The Mystery in Arizona

with bright shirts, Levi’s, bandannas, sweaters, and skirts. Sitting on top of the mound was a ten-gallon Stetson. The chaise longue was hidden by a thick layer of full-skirted evening gowns, and Trixie guessed that the dressing-table stool must be at the bottom of that pile of bathing suits and terry cloth robes.
    Slowly it dawned on Trixie that Mrs. Sherman had come to the ranch planning to spend several months. She must be terribly disappointed.
    “Oh, you can t go,” she heard herself cry out. “Not until you’ve tried it for a week, anyway. The rodeo this afternoon will be fun. And the square dance tonight. And Friday there’s going to be a moonlight ride with a steak fry on the desert and—”
    She stopped suddenly as her eyes wandered to the cluttered dressing-table top. “Oh, you’ve got some beautiful Navaho jewelry. Just like the colored pictures in my magazines. And—and, oh, Mrs. Sherman! A real old, old concha belt.”
    Mrs. Sherman let out a loud sigh. “Yes, the jewelry is beautiful, and the belt belongs in a museum. And I need ’em about as much as I need two heads. But what could I do? Poor little Rosita needed a hundred dollars in a hurry, so I bought the lot from her. I plan to leave the whole kit and boodle in her room when I depart—if for no other reason than that there’s no room in my trunk for them.”
    Trixie’s weak knees gave way, and she sank down to the multicolored Indian rug on the floor. “So that’s how Rosita managed to raise a hundred dollars so quickly,” she heard herself mumble.
    Mrs. Sherman placed her hands on her hips and glared down at Trixie. “I’m an old fool; there s no getting around it. But what could I do? I happened to be awake early Monday morning when Rosita arrived and poured out her heart to Maria. I was in the pantry getting myself a glass of fruit juice, and, since I’m not deaf, I couldn’t help overhearing every word they said. So later, when Rosita came in to tidy my room, I offered her five hundred dollars for all of that jewelry she was wearing. She refused to sell the junk for more than a hundred dollars, so that was that.”
    “But it isn’t really junk, is it?” Trixie asked incredulously.
    “Of course not,” Mrs. Sherman snapped. “But I happen to detest jewelry, and I’m so allergic to silver that if I should wear one of those Navaho bracelets for ten minutes, my arm would look as though I had a bad attack of poison ivy.” She shrugged. “Sooner or later, in order to avoid hurting Rosita’s feelings, I’d have to wear some of her ancestral crown jewels, so I decided to depart. If I broke out in a rash, I’d become a patient of that prim Miss Girard, and that I could not endure.”
    Trixie scrambled to her feet. “I know now what Tenny meant when he said you had a heart as big as a horse blanket, Mrs. Sherman. But you don’t really have to leave just because you don’t dare wear Rosita’s jewelry and are afraid of hurting her feelings if you don’t.”
    Mrs. Sherman narrowed her bright blue eyes. “To be honest, Trixie, I don’t want to go. I have a feeling in my old bones that Maria is suddenly going to disappear, and then I could have fun. But there’s no way out of this noose I’ve stuck my neck into. Rosita is both proud and intelligent. And I’m a coward. I’d rather be stomped by a wild stallion than become a patient of that prissy Girard woman.”
    Trixie giggled. “If I show you how you can wear silver and not break out into a rash, will you promise to stay?”
    Mrs. Sherman crossed her heart with a plump finger. Trixie took a bottle of colorless nail polish from the cluttered dressing table and quickly painted the underside of a lovely turquoise-studded bracelet.
    “There,” she said. “The lacquer will protect you from the silver for quite a long time. It’s a trick I learned from my Aunt Alicia. She loves to sew, but she can’t use my great-grandmother’s silver thimble unless she paints the inside of it with nail polish.”
    “Well, I’ll be hog-tied!” Mrs. Sherman exploded. “Out of the mouths of babes and teen-agers, as the saying goes!” She began to scrabble through her evening gowns. “Now I can wear that little number I had made especially for a dude-ranch square dance. Saved flour sacks for the skirt right up until the day I sold our restaurant. That’s what the pioneer women used when they couldn’t get hold of a bolt of calico.”
    She held the dress up by its short