The Sasquatch Mystery

as if it were a gold mine.
    “An egg?” Hallie drawled. “What kind of clue to anything is that?” She tilted her chin to peer into branches over her head. “Probably fell out of a nest.”
    “It’s a hen’s egg,” Di insisted.
    Trixie stared down at the broken brown shell and the yellow yolk and sticky albumen oozing into the black earth. “You’re absolutely right, Di. That was one of ours.”
    Just then, the girls heard Honey’s voice coming from somewhere down the creek. “I found it!” she was shouting. “Come and see!”
    Hallie slapped her brow. “How many detectives are there around here, anyway?”
    “Gleeps, we need all the help we can get,” said Trixie as she led the way through cheat-grass, thimbleberry, ocean spray bushes, skunk cabbage, pussywillows, and ground-hugging plants.
    By the time the three girls reached Honey, they itched from contact with pollens, seeds, and dust.
    Honey, too, guarded a patch of earth. “I found a print of a bare foot,” she announced proudly.
    “How big is it?” Trixie asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
    “Nowhere near eighteen inches,” Honey said. “I can’t figure it out—I’m sure the boys stayed near their tents last night when they took baths.” After years of swimming with their brothers, Trixie and Honey were familiar with the approximate shape and size of their footprints. This was a wider print than any of the boys would have left.
    “Does it look like one of your brothers’ footprints?” Trixie asked Hallie.
    “Cap barefooted?” Hallie hooted. “That bird-brain probably wears his moccasins to bed. As for Knut, his foot is skinnier than a ruler.” Hallie looked again. “Nope, that print doesn’t belong to us Beldens. We all have long big toes.”
    “And there’s a long-toed Belden now,” said Honey.
    The voice of Knut was heard, calling the girls to hurry back to camp.
    “He must be ready to leave,” Hallie said. “Come on, let’s get at those huckleberries.” Trixie didn’t argue, although she halfway wanted to stay where she was. She had the oddest feeling that she and the other girls were being watched.
    The four girls saved time by removing their boots and splashing back up the creek to camp. While they hopped and hobbled across the campground to the table where Miss Trask, Brian, Mart, and Jim were laughing about something, Trixie burst out, “Honey, that’s how it was done—that thief waded the creek to get here! He must have had his boots stashed someplace. Now, I wonder why—”
    “Come on, you guys,” Knut urged, “or it’ll be midnight before we get there.”
    “Gathering our sustenance one berry at a time sounds strenuous enough,” said Mart, “but executing it in nocturnal obscurity is completely unwarranted.”
    “Come on, then,” urged Hallie.
    Miss Trask fanned her warm face. “Count me out, please. Somebody should stay here. Then in case Cap comes back, he won’t find a deserted camp.”
    “Good thinking,” said Knut. “But you shouldn’t stay alone.”
    “I’ll stay with Miss Trask,” Di offered. “We can get dinner started, so it’ll be ready when you get back.”
    Trixie frowned slightly. Somehow she felt safer when Cap, the young mountain man, was in charge. She asked Hallie, “Will Cap be back pretty soon?”
    Hallie grinned. “He sure will if these kids get a head start on dinner,” she said, with a farewell wave to Miss Trask and Di.
    By the time Hallie, Trixie, Tim, Brian, Mart, and Honey reached the truck by the side of the road, Knut had opened both doors of the cab and was walking around the truck.
    “Something wrong?” Brian called.
    “Not really. I can’t figure out why the cab smells skunky, when out here in the open, there’s no trace of skunk odor.”
    “Thanks for warning us,” said Hallie. “We’ll ride in the rear.” She was quickly followed by everybody except Trixie, who hesitated when she saw her cousin adjust his thick glasses and slam the cab doors.
    “I’ll ride with Knut,” she decided.
    Knut looked pleased when she climbed up beside him. “Sorry about the odor, Trix.”
    The distance to the pass was not long, but the higher they climbed, the warmer the temperature and the skunkier the odor in the truck cab grew.
    “I can’t stand it much longer!” exclaimed Trixie. “Knut, did you look for a skunk under the seat?”
    “See for yourself,” Knut said. “I’ve got my hands full of steering wheel.”
    Trixie bent low and