The Mystery at Saratoga

parents?” Honey asked. “Are they terribly worried?”
    “They certainly are,” Jim answered before Mart could muster the large words he needed for a reply.
    “They called your room early this morning. When there was no answer, they had the desk clerk let them in. Then they discovered that your beds hadn’t been slept in, and they got frantic.”
    “Honey’s parents called our parents,” Brian continued, “and our parents called us at camp, thinking that we might know something about your whereabouts. We didn’t, of course—in fact, we didn’t even know you’d come to Saratoga, since you’ve obviously been too busy getting yourselves embroiled in a mystery to send us so much as a postcard.”
    Trixie looked at the ground and kicked a few roadside pebbles with her foot, too embarrassed to answer her brother.
    “Listen,” Jim interrupted, “I’m sure there’s a very interesting story behind all this, and I want to hear all about it on the way into town. But I don’t want to keep our folks waiting for us any longer than we have to.”
    “Gleeps!” Trixie exclaimed, suddenly remembering that race time was fast approaching. “We haven’t a second to lose. Let’s go!”
    She ran to the car, with Honey and Regan close behind her, while the boys exchanged bewildered looks as they followed along.
    On the way back to town, Trixie, Honey, and Regan quickly told the boys about the chain of events that had led up to that morning. “So you see,” Trixie concluded, “we have to get back to town in time to warn Mr. Stinson not to give Gadbox the food that he prepared yesterday.”
    Jim nodded solemnly, his eyes on the road. “You also have to notify the track officials, so that they can try to catch those two crooks. They must be planning to bet on the race.”
    “Now you’ve heard our side of the story,” Regan said, “but we still don’t know how you came to find us on a deserted road ten miles from Saratoga—or how you and Johnny wound up together.”
    “Deductive perspicuity is not limited to the distaff side of the Bob-White conglomeration,” Mart said smugly.
    “Would somebody else tell the story, please,” Trixie pleaded, “so that we can all understand it without using a dictionary, which doesn’t happen to be standard equipment in the Bob-White station wagon?”
    Brian chuckled. “Mart just means that we boys can follow clues as well as you girls can. When our folks called to say you’d disappeared in Saratoga, the three of us decided to skip the two-day counselors’ party that ends the season, to drive down here and try to save your silly necks. When we got to the hotel a couple of hours ago, Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler had already questioned the desk clerk. He hadn’t seen you leave, but he suggested that you might have gone riding again, since you had asked for a list of boarding stables in the area a couple of days ago. That didn’t seem very logical, but since logic seldom has anything to do with your actions, we got the list of stables and Started driving around to them.”
    “That’s where they found me,” Johnny said shyly. “I was worried about Regan, because he wasn’t out working with the horses this morning, and he wasn’t in the bunkhouse, either. Then the boys showed up, and they showed me Honey’s and Trixie’s class pictures, which they had in their billfolds.”
    “But you’d never seen the girls,” Regan pointed out. “You weren’t at the stable when they came out to see me.”
    “But you told me you’d had visitors,” Johnny said. “Remember?” Regan nodded. “So I described how you look, and they all shouted, ‘Regan!’ Then I told them about how you’d come to the stable, and you didn’t talk much about it, but I could tell you were real worried about something. Then I told them about how you were reading the paper a couple of nights ago in the bunkhouse, and about how you got real mad all of a sudden. When I asked why, you just said, ‘Worthington’s done it again!’ and you wouldn’t tell me anything more.”
    “I knew who Worthington was,” Jim said, picking up the story, “because Dad had written to me at camp, saying that he was thinking of buying a horse from him. It was a flimsy lead, but it was all we had, so we took Johnny along with us and drove to the track.”
    “There we discovered that pandemonium had erupted due to the disappearance of two interlinked four-wheel vehicles,” Mart put in.
    “The pickup truck and horse