The Mystery of the Castaway Children

everyone will make his own. My goodness,” she sighed. “The day’s just begun, and already I feel like it’s slipping through my fingers!”
    “You know you have all of our fingers to help you,” said Trixie with more enthusiasm than she really felt. She was impatient to get to work on her new case, but she knew her chores came first. “When do I get to feed Moses?” Honey asked. “We’ll take six o’clock,” Trixie said hastily. “Now, let’s get at those beds.”
    Trixie had no idea what clues she might find in the woods, but she had a feeling they’d be on that path. It was obvious that Moses would be cared for. Di would arrive well before two, of that Trixie was sure. Di loved children and never missed the chance to help with her own twin brothers and sisters. Trixie felt that she and Honey could give their best service by solving the mystery of Moses’ identity.
    While they worked, Trixie filled Honey in on the news of the morning. “All we really have to go on is that horseshoe,” she finished.
    ‘That’s not much,” Honey pointed out. “Are we done here?”
    Yes, believe it or not. Let’s go!”
    The woods were still wet, but the leaves were drying fast. Trixie and Honey saw at once that the sergeant had walked beside the path, not on it. The ground was cut by meandering rivulets.
    In the low spots, water still moved sluggishly. Trixie was relieved to see that the sergeant didn’t seem to have stooped to pick up any possible clues. He hadn’t altered his steady pace alongside the trail.
    “What are we looking for?” Honey asked. “Whatever we find,” Trixie said. “Was Moses brought to the doghouse by horseback? Or by someone on foot or on a motorcycle? How was he transported?”
    “Now you sound like Mart,” Honey teased. “Please do not insult me like that,” said Trixie haughtily.
    Eventually, the girls reached the wide curve of the path opposite the intersection of Louis Road with Glen Road. Through the clearing, Trixie could see the woodsy tunnel of the little-used Louis Road on its way to the crumbling high bluffs that loomed above the Hudson River.
    “Nobody could have climbed those bluffs with a baby,” decided Trixie. “That means that Moses had to come from the east, north, or south.” Looking as bewildered as she felt, Honey said, “Oh, my. Where do we start looking for clues?”
    “Right here!” Trixie ran down the very middle of the path.
    Looking where Trixie was pointing, Honey shrugged. “Hoofprints. So what?”
    “So—there were hoofprints most of the way from our gate to your stables, and here are some more. Honey, it could be the same horse. We’re on the right trail!”
    Honey looked thoughtful but unconvinced. Suddenly Trixie pounced. “And here’s something to prove it!” She held up a nail. Made of wrought iron, it was thin at the point, with a wedge-shaped head. It was bent from use.
    “All that proves is that a nail came out of some horse’s shoe,” maintained Honey.
    Trixie put the nail in her pocket. “Don’t you see, Honey? That shoe was loose all the way from here to the rock where I found it. That’s why the trail is so chopped.”
    “It takes six to eight nails to hold a shoe,” Honey recalled. “Where are the others? And anyway, old Spartan could have thrown a shoe. So could Mr. Lytell’s Belle.”
    I think Spartan and Belle use larger shoes than the one I found,” Trixie argued. “All these clues add up, Honey. Whoever brought Moses rode a horse! He must have!”
    This does place a rider in the right place at the right time,” admitted Honey. “But where’s your horse and where’s your rider? And why did you say ‘he’? Usually a three-month-old baby is with his mother.”
    “He, she—somebody,” Trixie said impatiently. She was elated to see that the hoofprints marked the trail the rest of the way to Glen Road Inn, an old Dutch mansion that had been converted into a rural hotel.
    Honey looked up at the inn and fretted, “Ella might be able to see us from her window. She’ll feel hurt if we don’t stop in and say hi.” Ella Kline was a handicapped woman who lived on the third floor. She sometimes did sewing and mending for the Wheelers.
    “Let’s go up,” said Trixie at once. “She could have seen the horse.”
    “You have horse on the brain,” Honey sighed. “Oh, Honey, you know I like Ella just as much as you do,” said Trixie. “I just have—you know, other things on my mind.”
    They found