, as they rode in. She held the ancient shotgun at her side, but when she saw who they were, she set it against the doorway and went to meet them.
    The girls dismounted quickly and hurried to the gate as Miss Rachel came down the path.
    “Were those rough-looking men here, Miss Rachel?” Trixie called out as they came. A moment later, she stared, speechless, at the condition of the garden. All the dainty spring flowers, in their neat little beds, had been trampled into the earth. Over in the side garden, the herbs were a mess of broken plants and boot marks. There was nothing left of the well-tended garden.
    “They came for a drink at the well,” Miss Rachel told the girls, her thin little face drawn and tragic, “and when I asked them to be careful of my Wildlings and the spring beauties, they said it didn’t matter about a bunch of weeds. And one of them even suggested that as long as they hadn’t found any of my great-grandfather’s gold in the ruins of the big house, they really should look inside my cottage. I told them to go, but they called me an old witch and a lot of other names. So I scared them away with my father’s shotgun.”
    “How awful for you!” Honey exclaimed indignantly.
    “One of the men was limping,” Trixie said.
    “I know.” Miss Rachel almost managed a smile. “He was the one who was leading them, but when I brought out the shotgun, he was so frightened that he didn’t wait to go out through the gate but jumped over it, and he sprained his ankle or his knee or something. The others argued about coming back, but I shot into the air a couple of times, and that ended the argument. I suppose they’ll come back again, or others like them, now that there’s been a rumor about hidden gold.”
    Though the girls did their best to convince her that Sergeant Rooney or some other police officer would take a hand in stopping the intrusion, Miss Rachel was still shaky as she remembered her manners and invited them in for mint tea.
    It was over the cup of tea that Trixie finally got up courage to ask, “How soon do you have to move away, Miss Rachel?”
    Miss Rachel’s face looked haunted as she hesitated. “Not for a long time, we hope,” Honey put in quickly. Miss Rachel flashed her a quick smile of gratitude. “I really don’t know, exactly.