The Red Trailer Mystery

woke Honey to tell her what had happened.
    "I can’t be absolutely sure, of course," she finished, "but he didn’t have that sort of vacant look that the red-trailer man had. He didn’t look beaten at all; he had sharp features and narrow eyes, and with all that bushy hair he made me think of a fox."
    "Well, Joeanne’s father doesn’t look anything like a fox," Honey said. "The last time I saw him he reminded me of a great big, sad-eyed dog that didn’t have any home. Even if he did go off and leave Joeanne, I feel sorry for him."
    "Honey!" Trixie gasped. "You’ve hit the nail on the head. That’s just what’s wrong with that family— why they look so vacant, as though they had given up hope. They haven’t any home."
    "They’ve got the red trailer," Honey began and then stopped. "Oh, I see what you mean. They must have stolen the trailer because they haven’t any other place to live."
    "That’s it," Trixie cried. "If you had all those children and no home for them and you saw a trailer all hitched up and ready to go, wouldn’t you be tempted?"
    Honey nodded her head up and down sympathetically. "The man who owns the Robin shouldn’t have gone off and left his keys in the tow car. It serves him right, and I’m glad we didn’t tell the state trooper anything."
    "We didn’t have anything to tell him," Trixie pointed out, "except that we saw a red trailer at the picnic grounds, and Miss Trask told him that." Honey sighed. "I hope we never run across that poor family again. If we should see the Robin while we re looking for Jim, we should notify the police, shouldn’t we? I mean, if the father is a thief, it wouldn’t be right to withhold information that would lead to his arrest."
    "Well, anyway," Trixie said, "he’s not the same thief who’s been stealing trailer equipment. If you ask me, Jeff and his bushy-haired friend have something to do with those robberies."
    "It certainly looks like it," Honey said thoughtfully. "A hidden van and all that talk you just heard about an abandoned barn! Shouldn’t we tell the troopers what we suspect?"
    "It wouldn’t do any good," Trixie told her. "I gather they’re not going to hide the van in the woods anymore. And we haven’t the vaguest idea where the abandoned barn is. We’ve got to get some proof before we can report anything to the police. If I told them I suspected Jeff, they’d think I was trying to get him into trouble because he bumped into me with a tray of dishes."
    "Oh, golly," Honey moaned. "It seems to me we’ve got too many things to do in such a short time. We want to find Jim and Joeanne, and we don’t want to find the red trailer, and at the same time we ought to be looking for that van and an abandoned barn." Trixie laughed. "We don’t really have to do anything but find Jim, but I hope we find Joeanne, too. I can’t bear the thought of that poor little girl wandering around all by herself."
    "Maybe she isn’t anymore," Honey said, without much hope. "Maybe she knew where her family was going in the trailer and has caught up with them by now."
    Trixie shook her head. "Then why did she run away in the first place?"
    "I don’t know," Honey began, and then she said with a little gasp, "Oh, Trixie, did you ever think that person in the faded blue jeans who disappeared into the woods back at the Pine Hollow trail might have been Joeanne? Both the dogs know her pretty well, and especially Bud!"
    Trixie’s mouth fell open in amazement. "We don’t need a quiz to prove who’s the smartest," she said ruefully. "I never thought about that, Honey, and I’ll bet it was Joeanne. Let’s go back there and explore some more as soon as we can."
    "You mean tomorrow as soon as we’ve cleaned up the Swan?" Honey demanded. "Don’t you think we’d better ride to Wilson Ranch first? We don’t want to lose track of Jim."
    "Of course not," Trixie agreed. "We’ll look for clues to Joeanne in the afternoon."
    Miss Trask beckoned to them from the doorway then, and they hurried to follow her into the dining room. As they stood in line with their trays in the cafeteria, the radio began to blare forth the latest news and weather reports.
    "Upstate," the announcer in the New York broadcasting station said, "police are searching for a gang of trailer thieves. Three of the four stolen trailers have already been located only a short distance from where their owners left them, stripped of all valuable and movable equipment. But, so far, state troopers