The Mystery off Glen Road

another gamekeeper.”
    “Say, that is a thought,” Jim said. “All it would amount to would be patrolling the preserve before and after school and full time during the weekend.” Honey nodded. “Fleagle got more than fifty dollars a week for doing not much more than that. But the trouble is, Jim, Miss Trask has already put ads in the help-wanted columns of all the papers. Some truly marvelous gamekeeper may apply for the job tomorrow.”
    “That’ s right,” Jim agreed. “And furthermore, we can’t ask for a week’s pay in advance. Even if we should get the job, we’d have to prove that we were worth fifty bucks a week.”
    Brian, who had been looking very happy for a moment, slumped down on a hassock near the glider. “Right, Jim,” he said. “We can’t do anything about the clubhouse unless we use money we have earned. So let’s stop stewing about it.”
    Then all of a sudden Trixie remembered something. She jumped up and ran indoors, beckoning for Honey to follow her. “I’ve got the answer to everything,” Trixie whispered as they hurried upstairs to Honey’s lovely room on the second floor.
    When they were seated together on the window seat, with the door to the hall closed, Trixie said, “That diamond ring Jim gave to me! If I can just get that, it’ll solve all of our problems.”

The Diamond Ring • 5

    HONEY STARED at Trixie, her hazel eyes wide with amazement. “Are you talking about the diamond ring Jim left behind when he ran away after the Miser’s Mansion burned?”
    Trixie nodded. “Remember what he wrote in the note he left with it? He said I deserved it because I found it and because I saved all that money he found in the mattress from being burned.”
    “I certainly do remember,” Honey cried excitedly. “And I see what you mean. You really earned that diamond ring. So if you wanted to sell it, you could use the money for fixing up the clubhouse.”
    “That’s right,” Trixie said. “But I haven’t a prayer of getting permission from Dad to sell it. He put it in our safe-deposit vault, you know, for fear I’d lose it.”
    “Well, then,” Honey said discouragedly, “what good is it to us?”
    “Plenty,” Trixie told her. “I’ve just got to get Dad to take it out of the bank for a while. Then I can give it to Mr. Lytell as security. You know what I mean.”
    “No, I don’t,” Honey replied. “What’s nosy old Mr. Lytell got to do with our wrecked clubhouse?”
    “Oh, Honey,” Trixie cried impatiently. “Sometimes you jump around in your conversation so fast that nobody knows what you’re talking about. At other times, like now, you have a one-track mind. Can’t you see that I’m talking about Brian’s car?” Honey shook with laughter. “Speaking of people who jump around in their conversation, Trixie Belden, you’re much worse than I am. But now I do understand. If you give Mr. Lytell your ring as security, he’ll hold the jalopy until we can earn enough money to pay Brian back the fifty dollars he loaned us. But how?” she asked. “How are you going to get your father to take the ring out of the bank?”
    “That,” Trixie admitted, “I’ve got to figure out somehow.”
    Honey stared vacantly around her dainty room. “If only,” she said reflectively, “everyone didn’t know how you hate jewelry and anything feminine.
    I mean, if you were like Di Lynch and me, your father wouldn’t die of surprise if you asked him if you could wear the ring for a few days. After all, it is yours, and almost any girl but you might want to wear it to a party or something.”
    It was Trixie’s turn to shake with laughter. “You and Di,” she pointed out between chuckles, “used to be frail and feminine, but since you two joined the Bob-Whites, I notice you both prefer blue jeans to frilly dresses.” Then she sobered. “You’ve got something there, Honey Wheeler. My parents and Brian and Mart would die of amazement if I suddenly got a yen to wear joo-wells. The thing for me to do is not to do it too suddenly. See what I mean?”
    Honey slid off the window seat and covered her face with her slim hands. “Oh, Trixie, you’re so funny. You’re forever telling me I don’t make sense when I talk, and you almost never make sense yourself.”
    Trixie giggled. “I know. We’re both terrible, Honey, but I’d still rather be the way we are instead of like Mart, who’s forever using such big words that nobody but a college professor could ever