The Mystery in Arizona

the problem she was working on. And then she caught a glimpse of the man Rosita had been talking to, as he strode off down the path that led to the bunkhouse.
    It was Tenny, the cowboy; she was sure of it. But what had happened to his speech? Last night he had spoken in typical cowboy lingo; today he talked without a trace of it.
    What had Rosita meant when she said, “You and I are in what you might say is the same boat”? And why had Tenny implied that if he had five hundred dollars, he wouldn’t be working at the ranch?
    What was the accident which might ruin Rosita’s whole life because she blamed herself for it? Who had lost the use of his hand? What place was she talking about when she said, “I can’t go back”?
    Where had she got the one hundred dollars which had obviously aroused the cowboy’s suspicions?
    Trixie knew from her research on the subject that white men had cheated the Indians in all of their treaties and had literally stolen their land from them. Perhaps, then, an Indian would not think it was dishonest to steal from white people.
    Had Rosita stolen money from the guests? It would have been so easy for her, while tidying the cabins on Monday, to slip into her apron pocket any money she found lying around: small amounts which would not be missed but which would total a hundred dollars! Trixie dismissed the ugly thought from her mind. “Speaking of totals,” she scolded herself, “you’d better get back to your problems.”
    But now she couldn’t concentrate at all. Who cared about fractions, decimals, weights and measures? The real problem was this:
    Were Rosita and Tenny somehow tied up in the mystery of the Orlandos’ sudden departure? Was Calamity Jane Brown, who had spent the night before weeping out on the patio for no apparent reason, involved, too?
    And what had Petey meant when he spoke of eating skeletons? The boys thought that he had simply been letting his imagination run away with him. But Trixie felt differently. Perhaps he had exaggerated a little, but where there was smoke there was bound to be fire. Wherever his grandparents, uncles, and aunts had gone was certainly a mysterious place.
    What could Petey have been talking about when he spoke of an enormous ape that was all ready to jump down on him and “eat him all up”? If he had exaggerated a great deal, the ape might really have been a pet monkey in a cage that hung from the ceiling in the place that was “all dark and shadowy in the corners ’cause it’s not lighted ’cept with candles.” Was that scary place a cellar? And what about “that great big ole green man wif the big red eyes and the horns”? And who were the “horrible peoples” that were “mostly sort of animals”? Trixie did not believe in hobgoblins or ghosts, but she knew that children of Petey’s age often had wild dreams about them.
    Trixie was convinced that Petey had not been talking about a nightmare. Even though he had probably been letting his imagination run away with him, he had definitely described the place to which he had gone last year and where his grandparents had gone again this year.
    The door opened then, and Trixie jumped. It was Honey, who said, “Heavens! You act as though you expected a ghost instead of me. I do hope you’ve finished those assignments, Trix. Jim says you can’t go riding until he’s checked them.”
    Trixie groaned. “There’s nothing to correct. I just couldn’t concentrate, Honey.”
    Before she could repeat the strange conversation she had heard, someone else came to the door.
    Honey shook her head. “That’s probably Jim now, and he’s going to be wild when he sees that you haven’t even started on those math assignments.”
    It was Jim, and he was wild when he saw that Trixie had accomplished so little. Controlling his redheaded temper with an obvious effort, he said evenly, “Well, that does it. You can’t go for a ride this afternoon and go to La Posada this evening, too.”
    Trixie glared at him. “I’ll get these silly old problems done so I can ride with the second group at three thirty. And, in case you’re interested, smarty, I’ll go to La Posada, too.”
    Jim’s eyes were very green. “In case you’re interested, not-so-smarty, I’m going riding now, and I won’t be back until three thirty. You’re not going to leave the ranch house until every one of those problems is one hundred percent correct.”
    “Leave percentages out of our normal conversation,