The Mystery at Bob-White Cave

lunch, Mrs. Moore. Come on, everybody. Linnie?”
    “I have to help Mama this afternoon. Have a good time, but watch out for a storm. If one comes up, take shelter under a cliff. The rain crows are still crying rain. Hear them?”
    Right now, there’s not a cloud in the sky,” Trixie said. “How could it be mean enough to rain more?” ‘Do you have an insect spray?” Mrs. Moore asked.
    “The mosquitoes and ticks are bad. And do you have heavy boots?”
    “Yes, to the first question, and look at these boots!” Trixie held up her foot. “They’re snake-proof. Anyway, even if we saw a copperhead or rattlesnake, Jim’s Deadeye Dick with his gun.”
    “Don’t step over your fishing line,” Linnie called after them. “It’s a bad sign. You’ll never catch a fish if you do. Watch out for sinkholes. Watch out for caves. You wouldn’t want to stumble into one!”
    “Wouldn’t I?” Trixie said under her breath to Honey. “Just give me a chance!”
     

Wildcat Comes to Call ● 2
     
    JIM WHISTLED for Jacob, Linnie’s black-and-tan coon-hound. Then he and Brian went ahead down the precipitous rocky path to the lake. Mart followed close behind them. Trixie, impatient, was at his heels, pushing back the dripping, low-hanging branches of oak and hickory.
    “Isn’t this great?” she called back to Honey.
    Honey’s unenthusiastic answer was drowned in the hoarse cawing of crows, who protested human invasion into their world.
    “Watch out for your old bamboo rod!” Mart called out. “Carry the big end and trail it after you. You’ll put my eyes out.”
    “Oh, all right,” Trixie said and reversed her hold on her fishing pole. “One of these days I’ll have a collapsible rod, too.”
    “Yeah, if you ever learn to cast. Where are you heading, Jim?”
    “No place, yet,” Jim called back. “Not till we get closer to the lake. Jeepers, this view is something, isn’t it?”
    Down below, a flock of white herons waded in the shining shallows, lifting their feet high. As the Bob-Whites neared, they rose up and lighted on tree branches that hung low over the water’s edge. Soon, curious, they were back, spreading their wide wings and treading water. A big turtle scrambled awkwardly from a log and disappeared into the water.
    To the right, lazy Ghost River, scarcely a dozen feet across, had carved a crooked channel through the hills to empty its water into the crystal lake.
    “Just anyplace you look,” Brian called excitedly, “you can see a place to fish. It’s a bass fisherman’s paradise.”
    “Let’s wait and see. Linnie said fish never bite in a rainstorm,” Mart answered.
    Jim skilfully cast out his line and brought it back. Then he said, “Linnie is full of superstitions. For instance, Mart, she said never to step over your fish-line; it’s bad luck. You just did it!”
    “That’s all gobbledygook,” Mart said and stumbled across his glass rod, nearly knocking it into the water. The girls laughed at the consternation in his face.
    “Not all Ozark superstitions are foolish, it seems,” Jim said. “The people around here know a lot more than we do about snakes and wild animals—caves, too.” He looked directly at Trixie. She just tossed her curls and pulled in her bobbing line. A ten-inch sunfish dangled at the end of it. The first catch!
    “It’s a beauty!” Mart called. “There goes the dollar I bet you. Me for a bass! See that log over there in the shadow? Everybody keep away from it. I saw it first.” Mart, his rod and line working perfectly, made a brilliant cast. The froglike lure at the end of his line dropped down, hit the stump, then plopped into the water where it lay motionless. Slowly he twitched the imitation frog toward him. Suddenly the water exploded around the stump, and a bass rose from the foam, splashing with all its might. Skilfully Mart let out his line, drew it in, let it out, and drew it in, till the tired fish gave up. Mart pulled him from the water —a fourteen-inch largemouth bass!
    The Bob-Whites gathered around to admire it. Then Brian, too, brought in a bass, and shortly Jim pulled one in.
    “We haven’t been here an hour, and look at the catch!” Mart cried exultantly. “Enough for two meals! Who said fish didn’t bite after a rain?”
    “What Linnie really said was that fish wouldn’t bite during a rainstorm,” Honey said. “She also said she didn’t think the rainstorm was over. None of you have noticed the way the black clouds