The Mystery at Saratoga

shouted.
    Watching from the shadows, Trixie saw a man emerge from Gadbox’s stall, a gun in his hand. Scarface! Trixie thought. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the flash of fire from the gun’s muzzle. Instead, she heard a dull thud as the scar-faced man hit Regan over the head with the gun.
    We have to get out of here , Trixie thought, panic-stricken. We have to get help. “Run, Honey,” she whispered hoarsely.
    The girls began to run, but they hadn’t gone more than ten yards before the scar-faced man overtook them, forcing them roughly to the ground with a flying tackle.

Stranded ● 15

    TRIXIE AND HONEY struggled with all their might to break loose from their captor’s grasp. “Louie!” the man shouted. “Get out here on the double! And bring some rope!”
    Still struggling, Trixie heard the sound of running feet approaching, and then she was yanked to her feet by the second man, while the man who had tackled them hauled Honey to a standing position. The first man, Trixie saw in the darkness, was Scar-face. She twisted her head to look over her shoulder at Louie, his accomplice, who was tying her hands behind her back. He was a small man, but the strength with which he grasped her arms told her that his size was deceptive.
    Trixie’s teeth were chattering with fear, but she clenched her jaw to keep them quiet. We can’t let them know that we’re afraid, she thought. We can’t even let ourselves be afraid. We have to keep our heads clear and keep looking for a way out of this.
    The small man had finished tying Trixie’s hands; he cut off the leftover rope with a pocketknife and tossed it to the scar-faced man, who tied Honey.
    “What do we do now, boss?” Louie asked.
    “There’s an empty horse trailer behind the barn, still hitched to a pickup truck. We’ll put our nosy friends in that until we find the feed bag and put the dope in it. Then we’ll all go for a little ride. But only two of us’ll come back.” Laughing at his own attempt at humor, Scarface pulled Honey along with him to the trailer, and Louie followed with Trixie in tow.
    The girls were thrown roughly into the trailer, and they lay silent for a moment. Then they heard footsteps approaching again, and they moved out of the way as Regan’s unconscious body landed in a crumpled heap in the trailer.
    “I-Is he still alive, Trixie?” Honey whispered, her voice trembling.
    Trixie wormed her way over to where Regan lay and maneuvered her bound hands to the pulse on his neck, which was throbbing steadily. “He’s all right!” she whispered joyfully. “But I don’t think it’s a good sign that he’s been unconscious this long.”
    As if in reply, Regan moaned and pulled himself slowly to a sitting position, his hands held to his head. “Wh-What happened?” he groaned. “Where am I?”
    “You’re all right,” Trixie repeated. “The man with the scar hit you over the head with his gun. He and his accomplice put us in a horse trailer, and as soon as they put the drugs in Gadbox’s feed bag, they’re going to—to take us somewhere,” she finished lamely, not wanting to repeat the threatening words that Scarface had spoken.
    “Regan,” Honey whispered urgently, “Trixie and I are tied up. Can you untie us? We have to try to get out of here before those men come back.”
    Trixie turned her back to Regan and held out her hands. The young groom fumbled with the knots, but still weakened and confused from the blow to his head, he was unable even to loosen the ropes.
    “Did I make those knots too tight for you?” Louie’s voice, followed by his stupid laugh, broke Regan’s and the girls’ rapt concentration. “Well, I brought some more rope, to tie some more knots with. We’ll see what kind of luck you have with those.”
    Louie forced Regan to lie on his stomach. He tied Regan’s hands behind him, then bent his legs up behind him and tied his feet to his hands. “Just like the calf-roping at the rodeo,” Louie chuckled. Louie bound the girls’ feet with two more lengths of rope and was proudly surveying his handiwork, when the man with the scar poked his head into the trailer.
    “All finished?” Scarface asked.
    Louie nodded. “It’ll hold ’em for a while—a good long while, I’d say.”
    “Good,” Scarface said curtly. “The drug is mixed in with the feed. If everything works the way we figured, Gadbox will have just enough dope in his system to show up in the urine test after the race.