The Mysterious Code

noodles
bubbling in the good broth?”
    “Help!” Brian cried.
“I can really smell chicken, but the letdown will be too much when I
taste it.”
    “Here’s your share,
Reddy,” Trixie said and fixed a bowl for the big red setter, cooling it for him
with fresh snow. “He acts so queer, Brian; don’t you think? He keeps running
back and forth in front of the door.”
    “Probably smells a
rabbit,” Jim said.
    “He likes the
birdseed, anyway,” Brian said. “I don’t think the storm is quite so severe.
I’ll take a look.”
    He opened the door,
and in a flash Reddy was through it, bounding away through the huge drifts.
    No command could
bring him back. They called and called, but heard no answering bark.
    “It must have been a
rabbit, as you said, Jim,” Trixie said.
    “I was just joking,”
Jim said. “Even a bird dog couldn’t smell a rabbit in this snowstorm. He’s
gone, though. He’ll come barking around the place later; see if he doesn’t.”
    “I wonder,” Trixie
said. “Do you think he could have gone to get help for us?”
    “Gosh, I don’t
know,” Brian said. “He’s a pretty smart dog.”
    “Moms will be even
more worried if Reddy shows up without us. Why couldn’t Mr. Maypenny have a
telephone in this place?”
    “So he could talk to
the animals?” Jim inquired. “Be yourself, Trixie. Let’s play Twenty Questions.
We’re stuck here till morning, and we might as well make the best of it. Think
of a subject, Trixie.” Trixie, a little ashamed, brushed her hand over her
eyes. “I’ve something in mind,” she said.
    “Animal, vegetable,
or mineral?” Brian asked.
    For a while the game
went on. Outside, the wind slackened, whined around the schoolhouse, and
finally died to a whisper. There was no sound of barking, no sign of Reddy.
Trixie, her eyes drooping with the warmth of the fire, blurred the words in
trying to play the game.
    “I'll pull one of
the benches over to the fire,” Jim said, aware of Trixie’s exhaustion. “It’ll
be better than sitting on this dirty, hard, cold floor.”
    He and Brian pushed
the heavy feed sacks off a bench and drew it to the fire. “You can rest here
till daylight,” Brian said.
    “I won’t even try to
rest unless you and Brian do,” Trixie said, her eyes nearly closing.
    So Jim and Brian
unloaded the other two benches and drew them close to the other side of the
stove.
    The boys stretched
their tired lengths, and soon their heavy breathing told Trixie they were sound
asleep.
    It wasn’t so easy
for her. Pictures of home, of Bobby, her mother and her worry about their
welfare, the concern of the Wheeler family—Honey just adored her new brother
Jim—Reddy and his strange escape into the snow, a lingering horror of Jim’s
narrow escape when the rope had broken-all these thoughts crowded sleep from
Trixie’s weary mind and tired body.
    The quiet was so
profound that Trixie could hear the ticking of Jim’s wristwatch. Gradually she
became aware of another sound outside—muffled —crackling twigs—movement—Reddy?
    Reddy, of course.
Trixie slipped from her bench and went to the window. The warmth of the stove
had melted the frost enough so she could see through. The clouds had dispersed,
and a wan moon sent a white path of light through the snow.
    Trixie, peering
through the window, could see no sign of Reddy. She did see something else.
Just leaving the clearing, a dark shape waddled off into the woods. An animal?
A man? That was ridiculous. No man would be in the woods on a night like this.
What could it be, then?
    Frightened, Trixie
turned back into the room to arouse the boys. They were sleeping peacefully.
    “They’d just make
fun of me,” she thought. “They’d say I was imagining things. Maybe they’re
right. Mart says my bump of imagination is overdeveloped.
Maybe—maybe—he’s—right.” Trixie yawned, stretched, and fell exhausted onto the
bench. She drew the collar of her coat across her eyes and slept.
     
    A rosy light from
the rising sun filled the room and wakened the boys.
    “Look at the
morning!” Jim cried. “The sun is out. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. We can
get going home. I’ll stoke the fire to warm us well before we leave.”
    “Do you want more
porridge?” Trixie asked, rubbing her sleepy eyes.
    “Not on your life,”
Brian answered. “Not with Moms’s pancakes waiting at home.”
    “I thought I heard
Reddy in the night,” Trixie said. “I heard something,