The Mystery off Glen Road

trail, you would never have seen that dead deer. And the boys ordered us never to leave the trails. So, you see, it really amounts to the same thing as a bad dream. The only reason why I was upset yesterday was because I thought the dogs had done it and would do it again and again. What’s one deer, anyway?”
    “All right,” Trixie said reluctantly. “It was a nightmare, especially the part about your friend, the two-headed unicyclist. I must have dreamed that up, hollow tree and all.”
    Honey sighed with relief. “Let’s talk about something cheerful for a change. Di’s going to bring a suitcase to school on Wednesday and ride home on the bus with us. She wants to help us patrol, but she doesn’t really ride well enough, so I told her no, her job was to keep Ben from playing any practical jokes. She likes him a lot, so she didn’t think that was much of a job. Is there anything we can ask Di to do so she’ll feel she’s being helpful?”
    “Yes,” Trixie promptly replied. “She and Ben both can keep an eye on Bobby while we patrol. Otherwise, a lot of the time while there’s no school, I’ll have to do it. It’s part of my job, you know, and one thing I will say for Ben, he likes Bobby. He’d never play any practical jokes on him. ”
    “That’s true,” Honey agreed. “Di adores Bobby. Everybody does, even though he is so mischievous. He can sort of chaperone Di and Ben while the rest of us work. I hope he likes country music.”
    “He does,” Trixie said, “but not for long. You know Bobby. He never stays in one place longer than a half hour unless he’s asleep. But that’s going to be Di’s worry, not ours.”
    By that time it was dusk, and they had just barely covered all of the trails in the preserve. “I’m glad horses can see in the semidark,” Honey said. “But we’d better keep them down to a walk from now on. They might stumble over a boulder, and, anyway, we’ve got to let them cool off or Regan will have a fit.”
    Trixie pulled Susie over to one side so Honey and Lady could lead the way. “I’m lost,” she admitted. “I never saw any of these landmarks before. If you can call them landmarks.”
    “I can’t, and I don’t,” Honey said with a giggle. “They’re all just black blobs to me. I suppose people like Jim would call them trees and shadows. I’ll give Lady her head. She’ll take us home.”
    Lady did, and the girls were surprised to find that the boys were at the stable. Jim was putting a saddle on Jupiter, Brian was saddling Starlight, and Mart was leading Strawberry out of his stall.
    “Are you boys crazy?” Honey demanded, swinging out of her saddle. “You can’t go riding at this time of night. Anyway, all of the horses have been exercised. Regan himself gave Jupe a good workout this morning while Trixie and I were riding Starlight and Strawberry.”
    Jim glared at her. “Where have you two goons been? We were about to form a small posse and go search for your bodies.”
    “No, no,” Mart corrected him. “You have forgotten, sheriff. We were perfectly willing to leave our sisters in the labyrinth forever. It was the horses we were about to seek. They are valuable, which is something I cannot say for the feminine members of our club.”
    As Trixie dismounted, Brian grabbed her arm. “You’re up to something,” he said. “Staying out so late, and disappearing so mysteriously yesterday. What cooks?”
    Trixie jerked away from him. “It can’t be very late. All we did was patrol the preserve on the other side of the road. If you think you can do it faster than we did, smarty, try it—just for size. I can’t wait to hear what Regan’s going to say to you when you bring a sweaty horse back to the stable, especially on a cold night like this.”
    “You can’t win,” Mart moaned. He put Strawberry back into the stall while the other boys followed suit and returned the saddles to the tack room. Then all three of them lounged against a wall of the stable while Trixie and Honey groomed Susie and Lady. “Not bad, but not good,” Mart kept saying. “Like cheese, they’ll improve with age; don’t you agree, Jim?”
    Jim nodded. “But I’ve been figuring it out mathematically, men. They had to cover a lot of ground between four and six-thirty, so I’ve come to the conclusion that, after all, they didn’t get lost, nor did they loiter.”
    “Well, in that case,” Brian said, “let’s clean the tack for them.”
    Honey tossed her