The Red Trailer Mystery

covered his face with his hands and burst into a loud wail that went on and on.
    "Honey!" Trixie gasped above the scream. "He’ll smother! That Al is a terrible person. We’ve got to do something to stop him."
    "Sh, sh," Honey cautioned. "As soon as Al leaves, we’ll open the bin and then go for the troopers. I can’t imagine why Jim didn’t tell them to be here waiting for those thieves when they came back for the jack."
    "I can," Trixie whispered back. "Jim couldn’t go to the police station without being asked a lot of embarrassing questions about who he was and where he lived. The only thing he could do to stop those men was to fix that tire so the van would get stuck while it was still hitched to the stolen trailer."
    "I know," Honey argued. "But he could have telephoned."
    "How could he?" Trixie demanded. "There aren’t any phones in the woods. You know as well as I do now, Honey, Jim’s hiding somewhere close by. He knew they planned to steal a trailer which was due to arrive at Autoville around noon. He had to time everything perfectly, so he stole the jack and then waited until he saw Jeff coming across the fields from Autoville—the same way we came down here. Then he slipped into the barn and loosened the tire valve." Honey frowned. "He took an awful chance. If those men hadn’t got to accusing each other, they might have jacked up the van, changed the tire, and got back here safely. As a matter of fact, in all this rain, HI bet the troopers haven’t discovered that stolen trailer yet. It’s not like Jim to risk letting those men—" She stopped as Jeff, right in the middle of a shriek, tripped Al.
    In a minute both men were sprawling on the barn floor, and clouds of dust floated up to the loft as they straggled and fought. They made so much noise thrashing about and cursing hoarsely that Trixie and Honey felt perfectly safe in creeping to the edge of the loft to get a better view of the battle. At last there could be no doubt that Al, the stronger of the two, was going to win. While the girls watched, fascinated, almost sorry for Jeff, he suddenly went limp with exhaustion.
    In another moment Al was securely trussing him up with rope, muttering all the while, "This will hold you, my fine jailbird! I never had any intention of giving you a share of the loot. But now it’s yours, all yours." He ripped a strip from a burlap bag and crammed it into the unconscious Jeff's mouth.
    The clouds of dust created by the straggle made the air in the loft almost unbearable. "If I can’t cough or clear my throat soon," Trixie thought in an agony of suspense, "I’ll choke to death."
    And then Honey sneezed. Frozen with fright to the edge of the loft, the girls stared downward as Al’s bushy-haired head fell back, and his foxlike face turned up to meet their terrified gaze.

A Dire Threat • 13

    IF IT HADN’T been such a tense moment, Trixie knew she would have burst into hysterical laughter, for the expression on Al’s face proved that he was as startled as though Honey’s suppressed sneeze had been an atomic explosion. For one long minute he stared up at them, mouth gaping, and then a crafty look crept into his narrow eyes.
    "So it’s the rich little girls in the silver trailer," he said, quietly moving toward the rickety ladder. "Snooping again, eh? Well, well, well have to correct that bad habit. Nice young ladies don’t snoop. I could use some ransom money to pay for my expensive trip." He placed one heavy foot on die first rung. "That governess of yours won’t argue when I tell her to leave a fat roll of unmarked bills under a stone at the Autoville entrance tonight. She won’t notify the police, either." He reached up a grimy hand and touched one of Honey’s shoulder-length curls. "Not when I send her a lock of your pretty hair with the note, eh?" Honey shrank back as though she had been slapped, and Trixie thought wildly, "This is all my fault! I should never have exposed Honey to the danger of kidnapping. I should have come here alone. He wouldn’t bother me."
    Out of the corner of one eye, she saw that Honey was sick with terror, on the verge of fainting. All her life she had grown up with the fear of being kidnapped, and now it was happening. The sight of Honey’s white, stricken face did something to Trixie. She sat up abruptly and, dangling her legs over the edge of the loft as though she were not the least bit frightened, said coolly, "If I were you, Mister Al, I’d get on that