The Mystery at Bob-White Cave

He’s such a nice man, and, jeepers, Uncle Andrew, I’m all right. Don’t think I wasn’t scared, because I was, but, heavens, I don’t want everyone to get so worked up about it. The Bob-Whites rallied to help. They always do. Nothing can happen to one of us when the others are near... nothing!”
    “I wish I were as convinced of that as you are, Trixie. The Bob-Whites are a fine group of young people. No doubt about that. But remember this!” he shook his finger to emphasize his statement. “No more spelunking for any of you! I want to see you get on that train to Springfield in one piece. I don’t expect more than one miracle to happen in a few days’ time. I’ve been blessed with two. Trixie was saved from that wildcat, and now she’s been saved from drowning. I don’t intend to try the mercy of the Almighty too far.” Uncle Andrew’s voice shook with vehemence born of released tension.
    Amazed and shocked at her uncle’s mandate, Trixie took some time to find her voice.
    “You can’t possibly mean that! That cave is just full of ghost fish! We have to earn that reward. We have to have the five hundred dollars!”
    “I’ll give you five hundred gladly,” Uncle Andrew said.
    Trixie shook her head positively. “We can’t take it from you. We’ve never had one penny given to us for one of our projects. We’ve always earned the money. Oh, dear, I just know we can find all three specimens that man wants! Uncle Andrew, please!”
    “Not one step into any cave,” Uncle Andrew said, his face grim. “What a day!” He straightened and seemed to pull himself together with an effort. “Mrs. Moore, I think we’ll all feel better when we’ve had our dinner.”
    Dinner didn’t help. No one could eat. No one could say a word. Once, in the living room after dinner, Jim tried to change Uncle Andrew’s mind. “We could take some solid beams and lay them across that hole. With a rope ladder fastened to them, it would be a breeze to go down in that well,” he began.
    Uncle Andrew just held up his hand, and Jim was silenced. “We’ve had enough of that subject. Even though you haven’t asked me, I’ll tell you about my talk with Sam Owens today.”
    “It went out of my mind completely,” Trixie said. “Did he question Slim?”
    “He couldn’t find him. Somebody told Sam they thought they saw Slim getting into a boxcar as the morning freight pulled out of White Hole Springs.”
    “Doesn’t that look as though he’s guilty?” Mart asked.
    “It does. The men I saw in town were stirred up over the rumor that he set the fire. He may have been afraid of a necktie party.”
    “Did Mr. Owens question the man in the ghost cabin?”
    “He couldn’t find him, either. He disappeared into the woods. But I talked with Mr. Glendenning, the Englishman you Bob-Whites saved from the lake. He stayed for a while at the ghost cabin, you’ll recall.”
    “What did he say?” Trixie asked eagerly.
    “That the man he stayed with wouldn’t hurt a fly. He said he was sort of confused—maybe a little off in the head—but the kindest person he ever knew.”
    “With those gasoline rags in his shed and the gasoline can there, too?” Mart asked.
    “Mr. Glendenning said the rags and can belonged to him. It wasn’t gasoline. It just smelled like it. It was carbon tetrachloride, and he used it for cleaning the rock specimens he dug out of the hillside.”
    “There goes Slim’s defense. That and the fact that he ran away. Couldn’t the sheriff have sent word ahead to the next station by telegraph to have Slim picked up there?”
    “He did that. Either Slim was good at hiding, or the man never saw him get on the freight in the first place. He wasn’t on it when the officer at Laurel, the next stop, searched the train. Mr. Glendenning said something else,” Uncle Andrew went on. “He said that when Slim rowed his boat back for him the day you Bob-Whites rescued him, Slim told him he knew where the ghost fish specimens could be found and he’d show him for a price. Mr. Glendenning didn’t see anything wrong with that, and one evening Slim took him over to the cave.”
    “He showed him our fish,” Trixie said breathlessly. “He did. Mr. Glendenning said he recognized it as a ghost fish, paid Slim a good price for it, and took it to the cabin in the bait bucket it was in. Then, while he was in town, the bait bucket disappeared. He has no idea how it got back to the cave. Anyway—” Uncle Andrew