The Red Trailer Mystery

"I fixed homemade baked beans for Dad’s supper tonight It’s a cinch," she admitted with a grin. You just put some pea beans into a pot with water, add chili sauce, garlic, onions, salt pork or bacon, and molasses, and bake the whole mess slowly for eight hours."
    "Sounds divine," Honey said admiringly and then added to Miss Trask, "When we find Jim he’ll teach us to take care of ourselves in the woods. He’s a real woodsman and promised to show us how to skin and cook a rabbit on a spit and build a shanty tent between two trees, and—and everything!"
    "I’m sorry you girls never gave me a chance to meet him," Miss Trask said, "Regan was telling us just now what a great lad Jim is and what an expert horseman."
    "We wanted to tell you about him, Miss Trask," Honey said impulsively. "We knew we could trust you, but we were pretty sure you’d feel he ought to go back to his guardian."
    Honey, pushing back her bangs and tossing her shoulder-length, wavy, light-brown hair, turned to Trixie. Her huge hazel eyes were wide with sympathy for the runaway. "If it hadn’t been for that awful Jonesy, we would have told Miss Trask about Jim, wouldn’t we?"
    Trixie nodded so vigorously that her sandy curls tumbled down on her tanned forehead. She was not quite as tall as Honey but a lot sturdier. Miss Trask glanced at her appraisingly.
    "All of those sweaters, bathing suits, jerseys, and shorts that Honey wore at camp last summer are too small for her now," she told Trixie. "But they should fit you perfectly. Why don’t you let me put the lot of them in this extra suitcase and bring them along? Then all you’d have to pack would be dungarees, underclothes, some socks, and an extra pair of shoes." Trixie’s round blue eyes sparkled at the sight of shelves stacked with expensive and almost new sports clothes. "Golly, that would be marvelous, Miss Trask," she breathed. "Most of my stuff is in rags. I simply can’t sew," she admitted ruefully, "and Moms insists that I’m old enough to do my own mending."
    "ÏÏ1 do your mending, Trixie," Honey offered. "That’s one thing that awful governess I had before you, Miss Trask, showed me how to do well." She laughed. "Mother can’t sew or cook, either, and she doesn’t approve of girls doing anything that might hurt their hands. She’d have a fit if she knew I’d been riding horses and bikes all week without gloves!"
    It always made Trixie feel depressed to think about Honey’s beautiful but spoiled mother, so she quickly changed the subject "Well, I’d better go home now and fix Dad’s supper," she said, "See you at the crack of dawn."
    But they did not get off to an early start, after all. At the last minute both girls decided to take their dogs, the Belden Irish setter, Reddy, and Honey’s new cocker spaniel puppy, Bud.
    And, of course, after they had packed everything inside the spacious, chrome-trimmed, sky-blue trailer, neither dog could be found. Finally Regan, the Wheeler’s good-natured groom, located Bud, who had accidentally got shut into an empty horse stall. But although Trixie called and whistled for what seemed like hours, there was no sign of Reddy.
    "We can’t go off and leave him now," she wailed as it grew later and later. "Dad won’t be home until suppertime, and Mrs. Green isn’t coming out from the village until five o’clock. Both of them will think Reddy is with us, and so they won’t even look for him. Something awful may have happened to him. I’ve got to find him!"
    She and Honey tramped through the woods that ran between the Wheeler estate and the burned-down Mansion, calling and whistling until noon. After lunch Trixie gave one last, discouraged shout, and this time there was an answering bark Reddy, minus his collar, his silky auburn coat matted with burrs, came bounding up from the hollow to the Wheeler driveway, where the trailer was parked.
    "Oh, Reddy," Trixie scolded him affectionately. "You’ve lost your collar again. You’re just about the worst nuisance in the world!"
    Regan reached down to pat the setter s head and said, "He’s awfully hot and sweaty, Trixie. I think he must have got his collar caught in something and only just worked his way free-,"' He straightened. "You can’t take him without his license and identification tag. He might get lost on this trip. Can you remember his license number?"
    Trixie told him what it was. "He’s lost his collar so many times I know it by heart"
    "Okay," Regan said. "Ill run