The Mystery of the Castaway Children

brain over Moses and where he might have come from. A few minutes’ walk in any direction from this farm placed one in the wilderness. Then, just barely out of sight was a great spider web of bridges, tunnels, parkways and turnpikes, state highways and county roads, country lanes and bridle trails, footpaths and animal traces. When you added the air lanes, railroads, and canal and river traffic of New York City, it was possible to say that the world’s traffic flowed past Crabapple Farm.
    Thinking of the millions of people who traveled on this traffic pattern every day, Trixie was overwhelmed by the size of the mystery she faced. Moses could have come from Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson, or Beulah, North Dakota, or Ocean Beach, California. He might have come from any place in the whole wide world.
    Yet there he was, sleeping in the Belden clothes basket. Was he left by a starving young mother who could no longer take care of him? Was he unloved and unwanted? Had he been kidnapped and abandoned for some reason? Was someone out there right now in the wet dark, watching the house? If that someone did care what happened to the baby, what would that person do when the police came?
    Police!
    “I forgot about Sergeant Molinson,” Trixie mumbled to herself. He would arrive early. Well, then there was one person who was going to get up even earlier.
    Trixie set her alarm clock.

Batter Is Pancakes ● 3

    AT FIVE-THIRTY, Trixie was dressed and quietly slipping from the house. Her first stop was at the doghouse.
    Reddy was less prepared to face the day than was Trixie. He stirred and yawned, until finally she was able to persuade him to come out.
    Trixie patted around the edges of Reddy’s rug, but Brian’s search had been thorough. There was no ransom note, no good-bye letter, not even an extra piece of clothing or a soft toy— nothing that might be traced.
    Trixie stood up, looked about, and informed Reddy, “Unless someone brought Moses through the raspberry patch, he must have used the bike path.” This trail ran downhill from the Manor House stables. After crossing the farm, the path roughly paralleled Glen Road all the way to Glen Road Inn.
    Reddy looked unimpressed, and Trixie headed alone into the woods, which were cool and clean after the rain. She could smell the grass she stepped on and could see the rainbow jewels in the wet, sunlit spider webs. On such a heart-lifting morning, nothing should be wrong with the world. Yet something was very wrong for ' one little boy. Soberly Trixie studied the earth she walked on.
    She saw nothing unusual, just a path chopped by horses’ hoofprints. Because of the daily exercising of all the horses in the Wheeler stables, the crisscrossing trails on the game preserve were naturally marked with myriad prints. There was also Mr. Lytell, who often rode slowpokey old Belle on these grounds. Dan saved time by riding Spartan when he ran errands for Regan, the Wheelers’ groom, and Mr. Maypenny, the Wheelers’ gamekeeper. Even Di's palomino, Sunny, spent much time on Wheeler land. All of these animals were loved and given the care one would give a human.
    Then—what was this horseshoe doing in the middle of the path?
    Concerned, Trixie picked the shoe up. This was a bicycle trail as well as a bridle path. An obstacle like that could cause a bad spill if one were going full speed down the hill. And, when coming down this hill from the Wheeler stables, there were only two bicycle speeds—fast and faster. Who would have been so careless?
    Trixie was still carrying the mud-caked shoe as she neared the Wheeler stables, continuing her search for clues. She could hear men’s voices and the movement and whickering of animals being fed. Regan always got an early start in his conscientious grooming of the horses. As Trixie got closer, she caught sight through a window of a red head bent over some early-morning task. Up here on the hill lived three red-haired men: Matthew Wheeler himself, Jim Frayne, and Regan. Trixie hoped that was Jim she saw.
    It was. Trixie forgot that her sneakered feet would give Jim no warning of her presence. She was only a few feet away from him when he noticed her and immediately dropped the towel he’d been wiping his hands on.
    “Yikes!” he exclaimed. “Where’d you come from? And what brings you here so early?”
    “Hi!” Trixie blurted. Then she saw the clock near the tack room door. “Oh, jeepers, I lost track of the time. Gotta go!” She tossed the