The Mystery off Glen Road

southern part of the game preserve. “There must be two people loose in these woods—a poacher and a performer who has run away from a circus.”
    Honey laughed nervously. Although they hadn’t wasted a minute since they got off the bus, the sun was already dipping down below the tree line, and it was gloomy in the thickly wooded sections of the preserve. “People don’t escape from circuses,” she told Trixie. “Circuses aren’t insane asylums.”
    “Well,” Trixie retorted, “insane asylums don’t dish out unicycles to the inmates, and only a lunatic would try to ride any kind of a cycle in these woods.”
    “Maybe it’s easier with only one wheel,” Honey said thoughtfully. “I mean, if you know how.”
    “Which I don’t,” Trixie replied. “And I still think that two wheels must be easier than one, just like two heads are better than one.”
    Honey shuddered. “Don’t! You just gave me a mental picture of a two-headed monster riding around on a unicycle. I’d rather see a Cyclops riding on a unicorn.”
    Trixie shook with laughter, although she felt rather nervous, too. Tracking down a plain, ordinary poacher was one thing, but simultaneously tracking down a crazy unicyclist was quite another. The poacher had some reason for lurking around in the woods, but the unicyclist— Even if you told him he was trespassing, he probably wouldn’t care. He’d probably utter an eerie chuckle and pedal off to the hollow tree he lived in. “I think he’s more like a leprechaun than a Cyclops,” Trixie said to Honey. “Or do I mean a dryad? Anyway, if he doesn’t live in a hollow tree, where does he live?”
    “For that matter,” Honey replied, “where does the poacher live? If he’s big enough to carry off a deer, he couldn’t fit into a hollow tree. It snowed last night and was awfully cold, so he couldn’t have slept right out in the open, could he?”
    “That,” Trixie said, “is what we’ve got to find out. He’s probably pitched a tent somewhere.” Honey shuddered again. “That means leaving the trails to explore the paths. I positively won’t. It’s too scary early in the morning and late in the afternoon. Besides, even in broad daylight we’d be sure to get lost.”
    “School closes at noon on Wednesday—day after tomorrow,” Trixie reminded her. “We can explore the paths then. We have to, Honey. We can’t let that poacher keep shooting your father’s deer. He’s probably killing partridges and pheasants, too. Big New York City restaurants pay an awful lot of money for game. I think some of them even buy through a black market.”
    “Oh, Trixie,” Honey begged, “don’t let your imagination run away with you. That deer you saw yesterday was probably killed by a hunter who didn’t know he was trespassing. Maybe he’s gone away and won’t come back. I mean, most men have jobs, so they can’t go shooting except on weekends or holidays. Please, let’s forget about him or else tell the boys.”
    “We can’t do either,” Trixie said firmly. “If Jim and Brian knew what we know, they’d spend all their time trying to catch that poacher. Then they’d never finish fixing the clubhouse. You heard what Brian said on the bus this morning. The snow last night didn’t help matters any. We were lucky that it wasn’t a blizzard.”
    “I know,” Honey said. “At breakfast this morning, Jim told me that the snow had seeped down onto the curtains and furniture. They’re not exactly ruined, but they’ll never look quite as nice as they did.”
    “How about our equipment in the storeroom?” Trixie asked. “If the runners on our skates and sleds get too rusty, they will be ruined. And lots of the other stuff will get mildewed and rot away.”
    “That’s what worries me most,” Honey admitted. “I wish we dared move our equipment to the Robin until the roof is fixed. But we can’t, not without permission from Tom and Celia, and they’re somewhere in Canada.”
    “It’s all hopeless,” Trixie agreed. “If our sports equipment is ruined, we won’t have any fun this winter, because we could never, never earn the money to buy more until we’re practically as old as Methuselah.”
    “Maybe it won’t snow again until the roof is fixed,” Honey said. “Let’s hope so.” They cantered along in silence for a while; then she said, “I know it isn’t very honorable and all, Trixie, but let’s do forget about that poacher. I mean, if you had never left the