The Mystery at Bob-White Cave

win it!” Trixie said positively. “Won’t your mother be proud of you! She’ll—jeepers, Linnie, she’ll be over here before we finish! Here’s Honey with the curtains. Let’s hurry.”
    The little room was transformed by the flowered draperies, hooked rugs, colorful bits of pottery, and newly painted walls.
    “Those splint-bottomed chairs look so pretty in here,” Trixie said as she stood off and looked at the room. “And the hickory tables, too. We’ll help you make some cushions later, so the chairs’ll be more comfortable. You have such good taste, Linnie. It’s a dear little house.”
    “You and Honey have made it that way.”
    “Oh, no, we didn’t. All the ideas were yours. We just helped.”
    “I know Mama’ll think it’s just beautiful,” Linnie said, gazing about the room dreamily.
    She did. She thought it was so beautiful that she cried. Then they all laughed because each one of them had tears in her eyes.
    “Rest now,” Mrs. Moore said. “Bill Hawkins has gone home, and the boys and your uncle are stretched out on the lawn. You girls rest. There’s time before dinner. The chicken house is rebuilt. So is Martha’s shed. Shem and Japheth can wait for their shed.”
    “I wish we knew how that fire started,” Trixie said as they went out the door. “Slim is mean enough and cruel enough to have done it. When the boys ran him out after he did that terrible thing to the bats in the cave, he looked so vicious—as though he’d like to murder all of us. He’s the only person I can think of who’d be wicked enough to start the fire.”
    “Yes, but I keep thinking about that ghost cabin,” Honey said.
    “That is a mystery. If it hadn’t been for Slim’s meanness, we’d have all the specimens we need right now to get that reward. Specimens!” Trixie cried. “Gosh! I forgot all about them. Mrs. Moore, do you suppose we’d have time before dinner to row over to the cave and check on them? They might have suffocated or starved in that bucket.”
    They were walking across to the lodge as Trixie was, talking. Jim overheard what she said about the fish and jumped to his feet. “It won’t take more than a jiff to give them the once-over,” he said. “Come on, gang.”
    The Bob-Whites hurried down to the boat.
     
    Uncle Andrew had just settled down with his before-dinner pipe, when he heard Trixie shouting as she hurried up the hill from the lake.
    “It’s gone!” she said as she burst into the living room. “The fish is gone. The crayfish is gone. Even the bait bucket that held them is gone. That Slim has been there! He wasn’t satisfied to burn down everything. He had to steal our fish, too.”
    Uncle Andrew laid his pipe on the table. “Did you see him take the fish?”
    “No,” Trixie answered, exasperated, “but, Uncle Andrew, we saw him going around the bend in a boat. That Englishman, Mr. Glendenning, was with him. If you look down there between the trees, you can still see their boat—see? It’s pulling in at the foot of the ghost cabin. Now can we put Slim in jail? He’s been trespassing in Bob-White Cave and stealing things that belong to us.”
    “I’ll see about it tomorrow,” Uncle Andrew said. “Oh, my beautiful fish!” Trixie wailed. “I hate to wait till tomorrow to try to get it back!”
     

Search After Dark ● 12
     
    SOMETHING SCRATCHED against the window outside. Trixie, in her bunk next to Honey’s, sat up straight, listened, and heard it again. “It’s nothing but an old branch rubbing against the eaves,” she said to herself, “but I can’t go to sleep.”
    The she heard a door close softly downstairs. She struggled from the covers, looked over at Honey, saw that she seemed fast asleep, then slipped into her shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Quietly, stealthily, she went down the stairs.
    She flashed her light around the room. Linnie and Mart, huddled beside the fireplace, dropped to the floor, trying to conceal themselves. “Oh, it’s you, Trixie,” Linnie whispered. “I’m so glad you haven’t gone. I knew at dinner time you’d try to go to that old cabin after the ghost fish tonight. I didn’t want you to go alone.”
    “I had the same idea,” Mart said. “I thought I heard someone downstairs, thought it was you, then found Linnie. When your light flashed, we were afraid we’d wakened Uncle Andrew.”
    “We’d better be real quiet, but I don’t think he can hear way over in his room beyond the kitchen,” Trixie said.