The Mystery in Arizona

could say anything.
    Honey and Di came in then through the adjoining bath. They had been swimming and chattered their teeth at Trixie. “It sure gets cold suddenly out here,” said Di. “Me for a hot shower.”
    Honey quickly changed into a sweater and skirt. “We’ll be leaving in half an hour,” she told Trixie.
    “Our group is going in the station wagon. Tenny is going to drive.”
    “Do you like him?” Trixie asked suddenly. “I mean, you got to know him pretty well while you were riding this afternoon, didn’t you?”
    “Oh, yes,” Honey said enthusiastically. “He’s simply darling. The foreman is an old crosspatch. Wouldn’t even speak to us girls, but he never goes along on the rides, so who cares about him? Tenny is the boss of the dudes, and he’s so patient about answering questions and all.”
    “But he’s not an honest-to-goodness cowboy,” Trixie said.
    Honey was scrabbling through her bureau drawer, trying to find the wool socks which matched her blue sweater. “I know I packed them,” she said. “At least, Miss Trask did. I saw her—” And then she interrupted herself. “What did you say?”
    “Tenny is a phony,” Trixie said briefly.
    “You’ve lost your mind. Ah, here they are.” Honey sat down on the lower bunk and began to pull on her socks.
    “You’ve simply got to stop suspecting people all the livelong time, Trix,” she said. “And if you’re going to have any fun out here, you’d better forget about mysteries. I mean it Jim and Brian were furious when you did such poor work today. They’re not going to let you get by with that kind of thing. You know it.”
    Trixie had been feeling very forlorn, because it seemed to her that she had been glued to that desk most of the day. And now her best friend was scolding her. It was too much. Her round blue eyes filled with tears.
    “Oh, I wish we’d never left home,” she sobbed. “I hate it here. All I do is work like a slave, and then, when I take a dip in the pool, you all treat me as though I’d committed a crime.” She folded her arms on top of her papers and buried her face in them. “If I were home now, I’d be having fun.”
    “You’d still be going to school every day until Friday,” Honey reminded her. “And you’d have a lot of homework to do every day, also chores. You could have a lot of fun here if you’d just stop wasting so much time on so-called mysteries.” Then she relented and gave Trixie a quick hug. “All right, I give up. Tell me why you suspect Tenny.”
    Trixie raised her head. “Because I heard him talking to Rosita out on the patio when I guess he didn’t think anyone could hear them. He didn’t talk at all like a cowboy.” She repeated as much as she could remember of the conversation.
    “Why, that is mysterious,” Honey admitted. “I mean the Rosita part of it. Somebody hurt his hand in an accident, and she feels responsible. Who? Do you suppose it was an automobile accident and she was driving?”
    “I have no idea,” Trixie said. “But she’s in an awful scrape and in disgrace with her family. When she said that she couldn’t go back, she must have meant she couldn’t go back to her hogan. Whatever happened was so awful that they probably expelled her from school. Maybe she was driving a car and hasn’t got a license.”
    “But I don’t think she stole that hundred dollars,” Honey said staunchly. “Maybe Uncle Monty loaned it to her.”
    Trixie shook her head. “In that case, she would have to pay it back. From the way she talked, I could tell that she has to earn only four hundred dollars more.”
    Di came in then, wearing a pretty wool suit which matched her violet eyes. “I forgot to tell you, Trix, that Mrs. Sherman isn’t leaving until tomorrow after lunch. She couldn’t get a plane reservation until then. She and Uncle Monty are going to have supper together in his suite, so maybe he can persuade her not to leave, after all. Anyway, we’d better go. The others must be waiting for us in the station wagon.”
    Trixie and Honey slipped on the jackets which matched their skirts, and they all hurried out to the driveway. Mr. Wellington and Jane Brown were sharing the front seat with Tenny, who was behind the wheel. The boys were waiting impatiently in the backseat, and the girls quickly climbed in to occupy the middle seat.
    Tenny released the brake and stepped on the gas.
    “We got a heap of travelin to do,” he said, “if were goin to have