The Mystery off Glen Road

fork and take the other one. This is just a shortcut to Mr. Lytell’s land, you know.”
    “Umm,” Trixie said again. “Shortcut is right. That other trail winds all over the place. It’s absolutely, positively labyrinthine, as Mart would say. We’ll be sure to get lost, Honey. You know how dumb we both are about where the points of the compass are.” Honey giggled. “Jim says we were both born without a sense of direction. Maybe we’d better go back to Glen Road and ride to Mr. Lytell’s store that way. It’s much longer, and we can only walk the horses, but it’ll probably save time in the end.”
    “No,” Trixie said soberly. “Let’s don’t do that. Let’s make up our minds that we won't get lost. I have a feeling that pretty soon it’s going to be important for us to know how to find our way around your father’s game preserve.” She turned Lady around and started back toward the fork.
    Honey followed suit with Strawberry. “I don’t know what you mean, Trixie,” she complained. “Why should we worry about this labyrinth? Even if we knew how to shoot a gun, we’d never kill any kind of bird, and certainly not a deer.”
    “You can’t shoot deer with a gun,” Trixie informed her. “It’s against the law in Westchester County. You have to use a longbow. The laws are very strict. This year, for instance, you can only hunt deer during the last two weeks in November and the first two weeks in December.”
    “I didn’t know that,” Honey admitted. “But what difference does it make? Why should we care? The only longbows I ever saw were pictures of them in Robin Hood and books like that.”
    “Don’t be silly,” Trixie said. “Your father must have a longbow. Otherwise, why did he stock his preserve with deer and have Fleagle build feeding stations for them and all?”
    “I don’t think Daddy knew about the laws when he stocked the preserve,” Honey said. “Anyway, he won’t be able to do much hunting this year because he’s not returning until a week from tomorrow, which is the twenty-ninth of the month.” They had reached the fork now and stopped their horses. “The path on your left,” Honey said, “I think goes west, and we want to go east, don’t we?”
    “Do we?” Trixie asked. “Yes, we do.” She answered her own question. “The sun rises in the east, and I’ve often seen it coming up behind that stand of pines next to Mr. Lytell’s store. Anyway, the path on my left is only a path and probably doesn’t lead anywhere. What we want to do is follow the trails .”
    “I don’t know how you can tell the difference,” Honey said. “They all look the same to me. But, as Mart would say, by the process of elimination, if one of these things is a path, then the other one must be a trail. So let’s go.” She nudged Strawberry into a trot and led the way eastward. Over her shoulder she said, “I wish you wouldn’t be so mysterious, Trixie. Why do you think we should try to solve the mystery of this labyrinth?”
    “Because,” Trixie said, “this weekend we’ve got to talk Miss Trask and Regan into letting us have the gamekeeper’s job. Nobody’s answered the ads they’ve put into all the newspapers. And we’ve just got to earn fifty dollars during the next week. If we don’t, how can I get my ring from Mr. Lytell so Dad can put it back into the bank on the Monday after Thanksgiving?”
    “Oh, no,” Honey moaned. “It’s all so complicated. You haven’t even given the ring to Mr. Lytell yet, and now you’re worrying about getting it back.” She chuckled. “Aren’t you sort of putting the cart before the horse? Or should I say, the ring before the jalopy? Oh, oh! What am I trying to say?”
    “Whatever it is,” Trixie chortled, “it makes no sense. The problem is this: I have to make Mr. Lytell accept the ring today, and I have to get it back a week from tomorrow. So we have to get the gamekeeper’s job so we’ll have fifty dollars by next Saturday.”
    They had reached a small clearing now and were riding abreast instead of single file. “You’re right,” Honey cried enthusiastically. “But we’ve got to sell Regan on the idea. The trouble is that the boys won’t be able to help us much. They’re too busy fixing up the clubhouse.”
    “That’s the point,” Trixie agreed. “So it’s up to us, Honey. We can patrol the preserve just as well as the boys, so long as we don’t get lost every single time we go into